Jasmin

Priscilla Galloway was an English consultant in Willowdale, Ontario.

Jasmin Marie Antoinette Stalke has a name fit for a queen, but she is about to fail grade six. In the incredible clutter of her large and loving family, in the midst of looking after her younger brothers and sisters, including the retarded Leroy, she has neither space nor time for herself. Her last hope, her project for the science fair, is wrecked by her mischievous brothers.

Jasmin decides to run away and live in the wilderness like old Meg Merrilies in her favourite poem, who “lived as she did please.” Eventually Jasmin holes up in a coyote’s den, sculpting out of the river clay some of the animals she observes. The land becomes almost a character in the novel as the wild storm keeps Jasmin, lightheaded from hunger, day after day in her refuse-turned-jail. Meanwhile, Leroy too has run away, missing desperately the sister who understands him. It seems as if Jasmin will never be able to go home.

But she is found by two artists who understand about the overcrowding and lack of privacy, who respect her and value her work. The sculptures become the basis of another science project. All is not ideal in Jasmin’s world at the end, but everything is possible.

This is a moving and poignant story about the inner feelings of a child who has had little chance to be a child. Young people will surely relate to Jasmin’s feelings and understand her problems. The characters are painted with loving sympathy, including Olive, the children’s fat mother, who loves and totally accepts each of her brood, including stinking Leroy when he is eventually found. Feelings of acceptance and exclusion are explored on many levels; Jasmin’s rescuers, for instance, are outsiders in the little closed community.

The book would be excellent for grade 6 or 7 class study; it can be extended in many directions: pioneer life, environmental studies, family lifestyles, feelings, values. It is well written, a super read, and well deserving of its 1982 New York Times Children’s Book Award.