Holmes, Sara Lewis

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Holmes, Sara Lewis

Personal

Married; children: two. Education: Attended University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; College of William and Mary, B.A. (government). Hobbies and other interests: Fitness, golf, theatre, reading, active travel, fairy tales, poetry.

Addresses

Home—Lorton, VA. E-mail—email@saralewisholmes.com.

Career

Author of novels and short fiction.

Member

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Authors Guild.

Awards, Honors

Ursula Nordstrom Fiction Contest award, 2004, for Letters from Rapunzel.

Writings

Letters from Rapunzel, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor of short stories to periodicals, including Spider and Cricket, and to anthologies, including Mountains of the Moon.

Sidelights

Sara Lewis Holmes won the 2004 Ursula Nordstrom Fiction Contest for the manuscript for her first novel, Letters from Rapunzel. Holmes' story has an imaginative premise: As a way to deal with worries over her father's hospitalization for clinical depression, twelve-year-old Cadance Brogan begins a one-sided correspondence with the unknown owner of local P.O. Box 5667. The box-holder is someone her father had corresponded with prior to his hospitalization, and for Cadance the letters allow her to create a fantasy metaphor for her situation. Within the confines of her one-sided correspondence, she becomes "Rapunzel," iso- lated and seemingly abandoned, while her dad's depression becomes a spell and an overly strict teacher assumes the role of Wicked Witch.

Praising Cadance as an "endearing" protagonist "whose imagination and ability with language" make her stand out from the novel's other teen characters, Claire Rosser noted in Kliatt that "Holmes' novel-in-letters balances "wildly funny" commentary with more sober reflections on "a family in crisis." The author captures "the conversational tone characteristic of middle graders," noted a Publishers Weekly reviewer, the critic adding that the narrator's "poignant" letters to her unknown recipient "will keep thoughtful readers involved" in the girl's emotional life. In Kirkus Reviews a writer noted that, although Holmes' efforts to balance humor with more serious matters may confuse readers, her story's "contradictions can be intriguing" and "may … cast a spell over some readers." Letters from Rapunzel captures "the universal angst of adolescence," observed D. Maria LaRocco in her School Library Journal review, the critic concluding of Cadance that Holmes' preteen protagonist "leaves readers with the wisdom that one must rescue oneself before rescuing others."

Regarding her fictional heroine, Holmes commented to SATA: "I loved fairy tales as a kid; they were full of real blood and danger and love and courage and most of all, magic, which I totally believed in. Everything that mattered was there. For Cadence, not only are fairy tales something she shares with her dad, but they're also her way of making sense of what's happening. I think she's right to look for other explanations, to search for her own words, to make her own magic and find her own happy ending. Don't we all want that?"