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Before Little Miseries, Kimberly Olson Fakih wrote two works of fiction for children, High on the Hog (1992) and Grandpa Putter & Granny Hoe (1991), as well as the lexicon, Off the Clock (1994) and The Literature of Delight, a guide to funny books for kids. She worked in publishing for many years, as a freelance reviewer at The New York Times and elsewhere, later at Kirkus Reviews, and currently as a senior book review editor at School Library Journal. She is an Iowa-born, Minnesota-raised, and permanent New Yorker.
The book... shows how catastrophic the secret world of grown-ups can truly be on the delicate web that is a family... it shows Fakih as a gifted chronicler of children's helplessness and familial angst. -- Kirkus Reviews [In] this sharp depiction of a Midwestern girl's coming-of-age... Fakih's vivid depictions of Kimmy's adolescent dilemmas blend nostalgia for the period with a visceral sense of her protagonist's pain. -- Publishers Weekly This is one of my favorite books of the year. Kimberly Olson Fakih perfectly captures the ways in which children see everything adults wish they would miss, and the intense effects those things, both the good and the bad, have on them as they grow. From the beginning to end, Kimmy is a character that drives home that the adults around her continuously let her and her siblings down, and sometimes with a row of sorrows and a journal of broken things, it is up to the child to stop generational curses and step up to bring the little miseries to the light. -- Lydia McCollum, Still North Books, Hanover, NH Kimberly Olshan Fakih's Little Miseries is a lively and energetic account of growing up in the Midwest in the last century, in a variegated family assailed by disasters great and small. -- Lynne Sharon Schwartz, author of Truthtelling Little Miseries, indeed. But first there's joy, wonder and resiliency. Fakih lovingly captures the rapture and mysteries of childhood en route to a loss of innocence that is heartbreaking yet triumphant. -- Michael H. Weber, Oscar-nominated screenwriter and co-writer of (500) Days of Summer Praise for Kimberly Olson Fakih: Fakih offers a refreshing and often humorous child's-eye view of the world... -- School Library Journal Praise for High on the Hog: ...Fakih's characters are leading fully examined (and discussed) lives; but though her narrative is leisurely, it holds interest with its unexpected flashes of humor and its engaging evocation of the Heartland and some of its sons and daughters, as well as the tantalizing mystery. A beautifully constructed book, rich in offbeat descriptions and exchanges that leave room for just the kind of serendipitous insights that 'GS'--who does turn up--extols. -- Kirkus Reviews Praise for Grandpa Putter & Granny Hoe: ...It's all amusingly recorded in Fakih's briskly lilting narrative and neatly cadenced dialogue. ... meanwhile, the grands' bickering makes a comical stand-in for the more bitter conflicts children endure between parents or siblings. -- Kirkus Reviews
