It's been a long time since I read a book that left me with a smile like this. 
 I grew up in a reading family; many of my fondest memories involve listening to one patent or the other read out stories (novels, poetry, folklore) while I perched at their side. Perhaps, then, it is unsurprising that the voice of the storyteller brought me right back to that place of wonder and contentment. 
 Karen Lord has a way with words that I will always envy. Although this was her first published work, it's the third that I've read. As different as it is from her science fiction, her voice is still quite distinctive. I think I'll always love her prose. 
 The prose is good, the story unfolds at precisely the right place--my own words are thoroughly inadequate to describe this. Not a word out of place, indeed! 
 Really, the only loophole I still wonder about is (view spoiler)[why Paama collected her tears under the stone? It was pointed out, so I kept waiting for the significance because it seemed so odd, but it never came up again. (hide spoiler)] 
 I suppose now I'm just gushing, so I'll wrap this up. But A+ work. No regrets. Any book that can make me smile like that is gold to me.