Seeing Sky-Blue Pink

Seeing Sky-Blue Pink
By: Candice Ransom

This book tells of the story of a girl learning to adjust to a new stepfather, life in the country, and the lack of perfect days with maple walnut sundaes. Maddie, an eight-year old girl had her life in Manassas, VA uprooted when her mother married her new stepfather, Sam. She first cannot let go of the life she had in Manassas, but over time she finds the value in wheelbarrow taxi rides, weatherman cats, and seeing sky-blue pink. This book is a heart-warming novel about embracing new experiences and new family members and about finding joy in them both.

I chose to read this book for two reasons. I first looked for a book by Candice Ransom because I attended a conference at which she was a guest speaker. Her tales of the country life reminded me of stories of my own so I thought it might be fun to seek out one of her books. However, I selected Seeing Sky-Blue Pink because the plot itself seemed to relate so much to my own personal experiences.

Maddie was eight when her mother remarried and they left city life for a home on acreage in the country. I was 12 and I left the town boundaries, not a city. However, it was still a massive transition. Within a year, I went from having two dogs and three cats in my backyard and to having two donkeys, one horse, two lambs, four pigs, six chickens, one rooster, five dogs, and three cats. To say  was a bit shell-shocked is putting it mildly. But over time, I found a peace, a value in the solitude of country living; the same solitude that Maddie seems to find.

The title Seeing Sky-Blue Pink, might seem strange to some but the second I read it, I knew they were talking about sunsets. That's exactly the color you can see, along with thousands of other odd mixes. Maddie doesn't understand what Sam is talking about when he suggests painting her new room sky-blue pink. She thinks he is teasing her, and she cannot directly ask because she doesn't want to seem silly in front of him. One evening, he takes her outside and shows her exactly what he is talking about. I think this was really the start of the beginning of their relationship. Sam really takes her in as his daughter; he builds her a tree house, buys her a new lunch box, saves her a raccoon print, and rescues Buckingham (her precious stuffed animal), ignoring a construction job he had to do so. The relationship between Sam and Maddie was a beautiful tale of a little girl who did not think her father loved her, who was terrified that her stepfather wouldn't either, and who discovers that her stepfather really loves her.

At the end of the novel, Maddie is upset because she wanted to give Sam a perfect day for his  birthday and nothing is working right (he was too big to sit in her swing while she read to him, too big to sit in her playhouse, and the tiny cake she made was too small). But when Maddie tells Sam this he explains that every day with Maddie and her mother is a perfect day, well maybe not every day is perfect, but they are exactly what he wants. he then reveals that what he did not tell her earlier when she asked him if he was scared of anything was that his biggest fear was that she wouldn't living with him out in the country and he really wanted her to. She tells him that it's the best.

Candice Ransom puts so many stories in here about country life. I have been given rides in a wheelbarrow, just like Maddie. I had special spot on our acreage, like Maddie. And my neighbor had cows, too! This story reminded me of the lesson I learned so long ago. Change isn't always bad; in fact it can be really good. Sometimes it can be scary, and it doesn't always go like you plan. My junior year of high school, my mother and I moved back into town, and it was amazing how I place I was so scared of moving to became a place I was so scared of leaving five years later. But in all of it, good can be found. We just have to look and we can find our sky-blue pink anywhere.