Sing for a Gentle Rain

by J. Alison James

Book Overview

A boy's search for an explanation to a persistent dream leads him to travel back in time to an Anasazi cliff village in the thirteenth century, where a young girl needs his help to ensure the survival... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0689315619
• ISBN13: 9780689315619
• Release Date: October 1990
• Publisher: Atheneum Books
• Length: 211 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.6"
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

Nothing Left Out

J. Alison James has taken time travel out of the fantasy world and has put it into reality. In SING FOR A GENTLE RAIN, the author, J. A. James, is showing the reader how someone can change the past and how it will effect them and others for the rest of their lives. Though the use of vivid details, she takes the reader through ups and downs and twist and turns until the end where fantasy and reality are in one place. When one of the main characters, Spring Rain, acually sees two things that were impossible to see, J. A. James is making her point. When two very different things come together, like the rain and the strange man, it can change people's lives in a way that was unforeseen before. This book is about how James, a 17-year-old high-school student living in the 1990's Southwest, tries to learn more about the Anasazi tribe, which dissappeared centuries ago. While trying to learn more, James is sucked back in time to the 13th century Southwest. Spring Rain, an Anasazi girl living there, prays for rain every morning to end the long drought. She discovers James and they create a great friendship, and fall in love. J. A. James wants the reader to know that Spring Rain believes James has brought the rain because it started to rain when James arrived. Some of the tribespeople think he's a god, but others are suspicious because James can't even set a trap or shoot an arrow. The author brings the past and present together in reality by having the two conceive a child together. J. A. James is successful in shifting between the current and acient time periods. She gets right to the point and doesn't wander off like some authors. The knows exactly what's going on in the book because she puts a lot of attention to detail. J. A. James has a way of mixing fantasy with reality so that the story makes sense. A boy going back in time 700 years to help the Anasazi survive is believable in SING FOR A GENTLE RAIN.