What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
This topic is about
The Glory Girl
SOLVED: Children's/YA
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SOLVED. Kid lit: Musical family whose bus crashes. [s]
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I think I remember the book but not the name or who it was by, sorry. I think the non-musician had an older sister who sang and a younger brother who played the drums. If I am thinking of the same book towards the end she meets her uncle who is the black sheep of the family (I think he might have just got released from prison). He tells her she isn’t worthless and to follow her own dreams.
Jenny, I think that's the same book. I remembered a male relative confidante. I thought maybe it was the grampa. Hopefully someone will remember the title!
Ayshe, I thought for sure this was it, but after reading a longer synopsis I'm not so sure.
It might help if you describe how it differs from your book.
That’s the book I remember. Thanks Ayshe
The bus accident didn't have anyone else involved. It was a mechanical issue. I don't remember an uncle who had been in jail.
Both of those details were in a longer summary I found of The Glory Girl.
Here's the summary I found: As the only Glory who can't sing--instead, she sells the Glory Gospel Singers' tapes and records after performances by the rest of the family--Anna has some reason to feel like a Cinderella. Lovely Angel with her golden hair is lead singer and clearly the family favorite; and younger twins Matthew and Joshua, hellions who compete for emergency-room stitches when not singing and playing the drums, get more than their share of attention. "You've had your last stitch, Joshua, you hear me?" says the father after Joshua is almost scalped in a daredevil bike accident. The mother is notable chiefly for her six-inch beehive hairdo, and the father, a cozy down-home Christian on the stage, is not to be tangled with. "When anybody saw Mr. Glory in a rage, they never doubted that people had evolved from animals." Such a rage is induced by the news that Mr. Glory's brother Newt is at large and in need of a home after serving seven years for bank robbery. (He had taken along a bowlegged partner who was easily recognizable despite the stocking masks.) Though she has never met him, and though she learns that, unlike herself, he can sing, Anna "had started to feel a kinship with Uncle Newt that surprised her. She couldn't explain it. She didn't feel that way about the members of her own family." Oddly, when the family goes to meet Newt's bus, he isn't on it; but later Angel and Anna spot him here and there, as if he's following the family. One night, unknown to their father, Uncle Newt is in the pizza restaurant where Mr. Glory puts down two "punks" (his words) who try to pick up Angel. The two boys, insulted, follow the Glory bus and bump it off the road, touching off a scene of cool, slow-motion terror that is described with even more stark clarity than was Joshua's earlier bike accident. Not surprisingly, Uncle Newt is there to carry out a heroic rescue of the whole unconscious or incapacitated flock. The shy Newt won't stay around to be thanked and welcomed into the family, but Anna is left with memories of a few brief encounters; his words, "You're the best of the bunch," echo in her mind. Again Byars gives us a gratifying and entertaining picture of a solid, solitary kid coming into her own through the odd interactions of an unglamorous, snappily projected family.
Hmm, if you're certain "The Glory Girl" isn't the book, then the thread has to be moved to Unsolved.
What's the Name of That Book???
Books mentioned in this topic
The Glory Girl (other topics)Authors mentioned in this topic
Betsy Byars (other topics)Michael Avallone (other topics)
On a stormy night, their bus crashes when the wheels went one way when the steering wheel tried to go the other. The girls has to go get help.
Also, I think it was her grampa driving the bus.
I was between 9 and 12 when I read it, so it would have been a kid's book.
Thanks for any help.