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Fifteen year-old Scottie has trains roaring through her dreams at night, resulting in hours of early morning insomnia. It’s been like this since Aunt Roz’s funeral. To make it worse, she’s begun to feel like a stranger in her own home turned art gallery. Her mother spends days in a trance creating bizarre paintings that have become the new “must-have” art and her dad spends hours on the phone schmoozing potential buyers and scheduling the next art party.

Scottie’s parents don’t seem to remember she exists and Scottie fears that she’s becoming invisible to her best friend Amanda as well. Amanda has left her for the popular click as she developed curves that Scottie is, so far, lacking. Scottie’s life is falling apart. Only a ball of yarn and a couple of needles keep her from becoming completely frayed.

Early one morning, once again, wide-awake, she discovers the knitting her Aunt Lucille had pressed into her hands at her Aunt Roz’s shivah, under a pile of clothes on the rug at her feet. Intrigued, she tries a stitch; surprised she can remember the “spike, loop, swish”, knitting motion. One stitch turns into an entire row. Scottie feels the tension leaving her shoulders. Without thinking, she cramms her knitting into her book bag as she prepares to leave for school.

Under pressure with Amanda and her new friends at lunch, Scottie whips out her swatch and ball of yarn and begins knitting. So much for being invisible. Scottie becomes so hooked on knitting that she goes in search of a store named KnitWit and finds herself staying for a free class offered by the owner, Alice. Fate intervenes and Amanda shows up, along with other girls from her school, Tay and Bella.

It doesn’t take long before they become the “Chicks with Sticks” and Scottie finds comfort in finally belonging somewhere. But will the feeling last? It seems friends are dropping as often as she drops stitches. Amanda deserts her to free-form with her new knitting friends after her Learning Disability session at the college. Bella becomes so engrossed in knitting that she prefers solitude with her afghan. And Tay blames Scottie for the problems between her and Josh. And when she finally gets the nerve to tell her parents that she’s a knitter, they get all excited that she’s decided to be a “fiber artist”, whatever that is. She turns to Alice only to find KnitWit’s doors are closed on their meeting night.

Elizabeth Lenhard has created a warm, wooly read in CHICKS WITH STICKS (IT’S A PURL THING). As a knitter, I found myself itching to grab my needles and feel the familiar comfort of K3, P3 of my current work in progress in soft homespun lavender. Teens are taking up their needles and creating beautiful works of art. I encourage you to join them. But before you do, take a moment to curl up with CHICKS WITH STICKS (IT’S A PURL THING).

This review is cross-posted here at Teens Read Too.

Happy Friday to all! This week seemed to creep along for me and I am looking forward to some rest and relaxation. Here are some fun links to help you get through the day.

Perhaps this article excites me so much because I graduated from Emory’s Creative Writing program, but I think Natasha Tretheway’s poetry is genius (as does the Pulitzer board) and this interview is illuminating.

An interesting look at the Booker Prize.

As a Raymond Carver devotee I voted for the original stories to be published. (more…)

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