Blister Bounces Back! Blister by Susan Shreve

Much has been written about childhood resiliency, that intangible quality which allows certain children to survive and thrive despite experiences which throw others for an emotional and maturational loop.

Susan Shreve's novel Blister shows how Alyssa Reed, whom her grandmother Daisy G. describes as "elastic," deals with a sudden load of trouble dumped on her by fate. Alyssa is a cheerful ten-year-old with five friends, a pleasant yellow clapboard farmhouse, four cats, chickens, and a goat, when her life turns upside down. The family's much-awaited second child is stillborn, Alyssa's mother falls into a deepening depression and ultimately an emotional breakdown, her father moves them to a drab apartment in town, and then moves out and acquires a young girlfriend named Tamara almost immediately.

Alyssa changes schools as she enters sixth grade and finds herself in a much changed social milieu. Visiting her dad's apartment, she approprates the flirty clothes left there by his petite and stylish girlfriend. Appropriately costumed, Alyssa morphs into Blister, a quirky confident sixth grader with a spiffy grownup wardrobe and a burning drive to make cheerleader at Bixley Elementary. Although Blister's mother has to hit bottom before she begins to come out of her withdrawal from life, Blister and her perky, swing-dancing grandmother draw on their core of resilience to bring things around to a better tomorrow for all.

Shreve takes her character into middle school in the sequel Kiss Me Tomorrow. Blister is an honest, open girl who meets life head on, sometimes with results she doesn't intend, but whose courage in the face of the challenges of 'tweenhood and life in general is admirable. Spending time with Alyssa"Blister" Reed is far better than hanging out with Massie Block's mean-girl Clique.