About
Heartbeat Synopsis
"A stunning accomplishment. This story pierces the heart." --Chicago Sun-Times
RUN RUN RUN. That's what twelve-year-old Annie loves to do. When she's barefoot and running, she can hear her heart beating...thump-THUMP, thump-THUMP.
It's a rhythm that makes sense in a year when everything's shifting: Her mother is pregnant, her grandfather is forgetful, and her best friend, Max, is always moody. Everything changes over time, just like the apple Annie's been assigned to draw a hundred times.
Newbery Medal winner Sharon Creech masterfully weaves this tender and intuitive story told in free verse about a young girl beginning to understand the many rhythms of life, and how she fits within them.
Named one of the New York Public Library's 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing
"Tenderhearted. Vintage Creech. Its richness lies in its sheer simplicity." --School Library Journal (starred review)
"The story soars as Annie's feet fly." --Bookpage
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780060540241 |
| Publication date: |
26th December 2012 |
| Author: |
Sharon Creech |
| Publisher: |
HarperCollins |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
208 pages |
| Suitable For: |
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| Other Genres: |
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Press Reviews
Sharon Creech Press Reviews
'A tenderhearted story told in spare, free-verse poems. Readers will enjoy meeting Annie, her family, and friends and will appreciate her resilience and spirit. This is vintage Creech, and its richness lies in its sheer simplicity' (Starred Review) School Library Journal
Heartbeat is a warm-hearted, free-verse story from award-winning Sharon Creech, much in the same mould as her wonderful Love That Dog Financial Times
'Gets under your skin and you will want to read it again. Creech has the ability to write about relationships, particularly between young and old, in the most affecting yet unsentimental way' Scotsman
Author
About Sharon Creech
Known for writing with a classic voice and unique style, Sharon Creech is the best-selling author of the Newbery Medal winner Walk Two Moons, and the Newbery Honor Book The Wanderer. She is also the first American in history to be awarded the CILIP Carnegie Medal for Ruby Holler.
Her other works include the novels Love That Dog, Bloomability, Absolutely Normal Chaos, Chasing Redbird, and Pleasing the Ghost, and two picture books: A Fine, Fine School and Fishing in the Air. These stories are often centered around life, love, and relationships, especially family relationships. Ms. Creech's first novel for children, Absolutely Normal Chaos, was based on her own "rowdy and noisy" family. Growing up in a big family in Cleveland, Ohio, helped Ms. Creech learn to tell stories that wouldn't be forgotten in all of the commotion: "I learned to exaggerate and embellish, because if you didn't, your story was drowned out by someone else's more exciting one."
With a knack for storytelling and love of reading, a young Ms. Creech aspired to become a novelist: "To be able to create other worlds, to be able to explore mystery and myth, I couldn't imagine a better way to live. . .except perhaps to be a teacher, because teachers got to handle books all day long."
In college, Ms. Creech took her first writing courses and attended writing workshops. This renewed her enthusiasm for becoming a novelist. Following her studies in college and graduate school, Ms. Creech worked as an editorial assistant before deciding to become a teacher overseas. Now, after spending eighteen years teaching and writing in Europe, she and her husband have returned to the United States to live.
She and her husband now live in Maine, near a farm where her teenage granddaughter raises sheep.
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