THANK YOU FOR ALL THINGS

Author: Sandra Kring ISBN: 9780553591491 10/2008 FICTION Publisher: BANTAM DISCOVERY

At twelve, Lucy Marie McGowan already knows she’ll be a psychologist when she grows up. And her quirky and conflicted family provides plenty of opportunity for her to practice her calling. Now Lucy, her “profoundly gifted” twin brother, Milo, her commitment-phobic mother, and her New Age grandmother are leaving Chicago for Timber Falls, Wisconsin, to care for her dying grandfather—a complex and difficult man whose failure as a husband and father still painfully echoes down through the years. Lucy believes her time in the rural town where the McGowan story began will provide a key piece to the puzzle of her family’s broken past, and perhaps even reveal the truth about her own missing father. But what she discovers is so much more—a lesson about the paradoxes of love and the grace of forgiveness that the adults around her will need help in remembering if their family is ever to find peace and embrace the future.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Sometimes a book will catch me with its simple prose, evocative images and down-home ordinariness. While THANK YOU FOR ALL THINGS is well written, insightful and compelling, it is also so refreshingly "normal" in its execution that while reading it I felt more like I was getting the story from a friend or neighbor than reading it from the page.

This is a tale of families; the secrets hidden between generations as well as the sometimes wonderful, sometimes not-so-wonderful surprises that come out of the gene pool. Told through the eyes of an 11-year-old, brilliant little girl, Lucy, it showcases the dynamic of family life. It also illustrates the fact that even in the most dysfunctional families there can—as usually is—some kind of silver lining. Even if that lining is a bare-minimum, very sheer one, it's something.

The thing I most enjoyed about this book, aside from it being relayed through Lucy's young eyes, is the way Ms. Kring doesn't attempt to gloss over anything. She sets this family on display, with their boils and quirks open for inspection. Rather than making them hideous, this shows them in an endearing light. I liked that, and very much enjoyed this story. THANK YOU FOR ALL THINGS is a tale of love and family, endings and beginnings. Nicely done!

Kay James