Point
Scholastic Inc.
June
2003
113p pb
ISBN: 978-0439528313
fp October 2000
Learning To Swim: a memoir
Ann Turner
from the book...
...I am too small
to say no
only my body is so
slow it's waiting
for someone to
notice
I am going away.
Unfolding in a series of exquisite narrative poems, Learning To Swim is a haunting true story about a tragic summer in a young girl's life. With startling power, it juxtaposes the beautiful summer Annie is supposed to have - picking blueberries with her brothers, learning to swim with her father - with the terrible secret she is forced to harbor.
Ann Turner's luminous memoir gently sheds light on the dark realities of abuse. In so doing, she extends a buoy to anyone who has navigated the choppy waters of childhood and adolescence, searching for a way to stay afloat.
If you have read this verse novel and would like to share your opinion of it with other readers please send your review or comments to YARR-A
The book Learning
to Swim is an easy, but touching read. It is an emotional book to
the author
and is close to her heart. It was confusing as to how old the main
character was
at the time that she was abused and this makes it a little bit hard to
picture
her. In the book she was cutting meat at one stage so I’d have to
assume that
she was around 10-ish, although the girl on the front of the book
representing
her looks around 7 or 8 years old. The boy Kevin was probably older
than her but
you do not get much of a description of him so it’s hard put together
his age.
For him to have such control over her he must’ve been an older age but
he was
described as one of “the kids from down the street” so I’m
assuming
he is still quite young as well.
I think that
the swimming related to the problems that she had faced with Kevin.
When Kevin
was abusing her she was finding it very difficult to learn how to swim
and
became scared of the water and what might be in it. But as soon as the
abuse
from Kevin had been ceased she let things go and conquered her fears.
Though
this is a true story, things somehow relate to each other throughout
the novel
and tend to support each other and work out a happy ending for most of
the
bad/tough situations faced.
Kim, Year 10, Canberra, Australia