Author: Audrey Kane
Publisher: Wakefield & Quincy Press (no website available)
Rating: WORTHY!
Illustrated by Tory & Norman Taber
The Purple girl tells us her story, but not her name. She was born purple (and kudos to Kane for putting this in chapter one where it belongs! Down with prologues!!!), but the purple doesn’t just stay with her - it can spread to whatever (and whomever) she touches and wherever she walks. Fortunately, the color quickly fades from everything (and everyone) else but herself; she's permanently purple. The midwife is creeped out by The Purple Girl, but her mom & dad love her and raise her like any child in the world. But guess what, the color purple isn't the most fascinating thing about The Purple Girl. You'll have to read the novel to discover what is!
Even when she's sorely tempted by the chance to lose her purple for the price of her voice box (shades of The Little Mermaid!), The Purple Girl determines, aided by her dog Waxy, that she will remain steadfast in her purpleness. She does this on more than one occasion. During a time of drought, when The Purple Girl's family still has food growing in their garden, she meets Frankie, an extremely impoverished boy from the village who isn't afraid of her as everyone else seems to be. The two of them begin meeting in secret, but eventually Frankie's family must leave to seek work and food elsewhere and they must say goodbye. But The Purple Girl isn't destined for Frankie!
That and the illustrations are some of the great joys of this fine novel. It most assuredly does not go where you expect it to - at least it didn't go where I thought it would. Instead it went to much more interesting places and is the better for it. This novel should go down well for appropriate age groups. It's charming, it's well-illustrated, it features a strong and independent female main character, and it's neither too short nor too long.
I had only one complaint, and that concerns the negative portrayal of the "gypsy" girl, especially when this portrayal is going to reach and possibly influence young children to grow up with a prejudice where none need be created. I found it rather ironical that in a novel which is admirably teaching children that color-prejudice is wrong, we should risk teaching them a different prejudice. I appreciate the call for a miscreant or a scoundrel in fairy-tales, but is it really necessary to deprecate an entire people and portray them in a very unflattering light for the sake of having your villain? That aside, I recommend this book. You can always omit the Romani girl's origin when you read this to your kids, now can't you?!
