I finally grabbed this from my bookcase on a whim the other night and started in. For some reason, I had thought this was a fantasy. I don't know why, exactly, other than I read that almost exclusively for the longest time. It also means that I have the delight of discovering new-to-me young adult books that people normally read back in middle or high school that I skipped over.

Like this one.

If you were to ask what is the theme of this book, I'd have a hard time describing it. There's music, of course, as the main character is a cellist. It's not quite a coming of age story, though it's close. It's a story of family, and self, and music.

Silibance T. Spooner unexpectedly asks her father to take her to meet her mother, who she has never met. This starts a cross-country journey where she learns about her parents and the Age of Aquarius. There's some very well-done introspection on how people change over time and being true to one's self, as well as finding oneself through music.

There's also a secondary story about a mystery Soviet cellist that Sib spends an inordinate amount of time trying to track down, that ties in neatly and wonderfully with the main story.

There's really a lot going on in this book. I enjoyed it a lot. I only wish I had actually read it 15 years ago. I also wish it wasn't so long out of print. ( )

In the '80s, a confident 16-year-old cello prodigy makes some big decisions about the course of her life, which lead to discoveries about big decisions her parents made in the '60s. Beautifully drawn characters and a plot that, like a good melody, combines the familiar with the surprising. ( )

A story about Sibilance T. Spooner, 16 years old, an elite cello player who asks her father to take her to meet her mother who left "Sib" when Sib was a day old. Sib's father, Taxi, makes the cross country trip a retrospective on the Sixties to help Sib understand her mother. But both are in for surprises when they finally arrive. Well written, would recommend to students interested in the Sixties. ( )

Sibilance T. Spooner, a cello prodigy, travels across the country to meet her mother and to try out for a new elite music school. ( )