Raymie Nightingale

Reviewed by: Jill O'Connor - North Yarmouth Academy, Yarmouth, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: December 14, 2016

Review

The story of Raymie Clarke whose father has run off with a dental hygienist and who thinks that she can bring him back by entering, and winning, the Little Miss Central Florida Tire competition. The story of Louisiana Elefante and Beverly Tapinski who have reasons of their own to want to win that contest. The story of what happens when these three girls end up in the backyard of Ms. Ida Nee's together learning how to twirl a baton in order to bring a talent to that contest and how this experience bonds them in friendship one hot June in 1975. This has been a difficult book to review because, despite all of the award talk and critical buzz, I did not connect with the characters. I felt that the authorial voice was too strong, manipulating my response and my experience. DiCamillo is now so very lauded for what she does that she takes a more active role in telling you what she wants you to feel instead of letting the reader get from the story whatever it is she/he gets. A quiet story only for your more dedicated readers though there is nothing extraordinarily complex about the language or plot. Most libraries feel that DiCamillo's books are collection necessities, and this is not a bad book, but it fell flat especially compared to so many other fantastic reads for this age group.

Overall Book Score: good