Grass Angel

by Julie Schumacher

Frances Cressen has the perfect summer planned. She’s going to Camp Whitman with her best friend, Agnes. But Frances’s mother has something else in mind for the family: Mountain Ash, a spiritual retreat in the middle of nowhere. Frances can’t think of anything worse than Bible class and baby-sitting for eight long weeks—that is, until her mother drives away with her younger brother, Everett, and leaves Frances behind.

Now a stranger is renting Frances’s house while she’s stuck living out by the graveyard with her odd aunt Blue. And Camp Whitman is a disaster. The boys in Frances’s group say that weird things are happening at Mountain Ash, and Frances begins to worry and to wonder. Everett doesn’t sound like himself anymore, and her mother never talks about coming home. Are they happier without Frances?

Genres: Young Adult

208 pages, Hardcover

First published March 9, 2004

About the author

JULIE SCHUMACHER grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, and graduated from Oberlin College and Cornell University, where she earned her MFA. Her first novel, The Body Is Water, was published by Soho Press in 1995 and was an ALA Notable Book of the Year and a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her 2014 novel, Dear Committee Members, won the Thurber Prize for American Humor; she is the first woman to have been so honored. She lives in St. Paul and is a faculty member in the Creative Writing Program and the Department of English at the University of Minnesota.

Reviews

[Itzel Camargo · Rating 2 out of 5]

A decent story the only interesting thing was the relationship between Frances and her brother Everett.

[Julia Starnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read

[eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really nice read with amazing character development. It’s hard to be a teen with so many emotions & pain, and the author does a great job describing the process!

[KINLEY SKRABIS · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was about a girl who lived in a small house. She was a very caring and kind person and she also loved to ride her bike and make grass angels in the grass.

[New Washington MHS · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never been away from my mom for more than two weeks, and I could not imagine what it would feel like to be away from my mother for longer than that. Novelist Julie Schumacher made me feel that pain when I read her amazing book Grass Angel. From busting garage windows and hitting kids in the head with rocks, Frances, the main character, had the worst summer ever. Grass Angel is a really attention grabbing book, it is quite amazing.
Frances Cressen was planning to have a marvelous summer. She was going to camp with her best friend Agnes, spend every afternoon at Agnes’ house, and getting ice cream after every swim. Frances’ mom, Anna, had very different plans for their summer. She wanted to go to Oregon to a religious camp, they would stay the whole summer. Frances fought a lot with her mom about staying in their hometown Whitman for the summer. Her mom did listen, for the most part. Anna took Frances to her Aunt Blue’s house while Anna and her son Everett went to Mountain Ash in Oregon. They planned to stay for the whole summer, but did that go as planned? Fast forward to the end, Everett went missing, did they ever find him? Frances busted out garage windows and Aunt Blue’s house now looked like a circus tent.
Of course I loved this book, it had so many uprising situations. The part that made it the best is when Frances hit a kid named Wyatt in the face with a rock and she got suspended from camp. Did Wyatt deserve it? Yes he did, what did he do though? This book is very honest, what I mean, is that Julie Schumacher put a lot of real feelings and situations that could happen in this book. In the end, you find out the true meaning of grass angels, what it means figuratively, not just literally.

Grass Angel has a lot of things to offer. You develop a new feeling towards your family because Julie Schumacher gives you the real insight of losing you immediate family for a while. Wisdom arises inside you when you finish this book because she teaches you that instead of answering all the questions, how about you ask them for once.
Grass Angels is definitely a book for all ages. It is fiction and was published in 2004. One thing I have learned from this book, is never take your family for granted, because one day they could be gone -- whether it be for a whole summer, or a lifetime. I have also learned, never do something stupid just because you’re mad at someone. Sometimes it does cause a lifetime of damage, physically and mentally. -- Hannah D.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frances has the perfect summer planned, full of lazy days and camp with her best friend Agnes. Then her mother decides to go to Oregon for a relgious retreat for the whole summer. Eight weeks of Bible class and unpaid babysitting. What could be worse? Frances finds out when her mother drives away with her younger brother Everett, leaving Frances behind with her weird Aunt Blue. Now she is lonely and angry and nothing is going right. And Everett has just run away from Oregon.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is about a preteen girl's adventures with her geeky aunt while her mom and kid brother run off to join a distant religious commune or cult. This is more in Schumaker's worst case scenario for kids, a rich yet underdeveloped vein in YA fiction, IMHO. I did not enjoy this as much as Black Box but I still want to read a lot more of her's.

[Zoey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this more or less in one sitting and loved it. Sweet, and Frances was very relatable.

[Barbara Signorelli]

I loved this book, it has a great meaning and such a great story for all to read and understand.