The Shrouding Woman
By Loretta Ellsworth
(Henry Holt and Co. (BYR), Hardcover, 9780805066517, 160pp.)
Publication Date: June 12, 2007
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Paperback
Categories: General
 |     |
The moving story of a young girl's struggle to face her mother's death.
"She traveled to our small white house near the Iowa border on a buckboard, her green bag caked with the dusty road . . . I knew that she was called "the Shrouding Woman" because I'd heard Papa use those words to describe her. I didn't know what it meant but I knew it had something to do with death."
It was once common practice for small towns to have a shrouding woman to help put their dead to rest. Still, when eleven-year-old Evie's Aunt Flo-herself a shrouding woman-comes to town, Evie knows little of a shrouding woman's ways and wants nothing to do with this aunt of hers, especially after her own mother's recent death. But as this mysterious woman slowly makes her way into Evie's life, her strong and sensitive presence brings far more than signs of death to a grieving girl's home.
Set in the mid-1800s, this beautifully written story, centered on the little-known practice of shrouding, touches on death and healing with sensitivity and quiet dignity.
Loretta Ellsworth has had short fiction published in several literary journals. This is her first novel for young readers. She lives in Lakeville, Minnesota.
 |
1Q84 Haruki Murakami Knopf |
 |
The Marriage Plot Jeffrey Eugenides Farrar, Straus, and Giroux |
 |
The Sense of an Ending Julian Barnes Knopf |
 |
Death Comes to Pemberley PD James Knopf |
