The Weight of Water

In this taut portrayal of the immigrant experience, 12-year-old Kasienka moves with Mama from Gdansk, Poland, to Coventry, England, to find Tata, her father.

The adjustment is difficult. At school, Kasienka is ostracized. At home, she questions why they are searching for a man who ran from them. When Kasienka complains, Mama questions her love. Kasienka feels powerful only when she swims at the pool—something Tata taught her to do. That is also where William, a schoolmate, first notices her. Narrating in image-rich free verse that packs an emotional punch, Kasienka describes what life is like for a new arrival while also exploring universal themes of abandonment, loyalty, bullying and first love. Concise lines and brief poems—two to three pages at most—mirror her tentative steps in an alien world, offering snapshots of her experiences and thoughts. Her story is broken into three parts, emphasizing the stages Kasienka goes through, with the last providing “starting blocks,” as it were. Sweetheart William encourages her to swim; through swimming, Kasienka reconnects with her father; she and Mama make peace; and the school bully is rendered powerless in the face of Kasienka’s hard-won happiness. It is fitting that some of the last poems are entitled “Metamorphosis” and “Forgiveness.” The Epilogue, “Butterfly,” offers good advice for living: “[P]ull, / Push, / Recover.”

Memorable. (Verse fiction. 10-14)

Gr 6-9--Kasienka and her mother have left their home in Poland to find the father and husband who left them a few years before. They arrive in the UK with some meager possessions and only a vague notion of where to find a man who may not wish to be found. Kasienka feels "all wrong," a feeling that only gets worse when she finds herself in the crosshairs of one of her school's alpha girls. On top of the bullying, she must travel door to door each night acting as her mother's voice in a demeaning search for her father. Kasienka tells her tale through graceful, effortless verse that succinctly captures the immigrant experience in a way that anyone who has ever felt left out could easily embrace. This is a sweet, well-paced tale not without a silver lining; Kasienka finds happiness and the stirrings of first love in an unexpected place-the swimming pool. Those who have wished for an older version of Carolyn Marsden's The Gold-Threaded Dress (Candlewick, 2002) or Eleanor Estes's The Hundred Dresses (Harcourt, 1944) need look no further. The Weight of Water will more than fill the hole.--Jill Heritage Maza, Montclair Kimberley Academy, Montclair, NJ

Written in verse, in the voice of a Polish girl forced to move to England with her mother, this is a wrenching but hopeful story of displacement, loneliness, and survival. In their one-room rental, Kasienka, nearly 13, watches helplessly as her mother unravels, determined to track down the husband who abandoned them. Her school life is also bleak: she's initially placed with younger students because of her poor English, teachers are patronizing, her classmates shun her, and the one girl who befriends her suddenly turns on her. Kasienka's observations are insightful and hard-hitting ("I am not an English girl in Gdansk./ I'm a Pole in Coventry./ And that is not the same thing./ At all"), and her resilience prevents her from being a victim. She finds solace in swimming ("Water is another world: / A land with its own language./ Which I speak fluently"), in the friendship of a neighbor from Kenya, and in her first love. Crossan's (Breathe) verse packs a punch as she examines the power that difference--but also determination--can wield. Ages 10-14. Agent: Sarah Davies, Greenhouse Literary Agency. (July)