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My Life as an Alphabet by Barry Jonsberg
JUDGES' COMMENTS
My Life as an Alphabet is a deceptively sophisticated novel. Despite themes of loss, grief and alienation, this is an uplifting book told through the eyes of Candice Phee, a quirky, charming but brutally honest young girl who happily accepts her difference (even the nickname Essen for SN, or Special Needs) and expects everyone around her to do the same. Why identify her by a label when she has so much to offer her world? She enjoys reading Dickens and the dictionary, as much as she enjoys being extremely literal. What she doesn’t enjoy is her parent’s malingering depression after the cot death of her baby sister, her family’s feud with her uncle, and the sadness of her new friend, Douglas Benson (who believes he is living in the wrong dimension).
Jonsberg frames the narrative with Candice telling her life story in chapters, each chapter beginning with the next letter of the alphabet. These chapters are interspersed with letters to her pen pal Denille, letters to which she happily receives no reply. These are but one of the many examples where Candice negotiates the relationships in her life. Candice’s voice that shines through in this novel, a voice that is naively funny, sincere but deliberately obtuse, yet a voice that is perfectly believable. My Life as an Alphabet is a book that spreads hope and happiness.