Icy Sparks

Narrated by a grown-up Icy, the book chronicles a difficult but ultimately hilarious and heartwarming journey, from her first spasms to her self-acceptance as a young woman. Curious about life beyond the hills, talented, and energetic, Icy learns to cut through all physical, mental, and spiritual barriers to finding community and acceptance.

Along her journey, Icy faces the jeers of her classmates as well as the malevolence of her often-ignorant teachers—including Mrs. Stilton, one of the evilest fourth-grade teachers ever created by a writer. Called willful by her teachers and "Frog Child" by her schoolmates, she is exiled from the schoolroom and sent to a children’s asylum where it is hoped that the roots of her mysterious behavior can be discovered.

Here Icy learns about differences—her own and those who are even more scarred than she. Yet, it isn’t until Icy returns home that she really begins to flower, especially through her friendship with the eccentric and obese Miss Emily, who knows first-hand how it feels to be an outcast in this tightly-knit Appalachian community. Under Miss Emily’s tutelage, Icy learns about life’s struggles and rewards, survives her first comical and heartbreaking misadventure with romance, discovers the healing power of her voice when she sings, and ultimately—takes her first steps back into the world.

Gwyn Hyman Rubio’s Icy Sparks is a fresh, original, and completely redeeming novel about learning to overcome others’ ignorance and celebrate the differences that make each of us unique. In New York Times Notable Book and the March 2001 selection of Oprah's Book Club! Icy Sparks, Gwyn Hyman Rubio’s beautifully written first novel, Icy Sparks, is an unforgettable heroine in the tradition of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird or Will Treed in Cold Sassy Tree.

At the age of ten, Icy, a bright, curious child orphaned as a baby but raised by adoring grandparents, begins to have strange experiences. Try as she might, her secrets—verbal croaks, groans, and physical spasms—keep afflicting her.

As an adult, she will find out she has Tourette’s Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder, but for years her behavior has been the source of mystery, confusion, and deep humiliation. Narrated by a grown-up Icy, the book chronicles a difficult journey from her first spasms to her self-acceptance as a young woman.