Little Miss Strange

by Joanna Rose

A captivating portrait of the free-love, hippie world of Denver in the 1970s, brought to life in the pitch-perfect voice of a girl who scams and scavenges her way through childhood, carving her own identity and creating her own family along the way.In her acclaimed debut novel, Joanna Rose brilliantly evokes a tumultuous era in our history and introduces an unforgettable heroine whose coming-of-age is at once delightfully idiosyncratic and touchingly universal.

"This is a wondrous, uncanny book, like few others you will have read....A story so assured and accomplished that its seems the work of a seasoned novelist at the peak of her talent". -- Floyd Skloot, Portland Oregonian

"Sarajean's account of her life and experiences are bound to embed themselves thoroughly in a reader's memory.' -- Candace Horgan, The Denver Post

"Little Miss Strange is a novel boldly reminding us that peace, love, and happiness weren't the only things to come out of the sixties and seventies...a gloriously descriptive novel, packed with colorful details reminiscent of the dream, the era of free-love left behind". -- Molly MacDermot, Redbook

"The ending alone may be as perfect as any novel written this year. Four stars". -- Barbara Holliday, Detroit News/Free Press

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 4, 1997

Reviews

[Sian Lile-Pastore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this so much and was pretty sad when it ended. I don't even know why I adored it so... it's quite slow paced and not much happens (am happy with that), but it really resonated with me and the world Joanna Rose created just seemed so incredibly real - I particularly liked her descriptions of the homes, interiors and shops. I also liked the way that it was told from the eyes of the child, and told in such a way that the reader became aware of things that the child narrator didn't know (and not in any klunky way, just a believable way in the way that it is with kids). I loved sarajean the main character and I loved Jimmy Henry too who was quiet and struggling and somehow admirable at the same time.

i am going to be reading this again pretty soon.

[Yuckamashe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could cry right now! I read this book a long time ago and could not remember the title or author! I searched all over and posted it and got no response. I just found someone else who was searching for the same book and he remembered the title! I loved this book so much! I think about it all the time. I love the little girl, the era, the characters. She was like a hippie version of Scout from Mockingbird. The super flawed father figure was heartbreaking.

[Elizabeth Gibbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found this book when I was 12 on a shelf in an old diner off a rarely driven highway in the mountains. They told me $2. I bought it because of the tie dye cover. I have read this book every year since then and I always find something new. It speaks to me in ways I can't explain. Just a wonderful story.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stumbled across this book completely by accident. I was looking online for books about hippies (for an upcoming Writer's Craft school project), and I came across Little Miss Strange. I actually had to order it online because no nearby bookstore had it. It was a pain to find, especially on a time limit, but it was one of the only ones that I thought would work for me.

I can safely say that finding this book was one of the best things to ever happen to me. I don't quite know why it hit me like it did, but the book's rawness, honesty, and language jumped out at me from beginning to end. To date this is probably my favourite book. I plan on reading it many times during my life.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember noticing the ultra cool cover for this book as I walked past it at the famous Square Books in Oxford, MS, years ago. I knew I had to have it as soon as I read the back cover. If you've ever felt cheated because you missed out on the early seventies, or if you’re fascinated by the hippy lifestyle, here's your chance to experience it for yourself. Although the novel’s main character Sarajean is too young to directly know the sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll of the era, she sees the effects of excess in her surroundings. Living with a man who is supposedly her father and desperately searching for a mother figure, Sarajean glides through her world with conflicting thoughts and feelings. You'll follow her on her journey of discovery and revel in her stories of adventure, loss, and acceptance. Join Sarajean as she attends the freedom school, gets into trouble with her wild best friend, and has her first crush on a neighborhood boy. This book is filled with charming vignettes as well as heartbreaking scenes where Sarajean must come to terms with her family situation. I know it’s such a cliché thing to admit, but I was really sad to see this story end. It’s one of the only novels I’ve ever taken the time to read twice, and I’ll probably read it again one of these days.

[Liz Minette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my gosh - great writing, great story - would make a great movie. I have passed this book along to family & they to their friends & we all say the same thing, how much this book & the main character, Sarajean Henry, her story, stayed with us afterwards. All the characters are memorable and this book has prompted much discussion among same family & friends

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seeing the '70s through Sarajean's child eyes was very interesting. I read this before I was even old enough to understand most of the references so I pick it up every few years and realize something new each time. Great read.

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this book-- didn't want it to end.

[Anidawehi]

I could identify with this book simply because it was set in the same hippie era that I grew up in, as well as the fact that I lived very much the way the authors' subject was portrayed to have grown up.

Was a time when parenting values seemed to be less than important and a lot of us had to 'grow up' on our own.

