One

by Sarah Crossan

Overview

Winner of the Carnegie Medal * Winner of the YA Book Prize * Winner of the Children’s Books Ireland Book of the Year Award

Tippi and Grace share everything—clothes, friends . . . even their body. Writing in free verse, Sarah Crossan tells the sensitive and moving story of conjoined twin sisters, which will find fans in readers of Gayle Forman, Jodi Picoult, and Jandy Nelson.

Tippi and Grace. Grace and Tippi. For them, it's normal to step into the same skirt. To hook their arms around each other for balance. To fall asleep listening to the other breathing. To share. And to keep some things private. Each of the sixteen-year-old girls has her own head, heart, and two arms, but at the belly, they join. And they are happy, never wanting to risk the dangerous separation surgery.

But the girls' body is beginning to fight against them. And Grace doesn't want to admit it. Not even to Tippi. How long can they hide from the truth—how long before they must face the most impossible choice of their lives?

Carnegie Medal–winning author Sarah Crossan gives us a story about unbreakable bonds, hope, loss, and the lengths we will go to for the person we love most.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062118752
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/15/2015
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.50(d)
Lexile:	890L (what's this?)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Sarah Crossan is the author of One, which won the Carnegie Medal and the Bookseller's prize for young adult fiction and was named the Irish Children's Book of the Year. It was also named to the White Ravens list, was an Indie Next selection, and earned four starred reviews in the US. In 2018, Sarah Crossan was named Irish Children’s Laureate. Two other novels, The Weight of Water and Apple and Rain, were also shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. Sarah Crossan has lived in Dublin, London, and New York and now lives in Sussex. She graduated with a degree in philosophy and literature before training as an English and drama teacher at Cambridge University. Since completing a master's in creative writing, she has been working to promote creative writing in schools.

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/13/2015
Grace and Tippi are 16-year-old conjoined twins attending private school after only being homeschooled. With an alcoholic and unemployed father, an anorexic sister, and a mother frantically trying to hold her family together, the girls cling to new friends Yasmeen and Jon, two outcasts who defend the girls and treat them as equals. Just when Grace falls for Jon despite Tippi’s warning—“We can never ever fall in love”—the girls learn that an illness in one jeopardizes both. Facing financial hardship, they are asked to make a difficult decision that carries enormous consequences. Crossan’s free-verse deftly conveys the twins’ heightened emotions through repetition, creative spacing, and lyrical similes (“Her breath is as delicate as lace”). Writing mainly from Grace’s perspective, Crossan (The Weight of Water) interjects the voices of friends and family, offering a glimpse of the difficulties conjoined twins and their loved ones’ face. In asking important questions about how bodies shape identity, Crossan’s novel achieves a striking balance between sentimentality and sisterly devotion. Ages 13–up. Agent: Sarah Davies, Greenhouse Literary Agency. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

“Grace’s elegant and intimate first-person narration combines with her wry sense of humor to create a likable character in a believable situation. This is honest, unapologetic realism from a diverse perspective not often seen in young-adult fiction. Not to be overlooked.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Employing free verse to chronicle their coming of age, British author Crossan smoothly embeds historical and medical information regarding her well–researched topic while intently portraying each twin’s personality and unique characteristics. …Crossan trusts her characters and her readers to find their better selves through her gently paced story.” — Booklist

“Writing mainly from Grace’s perspective, Crossan interjects the voices of friends and family, offering a glimpse of the difficulties conjoined twins and their loved ones face. In asking important questions about how bodies shape identity, Crossan’s novel achieves a striking balance between sentimentality and sisterly devotion. — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Poignant and compelling…Though the sisters have unique physical challenges, they share that universal teen desire to fit in, fall in love, and find a distinct identity.” — Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)

“Through her understated, evocative narration, Grace’s coming of age becomes a meditation on difference, a celebration of the deepest bonds of sisterhood, and…a stirring tragedy. Grace’s uniquely moving “story of how it is to be Two” will inspire compassion-and elicit plenty of tears.” — The Horn Book

“A tender yet resilient story of closeness and identity…it’s a story of Grace, who’s built her entire identity and existence on being entwined with her sister and who now contemplates what it would mean to be a single person.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)

From the Publisher

Poignant and compelling…Though the sisters have unique physical challenges, they share that universal teen desire to fit in, fall in love, and find a distinct identity.

Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)

Through her understated, evocative narration, Grace’s coming of age becomes a meditation on difference, a celebration of the deepest bonds of sisterhood, and…a stirring tragedy. Grace’s uniquely moving “story of how it is to be Two” will inspire compassion-and elicit plenty of tears.

The Horn Book

A tender yet resilient story of closeness and identity…it’s a story of Grace, who’s built her entire identity and existence on being entwined with her sister and who now contemplates what it would mean to be a single person.

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)

Employing free verse to chronicle their coming of age, British author Crossan smoothly embeds historical and medical information regarding her well–researched topic while intently portraying each twin’s personality and unique characteristics. …Crossan trusts her characters and her readers to find their better selves through her gently paced story.

Booklist

Employing free verse to chronicle their coming of age, British author Crossan smoothly embeds historical and medical information regarding her well–researched topic while intently portraying each twin’s personality and unique characteristics. …Crossan trusts her characters and her readers to find their better selves through her gently paced story.

Booklist

10/01/2015
Gr 9 Up—Crossan's latest is written in free verse and follows two sisters through their unique high school experience as they make the most important decision of their lives. Tippi and Grace are "literally joined at the hip—united in blood and bone." While they have two heads, two hearts, two sets of lungs and kidneys, and four arms, they are one from the waist down. They are happy together; they embrace life and could not imagine being separated. That is, until their doctor recommends separation as the only fighting chance for them to survive an illness. They must then consider the dangerous operation that could kill them. The author successfully depicts what it is like to be two and then what it is like to be one. Readers will be taken on an emotional roller coaster throughout this book; feelings range from contentment and joy to desolation and anxiety. The supporting characters such as Tippi and Grace's first and subsequently best friends, Jon and Yasmeen, greatly add to the touching plot. Fans of Jandy Nelson's I'll Give You the Sun (Dial, 2014) will appreciate this lyrical world. VERDICT A homage to the love between sisters that readers will remember for a long time.—Morgan O'Reilly, Riverdale Country School, NY

School Library Journal

★ 2015-06-10
Two sisters come of age in this thoughtfully crafted, well-researched verse novel of emerging selfhood. Life for 16-year-old Grace and her sister Tippi hasn't been easy: they're conjoined twins—literally joined at the hip. They've spent their lives dealing with staring strangers and invasive questions, but the girls are happy together and wouldn't have it any other way. Grace and Tippi have been home-schooled until now, but when the state decides to pay for the girls to attend a private high school instead, they begin their junior year among peers. After a few unfriendly gestures from other students, the girls befriend outsiders Yasmeen and Jon (Yasmeen is HIV-positive, and Jon is on scholarship) and settle into a life of firsts most "singleton" teens take for granted: learning to drive, getting drunk, skipping class, and for Grace, falling in love. When Grace is diagnosed with a bad heart, the twins have a difficult decision to make: risk the dangerous separation surgery so Grace can qualify for a transplant, or stay together and get sicker until they both die. Grace's elegant and intimate first-person narration combines with her wry sense of humor to create a likable character in a believable situation. This is honest, unapologetic realism from a diverse perspective not often seen in fiction for teens. Not to be overlooked. (author's note) (Verse fiction. 12 & up)

Kirkus Reviews