What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
This topic is about
A Gift of Magic
SOLVED: Children's/YA
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SOLVED. YA novel, probably written and set in 1970's, about 2 teenaged sisters. The younger is psychic and the older studies ballet but hurts her leg. The younger sees a vision of a girl getting caught by the tide and drowning. [s]
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Loos Duncan's A Gift of Magic. Great book.
Yes, that's it! Thank you so much!! I thought I'd NEVER be able to find this book again!
MC is psychic.
MC sees a psychic vision of her younger sister, or maybe a younger neighbor kid, getting caught by the tide and drowning. Toward the end of the book she races to the shore and sees this happening, but she is in time to get someone to rescue the child.
I don’t know what part of the U.S. the book was set in, except that it was a town on the shore of the Atlantic, Pacific or Gulf of Mexico. The family lived close enough to the shore so that it wasn’t difficult for the MC to get there fairly quickly.
MC has never told anyone she’s psychic.
MC and her older sister are both teenagers.
MC, or someone in the family, is good with making pottery and talks about the lost-wax method of pottery making.
Older sister studies ballet intensively. She breaks her leg or foot or something, and is worrying about the “Cecchetti exams” when they find her on the ground, having had a bad fall. The Cecchetti exams are ballet exams in a certain Italian style of ballet, which she will have to miss if she has to stay off her feet for a while. She is heartbroken about having to stop dancing for a while.
The family is having some kind of difficulty, maybe a divorce? Parental death? I can’t quite remember. The events in the book help the two daughters deal with the difficulty. The psychic girl learns to accept her gifts and use them to help people, and I don’t remember what happened to the ballet dancer daughter.
I read the book in the late 70’s or early 80’s. I think it was published in the 70’s, but it could have been in the late 60’s or early 80’s.
The book had a lovely line drawing of two girls with beautifully-drawn hair on the front cover. It may have been black and white or may have had some color to it. The girls pictured were the two sisters. I remember the artwork because it was done by an illustrator whose work I have also seen elsewhere – they seem to have been a fairly popular artist in the 1970’s.
I’m pretty sure the author was a woman, but couldn’t swear to it. The book, at least the one I read, was published in English in the U.S. (I don't know if any other editions were published.)
If anyone can find this book I’ll be eternally grateful! I remember it really spoke to me when I read it, and I’d like to read it again!