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From the prologue of THE SILENT BOY:
.... By thirteen I already knew that I wanted to be a doctor, too.
I read accounts in the news of the war that was raging in Europe,
and I could not wrap my mind around the reasons for it or the terrible
logistics of battles far away. I listened to my parents talking
to their friends, our next door neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Bishop,
as they fretted over their oldest boy, Paul, who was just finishing
Princeton then and should have been looking ahead to law school
and to joining his father’s firm one day. But Paul was already
talking of his yearning to enlist in a war that had not yet, in
1915, begun to take American boys.
But at thirteen, when I read the war news, I thought only of the
wounded and how if I were a doctor I could set their bones and heal
their burns. I had watched my father do so many times.
I was not yet four when San Francisco toppled in an earthquake and
burned. Even so young, I heard talk of it.
At eight, I had heard of the terrible fire in New York, of the factory
girls, scores of them, leaping from the windows, their clothes aflame,
and dying, burned and mangled, on the sidewalk while people watched
in horror. My mother had said, "Shhh" to Father when she
saw me listening, but he, seeing that my interest was real and not
just a child’s curiosity, spoke to me of it later. Though I
was still a child, we talked of the ways in which death comes, and
how perhaps, not always, but sometimes, a doctor could push death
away, could hold it back, or at the very least make it come easily.
By thirteen, by the time I had the sailor dress of which I was so
proud, many of those moments were past. San Francisco had been rebuilt.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire had brought about new laws
to protect factory workers.
And on the edge of town, when I was thirteen, stood the stone building
called the Asylum. It still stands there today, though newspaper
editorials call it the Eyesore in an attempt at wit, and there is
talk of tearing it down to make room for a housing development.
Its windows are boarded over now, and the grounds are littered with
debris. Sometimes, in my growing-up years, when Austin was my beau,
we would walk out that way, holding hands. Sometimes I found myself
glancing at the ground, wondering if I would spot the gleam and
flicker of a cat’s-eye marble dropped by a boy. I wondered,
then, as I still do, about the boy who had once given me a kitten
and changed my life forever. His name was Jacob Stoltz.
His is the story I mean to write down now.
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Other
Stand-Alone books
THE
SILENT BOY A sensitive and
moving story of a wide-eyed young girl growing up at the beginning
of the twentieth century and the influence of the farm community
around her.
A
SUMMER TO DIE Thirteen-year-old Meg envies her sister
Molly's beauty and popularity, and these feelings make it difficult
for her to cope with Molly's illness and death.
FIND A STRANGER, SAY GOODBYE Natalie
Armstrong, an attractive, happy teenager about to enter college,
sets out to discover the parents who gave her up at infancy.
AUTUMN STREET When her father
leaves to fight in World War II, Elizabeth goes with her mother
and sister to her grandfather's house, where she learns to face
up to the always puzzling and often cruel realities of the adult
world.
TAKING CARE OF TERRIFIC In
Boston's famous Public Garden, fourteen-year-old Enid and her four-year-old
pal, Tom Terrific, learn lots about life from new friendships with
a bag lady and a saxophone player.
RABBLE STARKEY Twelve-year-old
Rabble Starkey's mother is hired by Mrs. Bigelow to look after her
children while she's in the hospital. Living in that huge house,
Rabble feels she's finally found a home. But soon she and her mother
must question what's really best for them.
STAY! KEEPER'S STORY This
is the story of a dog who tells his own tale. As a pup he is separated
from his mother and siblings. Through it all, Keeper can't forget
his long lost little sister. If only they could be together again,
life would be perfect. But an old enemy is watching and waiting
to make his move.
NUMBER THE STARS Ten-year-old
Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen often think about
life before the war. But it's now 1943 and their life in Copenhagen
is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching
in their town.
LOOKING BACK
It is a rare album memoir for both children and adults;
it's straightforward text is accompanied by beautiful and sometimes
heartbreaking black-and-white photographs.
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