The Rope Walk - Carrie Brown

I loved this book. It was a coming of age story with several different themes. All phases of life were represented, but not in a sappy way. The rope walk turned out to be a journey - an end of life journey. I can't hardly keep it all straight. The main characters were Alice and Theo - both 10 years old. Some things that were supposed to sentimental, but weren't:

• the death of Alice's mother - she died right after Alice was born. Alice doesn't have any memory of her mother so no time is spent mourning her. I want to feel sad about this though, but I don't really get the chance.
• Elizabeth's journey to the US from Vietnam - Elizabeth is the housekeeper, the person who cooks and cleans for the family. She escaped from Vietnam in a boat with her son and daughter in law leaving everything behind and risking her life. When Alice asks her what that was like she says something like "boring, thirsty, what do you think?"

Really, my favorite part of this book was the relationship between Alice and Theo. Theo was such a great character, always prepared for anything but fearful of ordinary things like doctor visits. Alice begins to lose her innocence when she realizes that nobody misses Theo and that there is a possibility of a child not being loved.

I kept thinking that the times were older than they were. Alice was just a year older than my daughter Maggie, but she could have been Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. I had a hard time visualizing this in modern times.