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The Art of Running Away

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Twelve-year-old Maisie is an artist. When she's in front of her sketchbook or apprenticing at Glenna's Portraits, the family-run art shop her grandmother started, the world makes sense. She doesn't think about Calum, her brother who mysteriously left home and cut ties with her family six years ago, or her parents' insistence that she "broaden her horizons" and try something new—something that isn't art.

But when Glenna's Portraits falls on hard times, Maisie's plan to take over the shop when she's older and become a lifelong artist starts to crumble. In desperation to make things right, Maisie runs away to London to reconnect with her adult brother, hoping he might be the key to saving the shop. But as Maisie learns about her family's past from Calum, she starts to rethink everything she's ever known. Maisie must decide not only if saving her family's art shop is worth it, but if she can forgive her parents for the mistakes they've made.

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    • Booklist

      November 1, 2021
      Grades 6-8 Twelve-year-old Maisie works in her family's portrait shop, Glenna's, composing sketches and dreaming of one day running the business. But her parents, wanting her to explore the world before deciding on being an artist, send her to Scotland to stay with her aunt, where Maisie reunites with her brother, Calum, who mysteriously ran away years before. When she learns her family's business is failing, Maisie herself runs away to London with Calum, hoping he will help save Glenna's, despite sensing his hesitancy to do so. As Maisie and Calum reconnect, she discovers the real reason he left home and uncovers her parents' troubling secrets. Hurt and betrayed, Maisie must decide if she can forgive her parents and continue trying to save their business. With many emotional scenes involving themes of identity, family, passion, and forgiveness, Kleckner's charming debut features a mature young heroine whom readers will enjoy following as she manages familial conflict and resolution.

      COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Kirkus

      October 15, 2021
      Budding 12-year-old artist Maisie is unhappy when her parents abruptly decide she should leave upstate New York to spend the summer in Edinburgh, Scotland, with her aunt. Her frustration evolves into amazement when her elder brother, Calum, who ran away 6 years ago, turns up on her aunt's doorstep and convinces Maisie to instead spend the summer with him in London, where he is a university undergraduate. Since Calum has rarely been mentioned at home, she had no idea why he'd left or where he'd gone--so it's baffling to learn that he has remained close to their Aunt Lisa. But that confusion is nothing compared to her fury when she learns the real reason behind Calum's absence, a devastating secret that leads her to reevaluate everything she thought she knew about her family. Just as Maisie is sure she can fix the financial problems that threaten her family's custom portrait painting business, she's confident she can reunite Calum and her parents. It's only with wise, gentle advice from Rose and Benji, who are close to Calum, that she begins to understand that it's Calum's business--not hers--to decide when and how to patch things up, making for a believably nuanced and unresolved conclusion. This debut sensitively portrays the fallout caused by family rifts. Most characters default to White; Benji is Japanese British. A gentle exploration of pain, love, and acceptance. (Fiction. 9-13)

      COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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