Dicey's Song
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''Dicey's Song'' is a novel by Cynthia Voigt. It won the
Newbery Medal The John Newbery Medal, frequently shortened to the Newbery, is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), to the author of "the most distinguished contr ...
for excellence in American
children's literature Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. In addition to conventional literary genres, modern children's literature is classified by the intended age of the reade ...
in 1983.


Plot

Picking up where ''
Homecoming Homecoming is the tradition of welcoming back alumni or other former members of an organization to celebrate the organization's existence. It is a tradition in many high schools, colleges, and churches in the United States and Canada. United St ...
'' left off, Dicey Tillerman and her three siblings, Sammy, Maybeth, and James, are now living with their widowed grandmother Abigail Tillerman, or Gram as the children call her, on her farm just outside Crisfield, Maryland. Because the Tillermans' mom just left them in the parking lot in Provincetown, the children have the chance to start living a completely new life in their new family home, even though several of the major issues of ''Homecoming'' are not resolved. Dicey has trouble letting go of her siblings enough to let Gram take over as a parental figure. She also worries about her mother Liza, who is catatonic and seriously ill in a
psychiatric hospital A psychiatric hospital, also known as a mental health hospital, a behavioral health hospital, or an asylum is a specialized medical facility that focuses on the treatment of severe Mental disorder, mental disorders. These institutions cater t ...
in
Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
. While in their new school, the Tillermans make several new friends: Mr. Lingerle, the elementary school's music teacher, who begins giving Maybeth
piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...
lessons; Mina, a friendly African-American girl who goes to school with Dicey; and Jeff, a high school student who likes to play the
guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...
. To help Gram support the family, Dicey starts to work for Millie Tydings, the owner of the local grocery store, whom Gram has known since childhood. Gram soon comes to terms with having to accept
Social Security Welfare spending is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance ...
payments to help with the costs of raising her four grandchildren. She also must confront and reexamine her past, particularly her relationship with her deceased husband and her three children. Gram refuses to discuss her past with the children, and their attempts to find out about it by climbing into the attic are met with anger. As the children settle into the routines of their new school and after-school jobs, Gram receives a number of letters from the psychiatric hospital in which the children's catatonic mother resides. The letters do not appear to bring hopeful news, although Gram does not discuss their contents with the children. Dicey is frustrated that Gram will not open up and talk about her past, or their mother's past as a child growing up with her two siblings in the same house that Dicey and her brothers and sister are now living. She is also frustrated that her grandmother will not tell her what is in the letters from Boston, beyond the fact that her mother is no better. In December, the psychiatric hospital in Boston calls and informs Gram that Liza is in a critical state and may not live much longer. Dicey and Gram travel to Boston, and find Liza catatonic, not responding to any treatment. Liza soon dies and, since they can't afford the cost of a
funeral A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect th ...
or of transporting Liza's body from Boston to Crisfield, Gram and Dicey decide to cremate her. Dicey is given a hand-carved wooden box by the owner of a local gift store who is touched by her situation. When Dicey and Gram arrive back in Crisfield, the family buries the wooden box containing their mother's ashes under the
paper mulberry The paper mulberry (''Broussonetia papyrifera'', syn. ''Morus papyrifera'' L.) is a species of flowering plant in the family Moraceae. It is native to Asia,Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus. The magazine's publisher, Kirkus Media, is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, no ...
'' said, "Through all the hardships, comforts, and passages, Dicey remains the sturdy presence we met in Homecoming; she and Gram make a strong, crusty pair, and the other children come along according to their observantly individualized courses. A resilient family and a gratifying journey's end." In a retrospective essay about the Newbery Medal-winning books from 1976 to 1985, literary critic Zena Sutherland wrote, "The characterization is consistent and perceptive, the setting solidly established, and the plot elements are firmly knit by a writing style smooth enough to compensate for the occasional lag in pace that comes with iteration."


References

{{Newbery Medal 1982 American novels American young adult novels Newbery Medal–winning works Novels set in Maryland Crisfield, Maryland Atheneum Books books Eastern Shore of Maryland in fiction Children's books set in Maryland Children's books set in Boston Provincetown, Massachusetts in fiction