Dani’s parents are positive, accepting and warm.Īnother positive adult in Bird’s life is her teacher Ms.
That choice isn’t praised, but it further illustrates the healing appeal of even the symbols of family love and comforting acceptance. Her friend’s family is so appealing to Bird, she even goes to their house and uses a spare key to break into the empty home when she reaches a particularly low and depressed point in her life. And she openly longs for the girl’s family’s connection, good humor and displays of affection-ultimately trying to instill of bit of that positive change back at home. In fact, when Bird is invited over to her friend Dani’s house, she marvels at its cleanliness and warmth. That family dysfunction is used, though, as an object lesson to help point young readers to things they should avoid or others they should seek. Floating objects that sometimes bumped or slammed into each other before breaking apart.” “The Thomas family was like its own solar system. Bird, who tends to be very analytical about the things in her life (even to the point of drawing schematics of machines for fun) describes her family like this: The Nelson Thomas kids walk on egg shells around their parents and run to their rooms to escape the flare ups. But they’re so focused on their own immediate needs and the tensions that have grown between them as a couple, that they seem oblivious to the impact their constant bickering causes. They’re not terrible people: They love their kids and take time with them. You never really know exactly what’s coming next.īird’s parents, Mike and Tam, are, quite frankly, pretty poor parents. Of course, even the hopeful Bird knows that it’s probably silly to pin all that on a space launch. Maybe it will help others dream of good things, too-dreams of the future, of space, of belonging, of making friendships, of building better families. Maybe the upcoming Challenger launch will change that somehow. She longs for something better, but she’s invisible. She has her role to play at home and at school, but she doesn’t really fit in either of those orbits. The boys run for cover and their sis is generally the only one who knows the right bit of attention-refocusing oil to splash on and keep a major malfunction from happening.īird is starting to fear, however, that nobody inside or outside her family can really see her much at all. When Mom and Dad lean in to the next inevitable argument, it’s Bird who senses the coming break down.
And that’s a problem that Bird then has to deal with. And conversations generally get quashed with silence, or end up in an argument. Their home is a cluttered and disheveled mess. It’s a complicated machine of squeaking, clunking gears that never quite mesh. The Nelson Thomas family doesn’t work well. If nothing else, Bird is the one person in her family who instinctively tries to hold things together. Of course, it wouldn’t be a good thing for Bird to disappear. Because she’s kinda afraid that she’s … disappearing. But, in spite of her quick and curious mind, Bird still isn’t sure she could ever fulfill that kind of dream. It’s a special aspiration spurred on by the upcoming Challenger space shuttle mission that they’ve been talking a lot about at school.
The space in between we used to dream full#
Then there’s Bird.īernadette-or “Bird” as she was dubbed by a sibling who couldn’t pronounce her full name when they were little-dreams of being the first female space shuttle commander. But he wrestles to keep his temper from flaring up and burning himself and others. Fitch is pretty good at playing video games at a local arcade. And he’s equally lousy at school, in danger of failing seventh grade for a second time. That’s especially true since he fell and ended up with his right hand in a cast. And the three Nelson Thomas siblings-13-year-old Cash and 12-year-old twins Fitch and Bird-are all having a little trouble finding a smooth-running fit in life.Ĭash loves basketball, but he’s pretty lousy at it.
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