- School & Library Binding: 157 pages
- Publisher: San Val (Mar 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0613452917
- ISBN-13: 978-0613452915
- Product Dimensions: 16.3 x 10.2 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
Many Stones
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Read by Mandy Siegfried
Approx. 3.5 hours
2 cassettes
Berry Morgan's father isn't around much since the divorce, until the day he shows up at Berry's school to tell her that her sister Laura is dead. While working as a volunteer at a school in Capetown, South Africa, Laura had been brutally murdered.
A year and a half later, he arranges a two-week trip to South Africa with Berry reluctantly in tow, to attend a memorial service at the school where Laura had worked. Berry's father has arranged some other activities as well: a business meeting in Johannesburg, a guided tour of Soweto from a mini van, and three days at Krueger National Park.
Berry and her father's painful journey forces them to look beyond their own grieving and bear witness to a country's tortured search for peace and reconciliation.
Approx. 3.5 hours
2 cassettes
Berry Morgan's father isn't around much since the divorce, until the day he shows up at Berry's school to tell her that her sister Laura is dead. While working as a volunteer at a school in Capetown, South Africa, Laura had been brutally murdered.
A year and a half later, he arranges a two-week trip to South Africa with Berry reluctantly in tow, to attend a memorial service at the school where Laura had worked. Berry's father has arranged some other activities as well: a business meeting in Johannesburg, a guided tour of Soweto from a mini van, and three days at Krueger National Park.
Berry and her father's painful journey forces them to look beyond their own grieving and bear witness to a country's tortured search for peace and reconciliation.
Book Description
Out of the blue Berry’s estranged dad turns up and tells her that her sister Laura has been murdered in South Africa. Berry is consumed by despair and anger. At night she lies in bed, with a pile of comforting stones on her chest, to stop her floating away. Then her dad tells her they are going to South Africa to go to Laura’s memorial service. Feeling bitter and alone, Berry begins a painful journey to the place where her sister died, accompanied by a father she doesn’t want to know. But in a country seeking its own reconciliation, Berry takes the reluctant steps towards forgiveness.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
There is a story-telling game that starts by one person beginning the story with a single sentence about absolutely anything and leaves the rest of the story in the imagination of the story-teller. I doubt I could muster the skill to keep my audience around for the line. I have an idea that Carolyn Coman was with a group of people who knew she was in her element as a wordsmith & longed to hear how she would finish an unlikely sounding beginning. It is worth the five stars without a doubt.
Format:Paperback
This story is about many things: sisters, fathers and daughters, grief, forgiveness, different cultures. Coman's writing lingers in your mind, making you think about the various issues that she's raised. Her handling of grief is sensitive and she does not flinch from examining the raw emotions and the uncertainty that death leaves in its wake. This is not to say that the book is all doom and gloom: Berry's ironic sense of humour makes sure that there is a balance of light and shadow in a book that deals with serious subjects.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
16 reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
A book about forgiveness
30 Oct 2000
Format:Hardcover
Many Stones is a multi-layered tale about forgiveness, a process that needs to occur at both the political and personal levels in this incredibly well-told book. Berry is angry, most especially at her father, who has moved 3000 miles away from his family. Now the two of them are on their way to South Africa, ostensibly to participate in a memorial service for Berry's sister, Laura, who went to South Africa to do charity work but who wound up the victim of random violence. When she was alive, Laura was the "favorite" daughter, the daughter that Berry always felt second fiddle to whenever she was in the company of her father and Laura. Berry's father wants to use the trip as an opportunity for him and Berry to make amends, to forgive one another for the wounds they've each inflicted. But, Berry is resistant to doing so. She's just too angry. But, as any student of current events knows, South Africa provides a tremendous example of the power of forgiveness. Berry is over there during the meetings of the Truth Commission, and speaks to a number of people who explain to her that knowing the truth is more valuable than punishing wrong-doers. Thus, the families of victims have chosen to trade forgiveness for knowledge, not revenge. Berry's father obviously hopes his daughter will be so moved to provide the same to him, but as you can imagine, a teenaged girl, who is in pain from a variety of hurts, is not going to be easy to convince. The language of this book is sparse and beautiful. I'm pleased that it was nominated for a National Book Award--deservedly so for taking on such a complex topic and handling it so brilliantly. One last note: There is not a lot of fiction out there that deals with the relationships between fathers and daughters. This is an especially good look at the complexities of those bonds.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Many Stones
