Maura's Angel

by Lynne Reid Banks

Book Overview

It all started with a shattering bang. Maura found herself flat on her face on the pavement. For moments there was nothing, just blackness and silence. But she knew. Once again, a bomb had exploded in the streets of Belfast. Maura lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her life is hard. Her poor mother, thin and tired, depends on her to care for the baby, get her six-year-old brother off to school, and dress and feed her big sister Colleen, who is as...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0380975904
• ISBN13: 9780380975907
• Release Date: May 1998
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.7"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

Maura

My 12-13 yr old daughter loved this book, even read it twice - unheard of! She's one we've had to work with on her reading, she prefers comics. The book does deal with tough issues. Poverty, conflict-war (and a father absent, off to fight it), and the older daughter (Maura) having big responsibilities to her siblings, including a teenage, retarded sister. But it is also heartening and wonderful. As well as having a character that tween girls can sympathize with.

angelic visitor

Maura has a difficult life,growing up in war times and helping to take care of her severely retarded sister(who it turns out has a pure soul).She was also a twin,left twin-less after birth,like Elvis Presley was.Her twin was named Angela.One day Maura meets a girl who looks enough like her to be a twin,except that she is flawless without scars and stuff like that.Her name is Angela.Turns out she is an angel,and she has come to help Maura in all she does,and the longer she stays the more human she becomes.But the day comes that Angela must leave,in a human and a noble way. Lynne Reid Banks is a unique author.A particularly good line was Angela's, "Our souls are the same" when speaking of males and females.We live in a twisted MArs and Venus,scientific mumbo-jumbo world,so thank you Lynne,for letting Angela say it so simply , Our souls are made the same. We need more minds like Lynne Reid Banks.

An unpredictable story

Maura's Angel is a wonderful and unpredictable. The angel"Angela" is beautifully portrayed and the author did a fine job in Angela's role as a family member.I highly recomend this story to anyone.