If you are a Beaumont - by blood mind you - you know that after you turn thirteen it is certain that you will develop a magical ability, a "savvy." No one knows what their savvy will be, so the waiting process is rather nerve wracking, as I am sure you can appreciate. Sometimes a savvy is a wonderful thing. One Beaumont's savvy is the gift of perfection; she is always perfect in her looks and behavior. Then there are the savvys that are prone to creating disasters; Fish Beaumont can control the weather. If he does not keep his emotions in check tornadoes and hurricanes appear and wreck havoc.
The marvelous New York Times bestselling author Ingrid Law is the person who tells the stories of the Beaumonts and their savvys. To date she has written three books about this remarkable family, Savvy, Scumble, and Switch; Savvy won the Newbery Honor award in 2009.
Today I bring you a review of the third book in the series. The book is available in print, as an ebook, and as an audiobook. As with all the books that I've written about so far this year, these three titles will appeal to both young readers and adults.
Fiction
For ages 9 and up
Penguin, 2015, 978-0-8037-3862-1
Gypsy Beaumont is so eager to turn thirteen. In her family, turning thirteen is a landmark birthday, but not because it is the first of the teen years. When Beaumonts turn thirteen they get their savvy and they are always eager to see what form their savvy will take. A savvy is a magical ability, and no one can tell in advance what it will be. Gypsy’s big brother Sampson can become invisible, and he can become incredible strong. He can even pass this latter ability on to others in a crisis. Her mother’s savvy is that she is always perfect in her appearance, and every other aspect of her life. She is never frazzled or out of sorts, she never drops, breaks, or burns things. Gypsy’s Grandpa Bomba, could “move and stretch” landmasses to make them bigger or smaller.
Now it is Gypsy’s turn, and she has high hopes that her savvy will be something fabulous. She is therefore rather disappointed when it turns out that Gypsy’s gift is that she is able to see into the past or the future. The family discovers that her savvy is linked to her poor eyesight. On the very day Gypsy gets a pair of glasses her savvy “visions” stay where they belong. As long as she wears her glasses she is vision free, and so this is what she does; she keeps her head down and plays it safe.
Three months after she gets her savvy, Gypsy has a vision while they are in church. She sees an old woman standing on a tower. The woman is wearing a bizarre outfit and it is a cold, snowy night. The old lady falls from the tower, surely to her death. Gypsy is sure that the old lady is herself in the future, and she decides that she will do everything that she can to prevent her premonition from coming true.
When they get home from church, Gypsy’s father, Poppa, tells his children that his mother, Grandma Pat, is going to have to come to live with them. One of Grandma’s neighbors called and told Poppa that Grandma is becoming forgetful and disorientated, and she cannot live alone any longer. No one is happy to hear this news because Grandma Pat is, to put it simply, not a very nice person. She loves her son, and thinks he made a big mistake when he married Momma. She has never shown much interest in Gypsy and her siblings.
On hearing this news Tucker, Gypsy’s little brother, proceeds to have a tantrum, which then turns into something else altogether. Tucker starts to get bigger and bigger and bigger. And then Samson bursts into flames. They manage to get the two boys outside where Sampson put himself out in a bank of snow, but Tucker is still in a rage and he is enormous. Desperate for the chaos to cease, Gypsy yells “Stop, stop, stop, stop, STOP!” and everything stops. Literally. Gypsy has frozen time.
It takes a while, but Gypsy finally figures out how to unstick time. Tucker is given gummies and he shrinks back to his normal little boy size, and the family set about trying to figure out what is going on. They decide that Momma, Sampson, and Gypsy are experiencing a savvy switch. Instead of being perfect Momma is very imperfect; instead of being invisible Sampson gets hot and can light himself on fire; and instead of being able to see into the past and the future, Gypsy can now stop time. On top of this Tucker has got his savvy a lot sooner that is the norm Apparently he can make himself big. Really big.
Feeling very out of sorts and pretty miserable, the Beaumonts set off for Colorado a few days later to pick up Grandma Pat. Poppa has to stay home to get the house repaired because Tucker did a lot of damage when he got his savvy. When they finally get to their destination they can see very clearly that the neighbor was right, Grandma Pat certainly cannot live alone. She drifts between her memories of the past and the present and wanders off without any warning. This situation is bad enough, but what makes things even worse is that Gypsy comes to realize that the old woman on the tower in her vision was Grandma Pat and not herself. Somehow Gypsy has to make sure that Grandma Pat does not end up on that tower on a cold, snowy, wintery night.
This remarkable companion to Savvy and Scumble takes readers on a whirlwind adventure that is full of surprises. As Gypsy, Sampson, and Tucker race to save Grandma Pat from herself, they collect a colorful collection of allies along the way. In addition Gypsy learns some interesting things about her grandmother that give her cause to think about things in a new way. Gypsy had convinced herself that the solution to her problems was to live under the radar and to suppress her natural “sparkle” and ebullience. Could it be that this strategy is not the answer after all?
About Ingrid Law:
Before Ingrid Law wrote her Newbery Honor book Savvyand its companion books Scumble and Switch, she had many different jobs and interests, including: issuing marriage licenses, being a mom, selling shoes, working in a bookstore, designing and sewing costumes, puppets, and dolls, and creating art quilts she displayed and sold in galleries. Ingrid was born in northern New York but moved to Colorado when she was 6 years old, where she grew up and lived for many years before moving to Portland, Oregon, for five wonderful, rainy years. Back in Colorado now to look after her aging parents, Ingrid spends her free time reading, writing, watching movies, and contemplating small and lovely things in the garden behind her house—a house just big enough for her and her two dogs, George and Eliot. Ingrid has a new children's fantasy book in the works, but cannot say yet when it will be finished.
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