Saffy's Angel

Rating:
Summary: OH, poor Saffy
Review: Hillary McKay has a way with using words to describe her clever and lovable characters that just suck you in and make you wish they where real. I loved the soft side of Rose revealed in the scene when the siblings are driving to Wales to find Saffy's angel. Her cute little notes to other drivers made me laugh out loud at their cleverness and left me with a new impression of her personality. Caddy's determinedness and sweet heart make her an effective character as the story develops. While Indigo's vulnerability and sincerity make you just want to reach out and hug him. Then there's Saffron the moody odd one out in the group. While Saffy's story unfolds I love how McKay keeps the stories of all the others going on quietly in the background in which Caddy's driving lessons with Michael take center stage. You will be led through an amazing heart warming adventure by the most loveable engaging cast I have ever seen.

Rating:
Summary: Stephanie Chavez Book
Review: I have just spent the afternoon with the most entertaining, warm, funny, and unusual people; they are the Casson family. In 152 pages, McKay has created characters I want to spend more time with and get to know better. Cadmium is the oldest girl and is learning to drive and pass her "A" levels. Indigo is the brother who dreams of exploring the Artic. Rose is the youngest who shows an affinity with paint as an infant.

We meet Saffy in the terrific opening sentence of the novel, "When Saffron was eight, and had at last learned to read, she hunted slowly through the color chart pinned up on the kitchen wall."

Through her exploration of a painter's color chart the story of her adoption into the Casson family is revealed. She learns that she was born in Siena, Italy and brought to England by her grandfather when her own mother died in an automobile crash. Although the focus of the story is on Saffy's search for her place in the family, the rest of the characters are so wonderfully drawn that the reader feels a personal connection with each one of them. The way the family members interact and care for each other is touching yet tremendously funny too.

Caddy's driving lessons (and her crush on the driving instructor) are hilarious. I laughed and laughed as I read. Indigo's valiant attempts to conquer his various fears are profoundly moving. Rose is a no holds barred artist. Her realistic view and handling of their father and his dismay at his unconventional family is cheering.

I sought this book out when the Junior Library Guild chose "Indigo's Star" as a selection this fall. Lucky for me, I will get to spend another afternoon with the Cassons now.

Stop what you are doing right now: order it, place it on hold at your library, or go out and buy it! You will thank me.


Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good Story
Review: It's a very well written story and is great to read if you have an extra minute on your hands. The story is bascially about a young girl who feels out of place in her family when she learns she is adopted. Her grandfather soon died after that and left in his will to Saffy her angel. Well she then became determined to find out more about the angel. This story will take you on a journey of mixed emotions and shows how much one person cares for their family. [P.S. MAKES A GREAT BOOK TO READ FOR A REPORT IN CLASS]

Rating:
Summary: Mother Daughter Book Club @ Edmeston Central School (NY)
Review: The purpose of this club is to read books with strong female characters and Saffy's Angel immediately caught our attention. It looked interesting and filled with suspense and adventure. Our favorite character overall in this book was Indigo. Sarah's father was extremely funny and interesting. The way that Sarah hid Saffy and allowed her to come with her (without her parent's permission) was kind and a good deed from a close friend. Bill was a rude, obnoctious father that didn't really care and didn't seem to know anything about his family and children, adopted or not. Saffy's "Aunt" was almost the same as Bill. But she wasn't mean or obnoctious. She just spent all of her time in the shed, painting. Indigo had to make dinner and everything. We felt bad for the kids who didnt really have a parent to fall back on.
We would recommend this book (10-14 year olds) to about anyone who is willing to read a good book and get a life lesson

Rating:
Summary: Loved It!
Review: There are so many words to describe this book! The story was extremely creative and absorbing. The book started as decent, but into the middle I began becoming very interested and found myself not wanting to put it down. The book is so...different...original...to the point where even unessecary details were enjoyable and descriptive enough to picture in my mind. The characters were so easy to love and so memorably humorous! I just can't say enough about their strange ways of doing things and their odd-but-entertaining interests. I almost wish this book was a series instead of a novel, but I feel that it is close enough to the perfect story as it is. I really liked that it didn't focus completely on Saffy, but also on her artistic and loving family. I also liked that the characters got right to the point, instead of rambling for pages.

This one has become a major favorite of mine, and will be one that I recommend to all my friends!

Rating:
Summary: Saffy 's Angel
Review: This book is really great. All of the kids are funny in the book and Micheal, the driving instructor is also funny. There are 3 different countries that they go to in this book. I'd recommend this book for other 6 year old kids (and older)


Rating:
Summary: Just call me angel of the morning
Review: To grab a child's interest, books written for them will usually concentrate on something fun or interesting that they might like to be a part of. In the case of "Saffy's Angel", author Hilary McKay has combined two or three different fantasies a child might enjoy. The fantasy of belonging to a big crazy artistic family. The fantasy of living in a big crazy house full of mysterious boxes and items. And the fantasy of solving a mystery of one's very own.

In this story, young Saffron (Saffy) finds that she is not her parent's child after all. In fact, she was the daughter of her mother's sister, adopted at a very early age. When Saffy's grandfather dies and leaves her, "Saffy's angel", the girl sets off on a quest to recover that which is rightfully hers.
The book isn't too dissimilar from "From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" in that the story revolves around a mystery (solved by children) and a statue. The story itself is bright and lively and never gets bogged down by characters, plots, or settings. McKay too has created imaginative people, each with a distinct and subtle personality. Many parts of this book are quite amusing (for instance, Saffy's mother leaves a note that tells the others that she'll be hanging the paintings done by the juvenile delinquents she works with that reads, "hanging Young Offenders in the library"). And the story is a good one. Top notch, in fact.

My qualms (and I did have one or two) involve that old bugaboo "the artistic vs. the sane". How often do we read stories in which nice sensible people are considered troglodytes because they act normally and with reason, rather than scatterbrained and "artistic"? In this case, the reader is well set up to dislike Saffy's adoptive father. Bill mostly does not live with the family, preferring to live in London with his art and visit occasionally. Everyone is perfectly happy with this arrangement, and Bill is often set up as the jerk with too much common sense. Whenever somebody dies he inevitably acts the pompous unfeeling cad. On the other hand, the book really doesn't give enough credit to the fact that though an unwelcome parent, he's obviously far more capable than his too often negligent wife. When the children become ill, he is the one to separate them so that others do not become sick. He is capable of saying no to the children when they do something stupid or potentially dangerous. His wife, on the other hand, is completely unfit to be in charge of children. She spends all her time out of eyeshot or earshot of her kids in a shed where she paints. She never says no. When the children (miraculously, only one is a complete brat) act in inappropriate ways, "Eve (their mother) always stuck out these grim times as bravely as she could. After all, she would tell herself, she had known from the day the children were born that they were in every way more talented, intelligent, and wise than she would ever be". Which is her excuse for letting them drive to Wales with her terrible driver daughter at the wheel, sit on window ledges paralyzed with fright, or eat paint found in garbage cans.

I loved this book. I disliked the mother. Beyond that flaw, it's an enjoyable romp with children that (with the exception of the youngest little spoiled creature) you grow to love slowly but surely. I would recommend this readily without any hesitation to anyone wishing to read a fun British adventure. It is truly a book that should be better known.