Pearl

Sally Murphy

This is a poignant story, told in verse, about a young girl overcoming grief and loss - and finding her own voice. Pearl's world is changing. Her beloved grandmother has got Alzheimer's and doesn't always recognize her, the kids at school have turned mean, her mother is distracted by looking after her grandmother and her teacher keeps trying to make her write poems that rhyme. When her grandmother dies, Pearl doesn't know how she will cope with her grief and that of her mother, but she finds a wonderful way to express herself in a poem - non-rhyming - at her grandmother's funeral, and earns the respect and affection of her teacher and classmates. By the end of the book, (written in non-rhyming verse), Pearl realizes that not all change is bad and that good can come from the worst situations.