But...it was also refreshing to be reminded that not all of us fell through the cracks of the '70's

A simply amazing book

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very "one of a kind" and is a great respite from books with heavy, dark subjects. The protagonist, Sarahjean Henry, is a kindergartener as the book begins in 1969 and follows her and her family/community for 8 years. For me, being a kindergartener in 1971, I recall being aware of "the hippie house" by my childhood home, but lived a very traditional life -- Sarahjean's world IS "the hippie house" and her story is heartwarming and a beautiful example of how we all can have families of choice, not only the families we are born into/families of chance.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joanna Rose is wonderful. When I worked at a middle school in Tigard she came to a Community of Writer's event and worked with 6th graders for several weeks on poetry writing. I had the opportunity to attend the class and participate with Ms. Flores and her students. What an honor! I still remember the writing prompts and have them in a journal I still refer to. Ms. Rose is a beautiful writer.

[Adria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a child of the 70s, born in 1969 to young, naive, and thoroughly unqualified parents, I totally related to Sarajean and saw myself in her world of no structure or boundaries, where hippie kids are left to fend for themselves. Written by the friend of a friend and set in Denver, not far from where I once lived.

[Julene · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Dangerous Writer Joanna Rose writes with stunning detail and subtext. Open to any page and you will find beautiful descriptive prose. This book follows a girl without a mother who lives with a man who is a typical hippie. In Portland, where the author lives, they were using the book in a school and a group tried to ban it. This book rocks and is a slow and enjoyable read.

[Darla Frey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story of a love child and her own account of her life. Truly amazing.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book and reading it again for the third time. It depicts a very creative relaxed time were things were simpler and rampant materialism didn't exist. It is one of my treasure books.

[Ronnie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was ok but the ending was very unsatisfying!!!

[Andrea Badgley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those quiet, graceful books in which the author manages to expose the beauty in simple, ordinary, everyday life. Ironically, as this is a story of a child of love children, set in Denver, CO in the 1960s and 70s, the book is down to earth even as it tells the story of Sarajean, daughter of a heroin junkie mother who drifted away to be free, and living with a man, Jimmy Henry, who may or may not be her father. Seen through the eyes of a young girl who knows no other kind of life, this strange world of hippies and free love and marijuana and heroin is absolutely normal, and though as adults we can read between the lines and know what is happening, Sarajean does not. She only knows what makes her feel comfortable and what makes her feel uncomfortable.

What I loved most about this coming of age story is that despite an unmoored life, Sarajean is centered. Despite all of the unknowns in her life - who and where is her mother? is Jimmy Henry her father? What is he doing with those men in the kitchen, with needles and veins? - Sarajean does not succumb to peer pressure and go wild with self-destructive I-don't-know-who-I-am behavior. She goes with her gut instead, seeking the comfort of a Hispanic mother and son who own a thrift store, Someone's Beloved Threads. She befriends them, loves them, helps them in their store, and they love her back. When her best friend gets dangerous with strangers, Sarajean politely declines, not out of Pollyanna goodie-goodieness but because that's just not what she's into. She's a quiet hero to me. I love her.

[Zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the fictionalized autobiography of a woman who grew up in the early '70s Denver hippie scene in a house RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE SAFEWAY I GO TO EVERY COUPLE OF DAYS (which makes it especially weird in a personal way). Every time I go to that Safeway now, I look at the houses across the street and wonder which one the book's narrator, Sarajean Henry, or Blumenthal, grew up in. Here's a story--I was waiting for the bus in Cherry Creek yesterday, and the glazed old man who's sometimes the greeter at Safeway seemed to wave at me broadly after stepping off his bus when it pulled up--I guess he recognized me as a Safeway customer, so it was part of his job to wave at me. "How's it goin?" I called when he walked past. He tightened his jaw. The next day I saw the sme guy at Safeway when I was on my way out with the groceries. I had paid for everything and was pushing the cart towards him to put it away. I wasn't sure if he'd offer to put it up for me, as had happened in the past. I didn't want him to. "I see you're going green," he said, lifting an arm and pointing at the bag I use to carry groceries, his legs juking back and forth smoothly in that way of his. "That's it!" I told him cheerfully, surprising him enough with my unusually chipper demeanor that I was able to make it past him with the cart and park it into its place at the back of a row of more carts unmolested before walking out into the parkinglot. Anyway, this book is hot shit.

[Emily Yelencich · Rating 4 out of 5]

A coming of age story in Denver. A pretty interesting story from the first person. Child's POV made it a more captivating story than it would have been otherwise. Details were slightly opaque giving it the quality of mystery at times as Sarajean navigates her non-traditional life. I appreciated the independence of Sarajean and the moral and ethical compass that seemed inherent in her character. I'm not sure if the foil of "Elle" is exactly realistic, it's pretty binary. I guess in real childhood though there is often a rule follower and a boundary pusher that go through figuring out life together.

While the ending is abrupt it definitely leaves the reader with the sense that Sarajean is going to be OK. The recurring phrase throughout the book "Sarajean never gets in trouble" gave the reader the sense that Sarajean has a good head on her shoulders and knows how/when to push boundaries, but was a little pat. Likely Sarajean was about to get in trouble at the end of the book. And for skipping school. And for smoking pot...but she is untouchable for the service of the "story".

