Snowdrops for Cousin Ruth

Award-winning poet Katz shifts to prose to spin a delicate story about love, grief and recovery from loss. After the death of Johanna's little brother, Johnny, she still hears his voice and feels his presence, but for everyone else in the family, he seems to have disappeared completely. Susie, Johnny's twin, has not uttered a word since his death, and the girls' parents avoid discussing him altogether (""Talking about him makes Momma and Susie feel sad,"" says Johanna's father). It takes energetic, elderly Cousin Ruth, who ""looks into people and... pulls out what is good,"" to bring the members of the fragmented family back together. A widow herself, she understands the pain of loss and offers both compassion and her own joie de vivre. With extraordinary sensitivity and poetic language (""My gigantic wish, the wish that shimmered like a soap bubble, was no different than the real bubbles I used to blow""), Katz deftly weaves a story of love and rejuvenation around a stone-faced, silent child, her frustrated sister and a zestful octagenarian. Her narrative, written from Johanna's perspective, presents various expressions of grief, then goes on to show how time eases the pain of loss. Those touched by Kevin Henkes's Sun and Spoon will also be moved by this tender story. Ages 8-12. (June)