Rating: 
Summary: Hauntingly Spiritual
Review: It took me a while to get into this book, but each time I put it down, there was an empty space wanting to be filled with answers. The more I got to know Willa Jo and Little Sister, as well as Aunt Patty, Uncle Hob and Mom, the more my questions yearned for answers. This story, about a summer filled with grief and the different ways of trying to cope with it, is hauntingly spiritual. Despite the well-meaning efforts of Aunty Patty and her churchgoing neighbors, the spiritual depths are mined by a grieving mother who paints pictures of angels, and by two lonely girls sitting on the roof watching the sun rise. I'm not sure how many middle-grade readers will be drawn into this sparse story, but it would be worth the effort, especially for those dealing with grief or the departure of a parent.
Rating: 
Summary: A Sad Book
Review: A young girl, Willa Jo, had a baby sister who died. The death created a deep sadness in her entire family, so deep that Willa Jo stopped talking. People around her tried to help, but nothing seemed to work. There were beautiful passages in the book where Willa Jo would climb onto a roof and look up at the sky, as if the sky could soothe her pain and help her reach out to her sister. Heaven always seems to be above us, in the evening or nighttime sky, and that must have been where the baby had gone. I recommend this book because parts of it reminded me of when my own grandma died. I understood how sad Willa Jo must have felt, which is good writing. How the family grieved and handled the loss was never boring. It makes the reader think about their families, death, sadness, and how life must always go on.
Rating: 
Summary: Read this book!
Review: After Baby dies, Willa Jo and Little Sister are forced to live with bossy Aunt Patty. Willa Jo and Little Sister are always getting into trouble and Willa Jo doesn't get along too well with Aunt Patty. Nothing is going according to plan. Willa Jo and Little Sister just want to go home and be with their mom. But will Aunt Patty ever let them go home? This is a great book about dealing with death and the love of a family. I would recommend this book to everyone. I think kids that have had to deal with the death of a close family member will especially like this book. On a scale of 1-10 I give this book a 9. Sometimes the book seemed to have the same thing happening over and over again. Like, Willa Jo would get and trouble and Aunt Patty would get mad, etc. This book was interesting and touching.
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Book!
Review: Getting Near to Baby definitely deserves 4 stars! The writing style Audrey Coulumbis shows is interesting. She is a very poetic writer and I will definitely read her other books. If you love poetry you will like this book.While a little bumpy and dreamy at the beginning, overall it is a great book. The chapters are very short but include much detail. This book satisfys readers young and old. The characters are very intriguing, and make any reader want to read more. Willa Jo and her family seem like normal people, but I don't know anybody who sits on a roof to watch the sunset. The plot of the book is twisted and sad, unlike most books I have read. It was sad how the aunt treats the children. Doesn't it seem mean not to let children play with children across the street because they live in little houses? Even though this book is sad, I will recommend it to everyone in search of a great book! By: Caitlin
Rating:
Summary: Getting near to baby
Review: Getting near to baby grabed my atention right away. In this story 12 year old willa jo, her little sister and her mom lose thier baby sister/daughter to a sickness. Aunt patty comes to the rescue by takin g the girls to her house or so she thought. Aunt patty is very bossy
Rating:
Summary: Incredibly Touching
Review: Getting Near to Baby is an incredibly touching story about two sisters who try to cope with the loss of their baby sister.They have to stay at their aunt's house while their mom also tries to cope with the loss.Everyday Little Sister and Willa Jo sit on top of the roof to think.Together they realize there life will still go on with or without their baby sister.
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Summary: MY ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOK!!!!!
Review: Getting Near to Baby was a heart warming story about two sisters who go to live with their aunt and uncle while their Mom gets her self back together after the baby sister in the family dies. The two girls, Willa Jo and Little Sister, are always against Aunt Patty. They certainly have their differences. Uncle Hob seems like a nobody-character but in the end of the book, he really does sometime outstanding. The thing about little sister is that she doesn't talk. She and Willa Jo have their own code, and Willa Jo tells everybody what she wants. This book is really cool because for the first 50 pages, it tells you about the situation now. They don't explain anything until they have gone about 50 or 60 pages into the book. It is great that way because you can make up your own story in your head about what happened. This book was extremely touching, and when you start reading the last few chapters, you never want to stop reading. I recommend this book to everyone!
