Cissy Funk

By Kim Taylor Blakemore

Book Overview

WINNER of the WILLA Literary Award for Best Young Adult Fiction

"admirably evokes the dusty, gritty aura of Depression-era Colorado" - Publisher's Weekly
"With subtlety and insight, Taylor introduces readers to complexities and truths about love and family" - American Library Association
"Taylor nails small-town agrarian Dust Bowl life in the '30s." - School Library Journal

On the Depression era Colorado plains, there's nothing but dust and empty farms. It's an unforgiving background to the violence in Cissy Funk's life. She's alone on a scrap of a farm with her mother and brother, and her mother hasn't recovered from the death of Cissy's baby sister. She's turned cold, and mean, and she's turned against Cissy, singling her out, leaving bruises and a breaking heart.

When Cissy's Aunt Vera turns up, with her warm hugs and pretty clothes, it looks like there just might be hope on the horizon after all. Vera is determined to make sure Cissy is safe and loved, despite her sister in law, despite the hard times, despite her own fears. But these hard times are more than failed crops and no work. There's a trouble in Cissy's family that no one is willing to tell her about, and it's threatening to bring her fragile happiness crashing down.

When there's nothing but dirt, dust, and the faintest glimpse of delight, Cissy has to find the strength to grab onto what she can. Her family might not be what she thought it was, but maybe it can be exactly what she needs.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0990584321
• ISBN13: 9780990584322
• Release Date: April 2015
• Publisher: Kingfisher Press
• Length: 190 Pages
• Weight: 0.49 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A storyline that remains captivating to the end.

Narcissus Louise Funk, better known as ?Cissy?, is a young teen scared to death of her mother. I'm not exaggerrating, she is really frightened and she has reason. Living with her brother Jonas and their mother in Depression-era Colorado, Cissy spends her days doing farm chores and attempting to please thier mother. Everything Cissy does, she does in an effort to forestall the rages that whirl around in her mother?s head, not unlike the sudden dust storms her mother is certain will come if Cissy and Jonas leave her by herself. Cissy desperately misses her father. He left the family immediately after the burial of Violet, Cissy?s and Jonas? baby sister. Before Violet dies, or at least in Cissy's memory, her mother was warm and caring and and her father was attentive. In short, the Funks were an intact, functioning and "normal" family. But now everything is different. Cissy?s mother idealizes her husband; she obsessively believes he will return. Jonas knows better, though he indulges his mother. He also is gentle with Cissy. But as time goes by, Frank, Cissy?s father, never does arrive. However, his sister ,Vera, does. Aunt Vera comes for a visit and begins to make a real difference in the household: Cissy now has someone she hopes will look out for her. At first, Cissy?s mother is not as violent while Vera is around. Soon that changes, and it becomes obvious that Cissy?s mother has nothing but contempt for her sister-in-law Vera. After witnessing a particularly brutal act, Vera steals Cissy away from the house and attempts to alleviate the pain and suffering that have marred her young life up to this point. Things never go as expected and people are never quite who we think they are. This book takes many circuitous routes before we know whether there will be stability and happiness in Cissy?slife. Taylor tackles very adult themes and presents them to the young reader with respect and sensitivity, never in any way condescending. This is no fairy tale and there are no magical, happy, improbable endings here, but rather what you might expect from real life: tough choices, hurt and disappointment and realistic characters with the strength and ability to redeem their lives, taking responsibility for themselves and for others, as well. A wonderful effort by a first-time novelist with meticulous detail of the Depression era and a storyline that remains captivating to the end. --- Reviewed by Michelle Andrews

A great book full of many emotions!

A great book about a thirteen year old named Cissy who lives with her mother Ma and her brother Jonas in the dirty thirties. This book has lots of drama. If you can't take a sad story this is not the book for you, If you can or you like grape NEHI's you will enjoy this fast read.

An inspiring novel about a girl during the Great Depression.

Thirteen-year-old Cissy Funk longs for a better life than the one she leads, with an abusive mother in Depression-era Colorado. But most of all, she longs to be free: free of the poverty and bleakness of the Dust Bowl and free of her mother. When her Aunt Vera takes Cissy away to live with her in Denver, she believes she has found her escape, and that she will finally see her absent father again. But her father is too busy with his job for Cissy to live with him, and Aunt Vera's life seems to be made up of a tangled web of secrets and lies. And Cissy discovers that while Aunt Vera may seem to be wealthy and glamorous, the life she leads is as dirt-poor as the one Cissy thought she had left behind for good. And Aunt Vera's biggest secret is the worst one of all - and it will tear Cissy's life apart in ways her mother's violence never could. This was an inspiring novel about a determined, hopeful girl struggling to rise above sorrow and poverty.