CM Magazine: No Fixed Address.

________________ CM . . . . Volume IV Number 14 . . . . March 13, 1998

cover No Fixed Address.
Maureen Bayless.
Richmond Hill, ON: Scholastic, 1997.
180 pp., paper, $4.99.
ISBN 0-590-12378-5.

Subject Headings:
Street children-Juvenile fiction.
Parents-Death-Juvenile fiction.
Intergenerational relations-Juvenile fiction.

Grades 7 - 9 / Ages 12 - 14.
Review by Marsha Kaiserman.
***1/2 /4

excerpt:

Estelle was dying. Sabie knew it. This is what dying was supposed to be like, she thought. Not the way Monika went, just like that. Estelle was slipping away from her skin, leaving everything. Now that she'd unravelled Morty's life, she was unravelling her own. Sabie could read the determination in Estelle's upper lip. She was working hard at it.

Sabie Pincher is thirteen, her mother is dead, she is on her own and the only skill she has is the ability to survive in the urban jungle. While No Fixed Address is the story of Sabie's redemption from street life, it is also the story of the friendship, love and respect of two lonely women, one old and one young. Telling more would spoil the story.

In No Fixed Address, Maureen Bayless has written about one of today's more serious problems, street kids, in a very sensitive and positive manner. Yet this is not an ordinary novel for teens. Bayless has written a poignant tale of loneliness, friendship, growth and redemption worthy of readers' admiration.

Highly recommended.

Marsha Kaiserman is Head of Monographs Cataloguing at Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) in Ottawa.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THIS ISSUE - MARCH 13, 1998.