I loved the way this author wrote - the characters are completely alive, funny and sad. There is a note of commradery (spelling?) in family that you just "get" without the author saying one word about it. It's so funny because the whole story long, the main character is just aching to get out of Kentucky where she lives and see everything else about the world. Yet, the author paints such a fun and vivid picture you wonder why she wants to leave? :) Not a favorite book, but certainly one worth reading. Twelve year old Chileda (aka Chili) Sue Mahony has always lived in Mercy Hill, Kentucky. She loves living there, but also wants to leave, doesn't want roots. Or at least she thinks she doesn't. When Miss Matlock returns to Mercy Hill and teaches English, she really teaches geography. See, she left for a couple of years to travel the world. Welfare child, Willie Bright, and Chili often go visit Miss Matlock, esp during the summer. They learn together, but Chili has to come to her own judgments about the past, the future, leaving and letting go, or staying. Chili loses her best friends, Ginny and Prissy, but makes new ones. She even gets her first kiss and clears out a plot and plants a garden. She dances with her cousin Lenny, and goes fishing with her Uncle Lu. Everyone she knows, even the annoying boy with a crush on her and her very pregnant Aunt Mimi will teach her something over the course of the summer. And Chili will make decisions and choices that will impact whether or not she can come and go. At it's core, To Come and Go Like Magic is a buildingsroman. The people in this book are carefully crafted and have a lot of wisdom to share. I love the way it's written in vignettes, which make is so much more beautiful. That's really what it is. A beautiful novel. I enjoyed it, because I am so much like Chili. I don't know what I want, but I think I do. I,too, want to come and go like magic. I want to travel the world. I will. I know I will. But I also have roots, and I'm not afraid to settle down in one place. Because in all of us there is a place called home.
Do You like book To Come And Go Like Magic (2010)?
12 yr old Chili has never been out of Mercy Hill Kentucky but longs to see the world.
—sabby
i love a story where a girl dreams about traveling the world someday.
—Willena
A nice bit of historical fiction set in Kentucky in 1975.
—omgitscatee
Sweet story of a seventh grader in the 1970's.
—Funkynerd
