{"id":129,"date":"2012-04-26T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-26T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=129"},"modified":"2024-09-14T18:32:03","modified_gmt":"2024-09-14T23:32:03","slug":"w-for-widdershins-and-witches-body-of-water-by-sarah-dooley-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=129","title":{"rendered":"W for Widdershins and witches – Body of Water, by Sarah Dooley (book review)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bookWednesday – her home is gone in minutes<\/a>.
\nWondering why her best friend has gone into hiding.
\nWiddershins, her wonderful dog – gone forever?<\/p>\n

Why can’t people just be nice when they don’t understand someone? As nature-centered Wiccans<\/a>, Ember’s family stands out too much in this small Southern town, no matter how quiet they are. Her mom reads tarot cards<\/a> for townspeople who call her a witch behind her back and won’t even say hello to her at the store. Ember uses her spells only for peace, for clarity, to ward off Ivy’s nightmares.<\/p>\n

Her continuing search for loyal dog<\/a> Widdershins – “who was a good dog and came when I called her – six times out of ten” – and for objects that the fire left behind brings her close enough to former best friend Anson’s place every week that he might speak to her, tell her why he set the fire… but his silence is very, very loud.<\/p>\n

Float out on the lake with Ember, find balance and clarity on her favorite Body of Water<\/i>, feel how being homeless<\/a> doesn’t mean being hopeless.
\n**kmm<\/p>\n

Book info<\/b>: Body of Water \/ Sarah Dooley. Fiewel and Friends, 2011. [author’s website<\/a>] [publisher site<\/a>]<\/p>\n

My Recommendation<\/b>: Three hours after the fire, Ember wonders if Anson did it, if her best friend torched her family\u2019s trailer house everything they owned, if that would keep his father from doing worse things to them for their beliefs.<\/p>\n

Just because folks in the little Southern town call them witches doesn\u2019t make them bad people. Dad calls their beliefs Wicca, Mom says not-quite-Wicca and teaches young teen Ember spells for clarity and balance with nature and peace. She also says that revenge is a bad seed to plant in your mind as it just might take root in your heart.<\/p>\n

So now they\u2019re homeless, Mom and Dad and Ember and little sister Ivy. She can\u2019t find her dog Widdershins, and big brother Isaac is away at college. No room in Grandma\u2019s tiny apartment, as if that devout lady would welcome her pagan son and family anyway, so eventually they find themselves at Goose Landing Campground, beside the lake where Grandpa drowned, the event that stopped Mom and Dad\u2019s wanderings.<\/p>\n

Ember ventures back to her burned-out home every week, searching for things that the fire might have spared – half a pair of Mom\u2019s sewing scissors, a soup ladle \u2013 and for Widdershins. She mourns the loss of her spell journal, of Ivy\u2019s random collections, of her former best friend. The only place she finds peace is floating far out in the center of the lake, where the water and the sky hold her.<\/p>\n

And now it\u2019s time for school to start. How can Ember and Ivy attend when their address is a pup tent, when they have no notebooks or decent clothes? Can they ever find a place to live when Dad can\u2019t find a job? Did Widdershins perish in the fire or run away to find a safe home? Will Ember even be able to speak to Anson when she sees him again?<\/p>\n

A story that circles back again and again to home and family and hope, Body of Water<\/i> brings readers along on Ember\u2019s search for clarity and balance and peace. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com<\/a>) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday – her home is gone in minutes. Wondering why her best friend has gone into hiding. Widdershins, her wonderful dog – gone forever? Why can’t people just be nice when they don’t understand someone? As nature-centered Wiccans, Ember’s family stands out too much in this small Southern town, no matter how quiet they are. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[10,22,7,4,75,5,141,18,40,44,43,85,12,15,57,73,8,78],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","tag-a2z","tag-behavior","tag-beliefs","tag-belonging","tag-brothers","tag-coping","tag-dogs","tag-family","tag-fathers","tag-friendship","tag-growing-up","tag-nature","tag-refugees","tag-relationships","tag-sisters","tag-summer","tag-us-author","tag-witches"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14609,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/14609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}