This month's selection:

 

Icy Sparks

By Gwyn Hyman Rubio

Icy Sparks is the sad, funny and transcendent tale of a young girl growing up in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky during the 1950's. Gwyn Hyman Rubio's beautifully written first novel revolves around Icy Sparks, an unforgettable heroine in the tradition of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird or Will Treed in Cold Sassy Tree. At the age of ten, Icy, a bright, curious child orphaned as a baby but raised by adoring grandparents, begins to have strange experiences. Try as she might, her "secrets" — verbal croaks, groans, and physical spasms-keep afflicting her. As an adult, she will find out she has Tourette's Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder, but for years her behavior is the source of mystery, confusion, and deep humiliation.

 

Narrated by a grown up Icy, the book chronicles a difficult, but ultimately hilarious and heartwarming journey, from her first spasms to her self-acceptance as a young woman. Curious about life beyond the hills, talented, and energetic, Icy learns to cut through all barriers-physical, mental, and spiritual-in order to find community and acceptance.

 

Along her journey, Icy faces the jeers of her classmates as well as the malevolence of her often-ignorant teachers-including Mrs. Stilton, one of the most evil fourth grade teachers ever created by a writer. Called willful by her teachers and "Frog Child" by her schoolmates, she is exiled from the schoolroom and sent to a children's asylum where it is hoped that the roots of her mysterious behavior can be discovered. Here Icy learns about difference-her own and those who are even more scarred than she. Yet, it isn't until Icy returns home that she really begins to flower, especially through her friendship with the eccentric and obese Miss Emily, who knows first-hand how it feels to be an outcast in this tightly knit Appalachian community. Under Miss Emily's tutelage, Icy learns about life's struggles and rewards, survives her first comical and heartbreaking misadventure with romance, discovers the healing power of her voice when she sings, and ultimately-takes her first steps back into the world.

 

Questions for Discussion...

• Through her grandparents' memories of her mother and father, Icy learns that she was born "a frog child from Icy Creek" with eyes the color of heaven's "golden light." In what way does the mythology of her birth help Icy to accept her affliction? Discuss here.

   

• Why does Icy compound the consequences of her fits by lying; either denying they happened or fabricating excuses for her outbursts? Is this a symptom of her Tourettes or a reaction to it? Discuss here.
• Do you agree with Miss Emily's assessment that Icy's affliction is similar to her own? Should people who are "different" form a community with one another? Should Icy have been less critical of Miss Emily's weight problem? Lane's effeminate behavior? Peavy's "frog" eyes? Discuss here.
• Icy's Tourettes makes it difficult for her to keep any secrets. Yet she never reveals what she saw Mamie Tillman do near Little Turtle Pond. Why? Discuss here.
• Was Icy's confinement in the Bluegrass State Hospital ultimately a good or bad experience? Would she have considered becoming a therapist if she hadn't met Maizy and Rose? Discuss here.
• Icy's fits are often precipitated by people who-even if they're pretending to be "syrup" like Mrs. Stilton-don't have her best intentions at heart. When she runs into him grown-up and "beautiful," does Peavy Lawson fall into this category? Discuss here.
• When Patanni dies, Icy's relationship with Matanni changes. How does this help Icy to make the transition into adulthood? Discuss here.
• What is it that allows the normally reticent Icy to "find" her voice in song at the revival meeting? When Icy becomes a therapist, why do "children as silent as stone" sing for her? Discuss here.
• Icy's outbursts are usually violent and profane. How does Rubio use humor to offset some of her more harrowing moments?Discuss here.
• Icy live almost eight years of her life not knowing that her tics and pops are symptoms of Tourettes-a neurological disorder. Neither Icy, nor her family, nor the members of her rural Kentucky community know whether she's ill, "crazy," or "possessed." If she had been diagnosed, would Icy's childhood have been any easier? Would the townspeople have been kinder or would they still have shunned her as "different"? Discuss here.

   

 

If You Liked Icy Sparks...

• On The Ocassion Of My Last Afternoon - Kaye Gibbons
• River Angel - A. Manette Ansay
• The Five People you Meet in Heaven - Mitch Album
• A Virtuous Woman - Kaye Gibbons
• Summer Of'42 - Herman Raucher
• Gap Creek - Robert Morgan
• Jewel - Bret Lott
• Crazy in Alabama - Mark Childress
• Back Roads - Tawni O'Dell
• Green Journey - Jon Hassler

 

Next month's selection... The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.

 

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