The Weight of Water

Product Information

Kasienka is from Poland. She grew up there and thats her true home, where her heart is. But Kasineka and her mum head for England to find their long lost father who abandoned them. She starts school and gets put into a lower class. Finding friends becomes problematic. She feels like an alien amongst them, she has to pay the price for being different. She comes across Claire, who torments her and makes her life even more of a misery. But Kasienka turns to the thing she loves to do most. Where she can escape and move into another world. Flow and twirl in happiness, away from bullies and away from school. She is free and can let go and this is where she feels truly at home. Winner - Film by the Sea International Film Festival – Film and Literature Award for Kathryn Bigelow People who have ever felt at a loss with themselves. People who like to adopt happiness as their revenge. People who thought their first kiss way awkward *cringe*. People who always leave the best stories at a sleepover for when the lights are out.

The Weight of Water - Sarah Crossan - Google Books The Weight of Water - Sarah Crossan - Google Books

A murder of two women took place over 100 years ago on the island of Smutty Nose in the Isles of Shoals. Maren Hanvent moves to this very remote, sparse island with her fisherman husband. They are followed by her sister and brother with his wife, living lives full of hardship off the coast of Maine. As she tries to navigate her new surroundings, she makes a special friend, learns to look out for herself and even realize her potential. New Orleans is a city like no other. I remember Katrina like it was yesterday and the devastation it left behind. Living through the eyes of Tee and Rachel was amazing. A life of abandonment, poverty and hopelessness. Two sisters, two very different lives. Rachel’s revelations later on about how Talia was protecting her older sister and not the other way around, speak to the development of characters. I need to finally brush off my prejudice against books that are written in verse. Every single time I raise a sceptical eyebrow in their direction - completely unable to believe that this is anything more than just lazy storytelling - and every single time I find myself impressed. The Weight of Water was no exception. This is a delightful, if somewhat heartbreaking, little story that took me just over an hour to read. The characters were well developed and there were many interesting minor characters. But we may need more about the husband as he was one of the important characters. The book may have some editing issues. I really enjoyed the book and I highly recommend it.

This book is told in verse and is a story about a Polish immigrant coming to the UK and trying to fit in. However, The Weight of Water wasn’t all doom and gloom. I felt that the plot was solid, and actually quite enjoyable. The characters, whilst seeming to be distant, were still likable and it highlighted problems faced by many immigrants. These included on that happened at the beginning of the book, when a teacher assumes Kasienka wants to be called Cassie. Is this an act of Xenophobia? Or is this merely a teacher thinking that she is doing the right thing. As well as this, it highlights issues with bullying, especially with foreigners. Kasienka gets bullied herself, and many of the teachers seem to look away, or not notice. This is particularly relevant as last week was anti-bullying week. I would have loved to have had a few more poems set when Kasienka and her mum were in Poland. I think it would have added a great contrast between the different cultures. In The Weight of Water, Anita Shreve tells a story of pain, jealousy, and passion. Her characters and their closest relationships--with siblings, with partners--are trapped in isolated and claustrophobic spaces. Shreve tells the story of the murders of two Norwegian immigrant women on Smuttynose Island off the coast of New Hampshire in the late 19th century. She explores the 19th Century events in the context of a contemporary photographer's trip to the island to capture the location for a magazine story about the killings. The photographer travels to the island in a small sailboat with her husband, daughter, brother-in-law and his girlfriend. In the course of her research for the photo-shoot, she happens upon a previously unknown document, a letter from the one woman in the family who survived the killings. Shreve alternates sections of this letter, which describes what led up to the murders and what happened on the night they occurred, with the main structure of the book which moves fluidly between the interactions among the family of the photographer and the details of the history of the murder as it was revealed in the trial. In this way, Shreve allows the painful unfolding of events in the two different eras to play out alongside one another.

The Weight of Water Book Review | Common Sense Media The Weight of Water Book Review | Common Sense Media

I really liked this book because it tells Kasienka’s story in verse as she arrives in England to search for her father. Life is lonely for her. At school she doesn’t have many friends and at home her mother’s heart is broken. PDF / EPUB File Name: The_Weight_of_Water_-_Sarah_Crossan.pdf, The_Weight_of_Water_-_Sarah_Crossan.epub One of the messages I took from The Weight of Water is that whatever country we come form we are all the same, and that we should try and help not hinder each other. The plot is a dual timeline that parallels one another. The first timeline is modern day with a photographer and her famous yet emotionally damaged poet husband and young child going on a boat trip with her brother-in-law and his newish girlfriend. She is using the opportunity to work on a photo assignment of a historical double murder that took place centuries ago. During the trip, she notices the closeness developing between her husband and the girlfriend. The second timeline is the events leading up to the double murder. This book was very hard to put down and I was absorbed into the story from the get go.The book was adapted for a film of the same name, directed by Kathryn Bigelow and released in 2000. A brilliant story, written in poems, about the life of a girl called Kasienka. She gets bullied and lost her father. Will she ever find him? Ugh. This book intertwines two stories. One is the murder of two women and happens in a previous century. The other is about a photographer sent to where the women were killed to take pictures for a magazine assignment. The older story works well and I even liked the weird way the author intertwines the two stories where one flows into the next with only a paragraph break. The problem is that the more contemporary story falls completely apart at the end. There's a build up full of the photographer's regrets and if only's but I don't see how anything she did caused what happened in the end. Shreve is a lyrical storyteller, but this one did not come together for me as much as some. I loved the idea of the old murder mystery, combined with the present day...but felt little attachment to the characters of the present. Book Genre: Childrens, Coming Of Age, Contemporary, Family, Fiction, Middle Grade, Poetry, Realistic Fiction, Romance, Young Adult

The Weight of Water by Sarah Crossan | Goodreads

The story follows two sisters, born into poverty in rural Louisiana. It takes you through their lives from their seeming abandonment by their mother, to the present day 15 years after Katrina.

Armed with a suitcase and an old laundry bag filled with clothes, Kasienka and her mother head for England. Life is lonely for Kasienka. At home her mother's heart is breaking and at school friends are scarce. But when someone special swims into her life, Kasienka learns that there might be more than one way for her to stay afloat. This is the type of books thats gets to your heart and soul and stays there. It teaches you the tough life immigrants face. This story is written in blank verse, giving it a free feeling and a different style to most books you read. Kanoro was my favourite character. Kanoro is a Kenyan doctor who lives in the next room to Kasienka and her mum. Kanoro provides a ray of light, love, wisdom and kidness to the Polish immigrants.