The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt

MacLachlan, Patricia

ISBN 10: 0060241179 ISBN 13: 9780060241179

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1988

Synopsis

Facts and fictions are different truths. Minna Pratt stares at this message above her mother's typewriter every day and tries to understand it. But how can she, when her mind is already so full? She wishes her mother would ask her normal questions like "How was your day?" instead of "What is the quality of beauty?" She wishes her brother, McGrew, could catch a baseball. She wishes she had a vibrato and could play Mozart on her cello the way he deserves to be played.

Then she meets Lucas Ellerby. Minna thinks Lucas has the perfect life. His home runs smoothly and evenly. Dinner conversation is full of facts, and everyone always has matching socks to wear. So why is he so intrigued by her family?

Minna doesn't know, but as her friendship with Lucas grows, she discovers some important truths about herself and her family.

In Patricia MacLachlan's hope-filled coming-of-age story Minna learns to value her family because of their eccentricities, and to value herself because of her own.

About this title

About the Author:

Patricia MacLachlan is the celebrated author of many timeless books for young readers, including Sarah, Plain and Tall, winner of the Newbery Medal. Her novels for young readers include Arthur, For the Very First Time; The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt; Skylark; Caleb’s Story; More Perfect than the Moon; Grandfather’s Dance; Word After Word After Word; Kindred Souls; and The Truth of Me; she is also the author of countless beloved picture books, a number of which she cowrote with her daughter, Emily.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 4-7 Minna Pratt is confused: by life and the nature of love, by Mozart and her struggles to play the cello, and by the quotes her writer-mother tapes over her desk, such as ``Fact and Fiction are Different Truths.'' Minna wants everything to follow an orderly pattern like the dinner conversation between her friend Lucas' parents. Through her friendship with Lucas, the newest member of her chamber music group, Minna begins to understand that life is not as simple as she wants it to be. In this book, which recalls Cassie Binegar (1982) more than Sarah, Plain and Tall (1985, both Harper), MacLachlan has written a story of the wistful longings of early adolescents, laced with humor and an uncanny sense of the ordinary, everyday things that make life so special. With the briefest description, she sketches wonderfully memorable characters: Imelda, the violinist who announces obscure facts at odd moments in rehearsal; Lucas' mother, sitting in her solarium thinking up dinner conversation topics; and Minna's brother McGrew, who likes to sing the headlines from the daily paper. The twin themes of writing and music provide an unobtrusive metaphor for Minna's search for order in her world, and provide interesting layers in the writing for perceptive readers. In the end, it is very much a book about that personal tug of war that begins in early adolescence between dependence on one's parents' approval and the need to become one's own person. As such, it will have great appeal for young readers, and will live on in the memory the way the strains of a melody live on after a concert. Connie C. Rockman, The Ferguson Library, Stamford, Conn.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0060241179
• ISBN 13: 9780060241179
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 144