Exclusive interview with Cammie McGovern and a review of her new Young Adult novel about a high school girl with cerebral palsy
Rating: 3 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“This is my first YA book,” says Say What You Will author Cammie McGovern. “So I have to say I’ve loved getting to know teen readers, who are amazing and passionate in the way they fall in love with a book and with characters. I remember feeling that way myself as a teen, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had any readers come up and tell me they’re in love with a character in my book.”
McGovern’s sister is actress Elizabeth McGovern, who stars as Cora Crawley in Downton Abbey.
Besides being a writer, Cammie McGovern is a founder of Whole Children, an organization that runs after-school programs for kids with disabilities. “As the parent of an 18-year-old with autism and one of the founders of Whole Children, I’ve wanted to start writing stories about them for years. I’ve gotten to know a lot of kids and teens with disabilities.”
“The character of Amy is based very loosely on a little girl I first met when she was four years old,” says McGovern. “She was born with severe cerebral palsy. Her parents were told she would probably never be able to walk or talk. Even back then, though, she communicated beautifully with any adult. She laughed at jokes and squealed her delight at meeting new people. The more I got to know her, the more I began to imagine what her life might be like as a teenager.”
In Say What You Will, Amy is about to enter her senior year in high school. She’s near the top of her class, has managed to overcome her disability. She was born prematurely and soon after birth had an aneurysm. She uses a device to help her communicate with others. Mathew becomes one of her helpers. The two connect. She appreciates his honesty, but he has demons of his own. He’s got obsessive-compulsive disorder. His thoughts and rituals create their own hell for him.
A teenager learns to overcome her physical disabilities and reach out and live against a backdrop of typical high school challenges. Who am I going to prom with? What will my grade be on that test? But there is more here. A human connection to help people come out of their shell and grow as individuals. Not smooth sailing, but rather a tale of how two flawed people learn and grow.
“Originally, Amy’s story was meant to be an adult mystery, where she graduates from college with accolades and awards and then disappears completely,” says McGovern. “As part of the search to find her, her parents interview her old friends from high school who’d been hired to be her peer aides. The mystery never worked all that well so I set it aside for a long time.”
After two years working on a first draft, McGovern rewrote the story. “When I came back, I discovered the only part I really liked were the scenes where her friends from high school were talking about getting to know her, and especially this boy named Matthew who called her the best friend he’d ever made. From that original draft, I only used about fifteen pages in this version.”
McGovern has written three other books, all adult titles with mystery or suspense elements. Eye Contact is about a little boy with autism who witnesses a murder, told from the point of view of his mother who reads his clues to figure out what he saw. Eye Contact was optioned by Julia Roberts; Art of Seeing was optioned by David Boreanaz to direct.
McGovern is currently writing a new YA novel that will also feature a new characters with disabilities. “It’s set in a center like the one I’ve helped start in Hadley, Massachusetts,” says McGovern.
McGovern lives in Amherst Massachusetts., which she says is the smallest town in America with most colleges (five). She was born in Evanston, Illinois, and moved to Encino, Califonia when she was seven years old.
Hardcover, 352 pages, Publisher: HarperTeen (June 3, 2014), Language: English, ISBN: 9780062271105 $17.99