Rating:
Summary: A novel of great strengths and greater weaknesses
Review: Getting Near to Baby was one of the more peculiar novels for young people I have read in recent months. Its power lies in the author's tight yet soaring descriptive moments. There were, for example, wonderful and soaring descriptions of nature as seen from the roof where Willa Jo and Little Sister are esconsed that are nothing short of breathtaking. But from an emotional point of view, this is a very small novel that finally has the emotional arc of a bad SEVENTH HEAVEN episode. The resolution is pat, didactic (especially in the voice of Hob, the girls' uncle) and utterly predictable. Caution to authors: when you start out a novel that has a young girl not talking, understand that your readers have already figured out that by the end of the book, the girl will talk. How you get the girl there, and how you twist her actual moment of speech so that the reader is in some way astonished, is the mark of whether you have done your job as a storyteller. This is a stop-and-start novel that is not very long in the first place. I must have put it down ten times along the way. If this is a roller-coaster of a review, the book itself is a slow speed rowboat glide along a still southern pond.
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Summary: Shelby, a student from Richview Middle School.
Review: Getting Near To Baby
This story is about two girls, Willa Jo and Little Sister. They have no dad, because their dad left them awhile ago because he lost his job and he couldn't afford to support the family anymore. At the same time the mom can't either, she paints for a living, postcards and she hasn't had much work since she had her baby. The girls end up living with their Aunt Patty becase their mom needs time to be alone, because Baby died. Since Baby died Little Sister hasn't talked, the doctor said she would get over it, but its been awhile and she's still not talking. While they're at their Aunt Patty's the girls meet Liz, she lives across the street from their aunt. Willa Jo and Little Sister had many BAD times at Aunt Patty's like all the times Willa Jo said rude things to people because she had tried being nice and it didn't work, so she got rude with them then got int rouble with her aunt. But the whole time while Willa Jo was rude Little Sister still didn't speak, EVER! At first when they moved to their aunts she seemed VERY strict but in the end all she needed was a little kid to help her understand that the little things DO matter, like sitting on the roof. And after that everything was PERFECT!
I liked this book and on the other hand, I didn't. I did because it was a really sweet book about a family getting over a death. But then, I didn't like it because it had ALOT of detail that I thought was un-needed! If i HAD to convience a friend to read it I would tell them that it was book about a family getting over a death while the two little girls had little adventures of their own. If i could change one thing about this book it woudl be how much detail it has. It got old VERY quick, because I felt like I was reading stuff that was unnecessary and had no purpose. This book had a HUGE flachback of about 50 pages. It kind of confused me, but after I got passed that I understood it. But over all it was pretty good.
Rating:
Summary: Getting Near to Baby Book Review
Review: Had you ever needed to go to your live to your aunt's house? Since the house was a mess, Aunt Patty took Willa Jo and Littlie Sister to her house. Is narrated by the oldest daughter, nice of Aunt Patty, Willa Jo. She really understands with her little sister, known as, Little Sister. Willa Jo and Little Sister are living with her Aunt Patty, because their house is a total mess, since Baby died. It all happened on a windy, cold night, Baby started to cry and cry, she couldn't stop crying. Willa Jo woke up and saw her mother already with awake holding Baby, so Willa Jo went back to sleep. Her mom woke Willa Jo because Baby couldn't stop crying, it was ceaselessly. Afterwards, Willa Jo went to a friend's house for a favor, to take he mother and baby to the doctor. While Willa Jo went to the friend's house, Baby stopped crying. Unfortunately Baby had died, when her mother had her on her arms very tight to give her warm. Since, that day, Little Sister doesn't talks.
When Willa Jo and Little Sister where with Aunt Patty, they prefer to be in another place, their home. Almost all of the times Willa JO and Little Sister are on top of the roof, counting the different types of roofs that are on the block. Willa Jo helps and teaches Little Sister how to multiply divide, add, and subtract. I admire the way that Willa Jo manages all of the problems and things she has to face. I really like this book, because it shows the importance of having a family in bad and good moments, the same as friends. I recommend this book to boys and girls also, but specially to girls. Boys might like the book, but not that much as girls, I think that girls will get more into it than boys. Audry Couloumbis did catch my attention in different ways. For example, I was always thinking about Willa Jo and Little Sister, what will happen to both of them.
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