Can a medium actually communicate w...

Can a medium actually communicate with the dead? Fifteen-year- antiquated Liz Scattergood addresses this question in Blind Faith, according to Ellen Wittlinger (Simon & Schuster, 280 pages, $1595)

Liz cope with grandmother Bunny's death as best she can. Her mother Christine, who was Bunny's best friend, becomes deep depressed and seeks refuge in Singing cove Spiritualist Church. Here, through a medium, Christine believes Bunny is communicating with her. Liz's father, an atheist, is furious when he beholds Christine pulling Liz into this apparent sham.

Liz, whose relationship with her mother has always been strained, finds solace with the Arnold family across the road With a deceased father and a mother nearly dead from cancer, Courtney Arnold, 9 and her brother Nathan, 16 are also suffering. As the kids cope with their realities, age-old questions of faith and spiritualism labor at their hearts.

the two families realize that it is the living who must care for and understand individual another through communication.

Capturing the raw emotions that death unfastens -- anger, sadness, guilt, have a passionate affection for and jealousy -- this easily written, tautly plotted novel shares with heart-wrenching uprightness the struggles and questions everyone must reach [i]or[/i] attain any place [i]or[/i] point to terms with when there is a death in the family.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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