SOURCE: A review of Western Wind, in The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, September, 1993, Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 9-10.

In the following review, the critic admires Fox's spare but evocative prose in Western Wind.

[In Western Wind], eleven-year-old Elizabeth Benedict believes the reason she's being sent to spend August with her grandmother in a primitive Maine island cottage is the newly born brother on whom her parents lavish attention. Paula Fox uses an isolated situation, as she has done before, to delve into a child's deepening awareness—here, of her grandmother's value as a person, a painter, and an elder facing death with dignity. Through interactions stripped bare by a simplified life devoid of electronic distractions or electric conveniences, the two characters replace their formal connection with an affectionate respect that contrasts ironically with the one other family on the island, who comprise an odd mix of...