16 Dec 2000
Format:Hardcover
The story is narrated by a high school-age girl, named Berry Morgan. The reader gets to know Berry on a very intense and intimate level as she reveals her emotional pain from her parents divorce, and from the subsequent murder of her older sister, Laura, who had been working at a church-run school for very poor children in Soweto, South Africa. Most of the story takes place on a trip Berry and her father make to South Africa to attend a commemorative service to be held there for Laura a year and a half after her killing. The father is a hard-driving Washington lobbyist who had coached his daughters toward being high achievers in school, sports, and careers, but who had placed their emotional needs second to his own. The story interweaves two themes: the passage of Berry from her emotional pain of loss toward acceptance and future growth, and the parallel passage of South African people who are willing to forgive the injustices and horrors of their apartheid era so that they can get on with building a new life of hope. Berry has to learn from some of the people she encounters that one cannot accept being mired down in past tragedies if one is to grow. The story is so intensely Berry's interior life, and she is so bitter at the beginning, that it might have been too much of a closeup if the writing wasn't so good. Coman's writing unerringly maintains the emotion of Berry's feelings and dialogue with her father throughout the story. There are memorable lines, and the tension of wondering whether Berry will work it all out is unwavering. She strikes out verbally at her father every chance she gets, so that at times we hate her for it, but then she reveals her vulnerability and we forgive her and hope she's at least making progress on her journey of healing. Back-story is revealed only as necessary as we move along in the plot, and this makes the reading very fluid. The ending has a feeling of completeness and hope, and is well-earned.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Many Stones
30 Nov 2001
Format:Hardcover
"Home? If I were there right now, I'd reach for my pile of stones." In this story, Berry Morgan uses stones as a relief method, by placing them on her stomach, especially since she has a tough family life. Her mother, who tutors mentally challenged kids how to read, write, and talk, is the only normal person in her family. Her father lives in California with his girlfriend, and her sister, Laura who was in South Africa helping the children down there.... Well, she is dead. She was brutally murdered, only a year before Barry and her father go to South Africa for her memorial service.
One day, Barry's Father turns-up at her home is Washington DC, and has asked Berry to come to South Africa with him for Laura's Memorial Service. Barry goes, but with a major chip on her shoulder. Barry has a major problem with her father barging in on her life and wanting her to come with him on an adventure in an unknown country. While they are there for 11 days, her father has planned a little more than just the memorial service. They go to Cape Town, Kruger National Park, and a little bed and breakfast. She is really snippy with her father, and they really don't get along together will at all. But as the trip goes on, the two of them learn their differences and get along better each day. This book is about how two people learn to get along better and as the days that they are together stacks up.. I would recommend this book for kids older than 12, and even adults, because it is a good book and I would reread it any time, that's how good it is.
One day, Barry's Father turns-up at her home is Washington DC, and has asked Berry to come to South Africa with him for Laura's Memorial Service. Barry goes, but with a major chip on her shoulder. Barry has a major problem with her father barging in on her life and wanting her to come with him on an adventure in an unknown country. While they are there for 11 days, her father has planned a little more than just the memorial service. They go to Cape Town, Kruger National Park, and a little bed and breakfast. She is really snippy with her father, and they really don't get along together will at all. But as the trip goes on, the two of them learn their differences and get along better each day. This book is about how two people learn to get along better and as the days that they are together stacks up.. I would recommend this book for kids older than 12, and even adults, because it is a good book and I would reread it any time, that's how good it is.
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