Description

National Book Award Finalist * Newbery Honor Book * Coretta Scott King Award Winner

This towering classic from the esteemed author Virginia Hamilton "is like a thoughtfully designed African American quilt. It is finely stitched, tightly constructed, and rooted in cultural authenticity."*

Why had Brother Rush come to her, with his dark secrets from a long-ago past? What was the purpose of their strange, haunting journeys back into her own childhood?

Was it to help Dab, her older brother, who sometimes took more care and love than Tree had to give? Was it for her mother, M'Vy, who loved them the best she knew how but wasn't home enough to ease the terrible longing?

Whatever secrets Brother Rush's whispered message held, Tree knew she must follow. She must follow Brother Rush through the magic mirror, and find out the truth. About all of them.

Katherine Paterson, reviewing this powerful novel in The New York Times, commented: "Just read the first page, just the first paragraph, of Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush. Then stop—if you can. The last time a first paragraph chilled my spine like this one, I was sixteen years old, hunched over a copy of Rebecca."

*Geraldine Wilson in Interracial Books for Children Bulletin

About the Author

Virginia Hamilton's books have won many awards and honors. One of these, the first book ever to win both the John Newbery Medal and the National Book Award, M.C. Higgins, the Great, was also the recipent of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award. Her Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush—a National Book Award Finalist, Newbery Honor Book, and Coiretta Scott King Award winner—is another towering classic of young adult literature. The Planet of Junior Brown was a Newbery Honor Book in 1971, and four of Virginia Hamilton's other books have been named Notable Children's books by the American Library Association.

Praise For…

“This is Hamilton at her best, with a humane acceptance of people in their struggle, and hope for the power of their love.” — School Library Journal (starred review)

"Characters as complex, contradictory, and ambivalent as is life itself: sometimes weak, sometimes attractive, always fiercely human. Few writers for young people are as daring, inventive, and challenging to read as Virginia Hamilton.” — Horn Book Magazine

"Just read the first page, just the first paragraph, of Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush. Then stop—if you can. The last time a first paragraph chilled my spine like this one, I was sixteen years old, hunched over a copy of Rebecca. It fairly reaches off the first page to grab you. Unique...wonderfully human." — New York Times

"This is a superb book, convincing and profoundly affecting.” — Publishers Weekly

"One of Hamilton's deeply felt family stories. Like other Hamilton novels this has its rough edges, but they are outweighed here by the blazing scenes, the intensity of Tree's feelings, the glimpses of Dab through her eyes, and the rounded characterization of Vy." — Kirkus Reviews