[Hilda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, a bit of a story here: i bought this book when i was 12--the very first time i went into a barnes and nobles. not a book for a 12 year old. it sat on my shelf, with its colorful tie-dye cover for quite a few years. i finally read it in 10th grade, at 16...good thing too, because only then was i emotionally prepared for this novel.

the novel is first-person narrative and tells the story of a young girl from the time she was 5 to her teens in the late 1960s and 1970s and all that entails while living with a drug-addicted hippie father. i can't say anything more, you should just read it!

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This coming-of-age story was really important to me as a teenager who really, desperately wanted to embrace the sort of freewheeling lifestyle embodied by the main character and the loose circle of adults that surrounded her. As is the case with many of those Very Important Things from adolescence, it felt cliched when I reread it at 24.

Other reviewers have commented on the clarity of the child narrator's observations - it's been 12-13 years since I first read Little Miss Strange, but I have clear memories of specific images, settings, and scenes, which is why Little Miss Strange is getting four stars instead of three. Three stars for the story, four stars for my experience of it.

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like to copy quotes from the books I read that stand out to me as what the book means.

"Little Miss Strange came out of the darkness...
Danced across my head and stood under the light"
Jimi Hendrix

[Renea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this book so many times. I just finished it again!

[Ronan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, the people who review this book (and I'm including the 'critically acclaimed' folks) act like this was a whimsical, wholesome, hippie misadventure where not that much happens but, like, in a peaceful way.

For those of us who had childhoods like the main character Sarajean or her best friend Elle/Lalena, it's more disturbing and boring.

Also, the editing is F-ing terrible. I'm usually very forgiving, but my God. There are complete words missing from sentences. Was this even read over more than once?

The plot circles around Sarajean, a latchkey kid from the 70s who is sorta raised by a bunch of hippies, none of whom are her real parents. The "main plot" is about Sarajean not knowing her mom, but youd forget all about that because most of the story is just her wandering around on her own doing nothing. This gets old about 100 pages from the end, which manages to both peter out and come on abruptly.

The real crime though is that the secondary MC is being molested at age 10 and while the author lightly touches on that, nothing ever really happens there. The information is dropped in suddenly and never explored.

Readers, author, I fail to see how a 10 year old being molested by her father is anything close to wholesome, whimsical, or fun, and that's not even the end of the disturbing family-oriented sexual content that also is delivered to the reader and then never mentioned again.

Anyone who has lived through child abuse, read w extreme caution.

[Mike Little · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted very much to like this, being a former (maybe still?) hippie myself. I was older than Miss Strange during those years but did enjoy some of her take on the culture and her youthful, easy adaptation to it. Her road wasn’t easy. There was only one prominent male character, and a second man who did play an important part. I won’t say why I couldn’t relate to the main male, but I could not. The second one was a sweet and loving man every day, and I did know some gentle souls similar to him.
But the central woman was relatable, and I knew many similar. She had a kind heart, worked at being “free” and a bit space-headed, though she was actually well grounded. I liked her quite a lot.
Where the book lost me was in its efforts to be artsy and obscure, it’s confounding ending, and some of the pointless interactions along the way. Writing is hard and writing well is harder. The author tried hard.
But it is a nice glimpse into that world and that time. People really did just disappear and not usually in bad ways. A notion would come to them and they would follow it. I did that more than once though I did let friends and family know where I planned to land. People were generally very accepting of the oddities of others, the genuine natural oddities and the cultivated oddities meant to cause people to see them as weird in good ways.

[Kitty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually don't like books where nothing much happens, but I really enjoyed this one. It tells the story of Sarajean, who was growing up in the hippie world of Denver in the 1970s, with Billy Henry, who may or may not have been her real father. Yeah, she smoked pot when she was probably too young, and came and went as she pleased. But she had a big heart, a conscience, and a good head on her shoulders. Her observations and descriptions of the world around her are keen, and the picture she paints is colorful, if not exactly "normal" to most of us. This book came out in 1997, and I'm sure it's out of print, but it's worth seeking out.

[Ann (Inky Labyrinth) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a magical little book that seems to find its reader on its own, always at the right time. If you are lucky enough to come across a copy in a thrift store, you should buy it.

I think if you love White Oleander or All the Ugly and Wonderful Things, you will most definitely vibe with Little Miss Strange. Far out.

[Alayna Vasilakis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not entirely sure why I love this book so much, but I do. This is my second re-read of this book and I didn’t remember a lot that happens so it was nice to read it again. Sarajean is such a compelling character and the book being written entirely from her POV makes it so good. I love how it follows her through the years and how her understanding of the world around her grows and she becomes more aware of why things are the way they are. If you’re into novels, I would give this book a shot. I love it and I will probably continue to read-read every so often as I have a hardback copy.

[Annie Carrott Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mesmerizing stream of consciousness through the eyes of a 70’s tween whose Mom disappeared, a John Doe dad and a Vietnam Vet who takes her under his wing. A rough tale of those who experienced the ugly parts of life way too early. Very descriptive and the characters were wonderful and made it all work.