Icy Sparks

A funny, sad, and transcendent story of a young girl's growing up in Appalachia. Rural Kentucky in the 1950s is not an easy place to grow up, and it's especially hard for ten-year-old Icy Sparks, an orphan suffering from undiagnosed Tourette Syndrome, who lives with her grandparents. Icy's adolescence is marred by the humiliation of her illness. Its all-too-visible signs are the source of endless mystery and hilarity as everyone around her offers an opinion about what's troubling the girl. Eventually, Icy finds solace in the company of Miss Emily, an obese woman who knows what it's like to be an outcast in this tightly knit community. Narrated by now-grown Icy, this novel shimmers with warmth and humor as it recounts a young girl's painful and poignant journey into womanhood -- and the many lives she touches and enriches along the way. Gwyn Hyman Rubio is a fiction writer whose short stories have been anthologized and published in literary magazines around the country. She lives in Berea, Kentucky. Reader Kate Miller is a talented stage and screen actor who has appeared on Broadway in Amadeus Moon Over Buffalo.