My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece - Tapa dura

-An ALA 2013 Notable Books for Children Pick-A Kirkus Best Children's Book List Selection-"Most Deftly Handled" Atlantic Wire 2012 YA/Middle-Grade Award

* "In this powerfully honest, quirkily humorous debut novel...Pitcher tackles grief, prejudice, religion, bullying, and familial instability."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

* "[A] striking debut. Realistic, gritty, and uplifting."--Kirkus (starred review)

* "Straddles that fine line between funny and tragic... As a study of grief's collateral damage, it deals with the topic realistically without losing sight of hope."--Booklist (starred review)

* "Compelling and believable...by turns heartbreaking and hysterically funny... This is an important book that could be used in classes and book-discussion groups. Don't let it fall through the cracks."--School Library Journal (starred review)

"It lives off the page. It has a warmth you can bask in; an honesty you can cut with a knife." --The Guardian UK

My sister Rose lives on the mantelpiece. Well, some of her does. A collarbone, two ribs, a bit of skull, and a little toe.
To ten-year-old Jamie, his family has fallen apart because of the loss of someone he barely remembers: his sister Rose, who died five years ago in a terrorist bombing. To his father, life is impossible to make sense of when he lives in a world that could so cruelly take away a ten-year-old girl. To Rose's surviving fifteen year old twin, Jas, everyday she lives in Rose's ever present shadow, forever feeling the loss like a limb, but unable to be seen for herself alone.

Told with warmth and humor, this powerful novel is a sophisticated take on one family's struggle to make sense of the loss that's torn them apart... and their discovery of what it means to stay together.