It felt appropriate for me to spotlight Ingrid Law‘s Savvy now, because for me the reading of this beautiful book will always be linked with my sobbing through the story several years ago, as I healed from losing my brother in a car accident.  Since the 15th of this month (yes, I know…crazy anniversary, eh?) marks four years since my brother and his wife were killed, I’m taking the chance now to give back a little and point others to this book.

Isn’t that a gorgeous cover?  It was the cover that made me pick it up, but the story just sucked me in.  I didn’t know then that it would wring my heart out and wash it clean to air in the sunshine, but I could instantly tell it was going to be an awesome read.  The voice, the wry humor, the juxtaposition of modern life and old time yarn, clashing up against each other, they all spoke to me.

But perhaps most important, the Beaumont family and Mibs herself seemed real.  Sometimes gritty with sweat and dust, often warm with love and smiles, but always real.  And one of the things about car accidents and death is, they’re real.  In a world where maybe the weather forecast will happen and maybe it won’t.  Maybe that choice is right and maybe it’s not.  Maybe that scandal is real and maybe it’s smoke–having a beautiful book about a girl who’s real yet somehow still larger than life can help you deal with the hardest problems of life–like car accidents–that are equally real yet somehow larger than life.

Best of all, perhaps, I’m grateful that reading Savvy just then has added one more bright point to the memory of losing my brother.  There are others.  One is the image of all the many-colored helium balloons–released by his nieces and nephews at the end of the funeral–floating up in a soaring rainbow of colors against a blue sky.  Those kind of images help the hurt, and let the heart heal.  And Savvy did that for me.

Pass it on, maybe it will help someone else, as well. 🙂

“If cats had a savvy, it would be curling up in people’s laps, purring.  In fact, I think that might be how we exercise our savvy.  We store it up sleeping in the sunshine, because sunny naps are the stuff a savvy is made of.”

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