{"id":20233,"date":"2013-02-24T09:47:18","date_gmt":"2013-02-24T14:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=20233"},"modified":"2014-05-09T15:16:49","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T19:16:49","slug":"irises-by-francisco-x-stork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/irises-by-francisco-x-stork\/","title":{"rendered":"Irises by Francisco X. Stork"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2013\/02\/Irises.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-26710\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2013\/02\/Irises-2000x3022.jpg\" alt=\"Irises\" width=\"940\" height=\"1420\" \/><\/a>First things first: choose the page, not the headset. Carrington MacDuffie&#8217;s voice is just too old to narrate the inner lives of two teenage sisters \u2013\u00a0no\u00a0lilting resonance, no youthful lightness. Might I suggest that the better options for aurally appreciating the extraordinary\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.franciscostork.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Francisco X. Stork<\/a>\u00a0would be\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/2010\/09\/18\/marcelo-in-the-real-world-by-francisco-x-stork\/\">Marcelo in the Real World<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/2013\/02\/10\/the-last-summer-of-the-death-warriors-by-francisco-x-stork\/\">The Last Summer of the Death Warriors<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>The ears don&#8217;t lie.<i><br \/>\n<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Kate is 18, determined and independent, with secret dreams of going to Stanford \u2013\u00a0instead of the expected, local University of Texas at El Paso \u2013\u00a0and becoming a doctor one day. Mary is 16, sensitive and thoughtful, an artist gifted beyond her years, with an other-world ability to recognize light in the subjects she paints. Their beloved mother never leaves her bed \u00a0&#8230; trapped in a vegetative state, kept alive only because of a feeding tube. One afternoon, their father lies down for a rest and never wakes again. Life suddenly shifts to fast-forward &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Mama needs her expensive medical care, the girls must finish school. Kate, as the elder, is faced with serious financial challenges. Aunt Julia arrives from California, but she isn&#8217;t exactly the helpful adult the sisters need, too busy criticizing their late father, avoiding her silent sister, and insisting to Kate that marrying her boyfriend Simon now is the sisters&#8217; only secure choice for a future.\u00a0Then the deacons of the church where Papa ministered for 20 years of his life announce that the family has two months to find a new home to make room for their father&#8217;s fiery young successor \u2013 who has inappropriate plans of his own.<\/p>\n<p>While Papa was a loving provider, he was also a severe\u00a0disciplinarian: &#8220;The only decision [the sisters] needed to make when he was alive was whether to obey willingly or unwillingly.&#8221; Without his restrictions, both girls grow in new ways: Mary finds a comforting new friendship; Kate reexamines many of hers. Both manage to find the strength to make impossible decisions with surprising wisdom \u2013\u00a0and always love.<\/p>\n<p>Although Stork has a penchant for creating narratives populated by characters facing difficult challenges, he never resorts to easy feel-good answers or <em>deus ex machina-<\/em>solutions. His can&#8217;t-turn-the-page-fast-enough stories are ultimately reminders of the resilience of our youth, with a ringing endorsement that whatever they face, they can \u2013 and\u00a0will\u00a0\u2013\u00a0do so with tenacity and courage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Young Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2012<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First things first: choose the page, not the headset. Carrington MacDuffie&#8217;s voice is just too old to narrate the inner lives of two teenage sisters \u2013\u00a0no\u00a0lilting resonance, no youthful lightness. Might I suggest that the better options for aurally appreciating the extraordinary\u00a0Francisco X. Stork\u00a0would be\u00a0Marcelo&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,6,199,31],"tags":[205,6608,246,58,75,10,210,11,123,247,39,170,44],"class_list":["post-20233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-audio","category-fiction","category-latinaox","category-young-adult-readers","tag-art-architecture","tag-bookdragon","tag-carrington-macduffie","tag-coming-of-age","tag-death","tag-family","tag-francisco-x-stork","tag-friendship","tag-illness","tag-irises","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-sibling-rivalry","tag-siblings"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Irises by Francisco X. Stork - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/irises-by-francisco-x-stork\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Irises by Francisco X. Stork - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"First things first: choose the page, not the headset. Carrington MacDuffie&#8217;s voice is just too old to narrate the inner lives of two teenage sisters \u2013\u00a0no\u00a0lilting resonance, no youthful lightness. Might I suggest that the better options for aurally appreciating the extraordinary\u00a0Francisco X. 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