I did enjoy this and it was well written, but it did have its slow moments. But overall was good and I would read from this author again.

An imaginative child of 11 trying to discover who she is an what made her.

Clara winter (with a small "w") is a feisty and imaginative 11-year-old girl who is captivated by pioneer life and the mysteries of her own life. She desperately wants to know the truth about her dead twin sister, her absent father, and her "hermit" grandfather, but her mother, Tamar, is mute on all counts. Clara befriends an older man, Georg (without an "e") Kominsky, an immigrant from a country that no longer exists, one who lives in a trailer and creates beautiful lanterns out of metal. Clara is known to write book reports for books that don't exist, mostly revolving around the themes of lost siblings, hard winters, and pioneer life.

What a quirky and unusual character Clara is! I loved her and her way of talking and interacting with the people in her life.

"Do most eleven-year-olds talk like you?" the old man said.
"Nay sir, I think not."

Clara imagines stories behind the people in her life: the old man Georg and his childhood, her hermit grandfather. She also has a whole story in her mind of a midwife who tried but failed to save her twin sister when she was stillborn after Clara was born alive in a truck stuck in a ditch along a snowy road. There are stories layered upon stories here in this tale of the Adirondacks, of winters that steal lives, of people who keep secrets, of little girls who create tales to explain away the mysteries of life.

Curious and precocious, eleven year old Clara forms an unlikely friendship with an old man who lives in a nearby trailer park. In doing so, she learns a little about him and his past and ultimately, a lot more about herself and her own story. Clara is a magnificent fictional character, full of spunk and so very bright. Her observations are a wonderful combination of 11-year-old naïveté and thoughtful inquisitiveness (bordering on meddlesome) about the people around her. Her fascination with words appealed to me. I too think a lot about the way a word sounds.

This is a charming, poignant and thoughtful book, sad in places but never depressing, thought-provoking and beautifully crafted. Themes of love, regret and forgiveness weave together in this easy-to-read tale. Highly recommended.

I really want to give this book one star but I don't think it truly deserves it. I think it was probably a good book just not my thing. It was a short book so at least I was able to get through it quickly. It was hard to follow because you couldn't tell when the little girl was telling the truth or making it up. I also felt like the book repeated itself a lot. It was an ok book.

It was hard to decide about 4 or 5 stars for this book. The story is deftly written from the viewpoint of an 11 and 12-year-old girl. While there is melancholy to it, there is also quiet joy in a new friend and learning new things. The girl likes words and language and invents stories for the people in her life she doesn't know and that her mother won't tell her about, like her grandfather. Her new friend, Georg, an immigrant, is a metal worker and this plucky, unusual child need someone to be with while her mother is a choir practice each week. And Georg gently teaches her a different way of thinking that stays with her for life.

It's the story of a clip in time in their lives, where the girl wants to know about her family -- her twin that was lost, the father and grandfather she doesn't know. Her mother won't talk about it. At age 11-12, we all had a little world all our own and so does this child. I love the way the author made this voice so authentic.

I understand the book was up for a Pulitzer Prize and the author has won other accolades for her writing.

This is pretty quick read about an eleven-year-old girl, Clara, who loves language and makes up fake book reports for school because she can't stand to condense a book. Clara also invents stories about her father she's never met, her absent twin sister, and the elderly Georg Kominsky, who she interviews for school. There is much more to disclose, but I won't give anything away. I loved this book and highly recommend

I had this book on my TBR shelf for at least two years. So glad I finally read it. Very sweet and touching story of 11 year old Clara trying to learn about her family story.

I liked this book. A quiet, haunting story with vivid images and well drawn characters, and engaging (and yes, sometimes annoying) POV of the 11-y.o. Clara. The scenes and pacing were also written effectively, although the climax -- was there one? -- seemed rather anti-climactic, although it (the fire and the old man's death) did seem to elicit some action from other characters, her mother in particular, and Clara's own action to find the truth about her family.

A beautifully told, somewhat meandering story of a young teen coming to grips with the loss and grief that surrounds her. Clara has a wonderfully-developed, distinctive narrative voice that brims with personality.

A brief digression to reference an article from the New York Times, The Stories That Bind Us.

What is the secret sauce that holds a family together? What are the ingredients that make some families effective, resilient, happy? . . .

The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: develop a strong family narrative. . . .

The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned. The “Do You Know?” scale turned out to be the best single predictor of children’s emotional health and happiness. . . .

Clara has no family narrative. She has a mother. A taciturn mother who refuses to speak about the past, about Clara's unknown father, estranged grandfather, or twin who died in childbirth. She knows only that they existed. Her solution has always been to invent stories of her own. About everything. Her missing family, the people she encounters, objects. She creates fake books for her school book reports. She lives in stories, so much so she sometimes gets fuzzy about what is real and what she has invented.

And that, I think, is all I should say about Clara's tale. It's the way she would want things. Instead, I'll let some of her own words say more.

Let me tell you that a girl of eleven is capable of far more than is dreamt of in most universes.

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Tamar took a cursory look. How I love that word. There may not be anyone in the world who loves the word cursory as much as I do. That's how I am about certain words.

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Books? Books are sacred. Books are to me what the host is to the priest, the oasis to the desert wanderer, the arrival of winged seraphim to a dying man. That's the main reason why I can't write a book report. I can't stand what a book report does, boils a book down to a few sentences about plot. What about the words that make each book unique, an island unto itself, words like cursory and ingenuous and immerse? What about the heart and soul?

Plot? Who cares?

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The chives were the first things up in the spring. You could see them poking their narrow green stalks up before the snow melted, like miniature quills from the olden days. Chives thrive in the cold. They are not intimidated by lingering snow and ice. They are indomitable.

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Exclamation marks kept stabbing out into the air after the words that I didn't want to let out. Stab and stab and stab, words and more hurtful words pushing against each other inside me, dying to get out.

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I couldn't answer him. I was already into my train of thought. Words had piled themselves up in my brain and they could not be stopped. They had to emerge in the order I had already given them.

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"Stories? What about stories?"

"I told him that stories are the way you look at the world. That stories are your salvation."

I loved the way this book was written! Would highly recommend!

I stopped reading this book at about 145 pages. I was incredibly bored. I cannot stand an unreliable narrator. There was no driving plot. I did like the idea of an unlikely friendship between this girl and an elderly man in her town, but that wasn't enough to keep me interested. It felt very repetitive as well. Ugh. Not for me.