What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
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Step on a Crack
SOLVED: Children's/YA
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SOLVED: 70's/80's YA: Girl has strange palm scars, weird aunt/mom relationship, strange memories of past [s]
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Ah yes, here it is. 80's-early 90's YA teenage girl regains memory of aunt being her mom, has scars on palms of both handsStep on a crack, by Mary Anderson.
Sarah damages her hand on iron fencing, because her birth mother used a fenced in grave as a playpen. Sarah's recurring dream is of killing her mom. After every dream, she's compelled to shoplift. A brainy school friend helps her figure out why she has the dream.
It's strange how closely related timewise these queries were, as if something's triggering memories.
The plot:
The girl was a teen, living with her mother, and had a very close relationship with her her aunt, an artist. I think there was some strain about her wanting to live with her permissive aunt, but her mother not letting her. Further, the girl has scars on her palms and had been having weird dreams (I think) about being trapped/abandoned.
Ultimately, the girl learns that (view spoiler)[the woman she thought was her aunt actually her mother--her mom had not been a good parent and had left her daughter to be raised by her sister (who the girl believed was her mom). The memories/dreams she was having was of her mom painting in a cemetery when she was very young. She brought her mother a bug of some sort, and fell and ruined her mother's painting. Furious, mom picked up the girl and plunked her in a fenced gravesite and went away and left her there. The girl's scars came from the pikes on the fence as she tried to get out. The mom's sister took in the girl to protect and raise her. (hide spoiler)]
I wish I could remember this book. I remember being completely riveted by it.