From: Ginny Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 16:28:00 -600

I appreciate your comments about the characterization of family members in both books. As I reread The Haunting, I also found Claire, the stepmother, to be a wonderful parent, an almost perfect step-parent or birth parent - certainly the parent needed by Barney. As a reader, I was so glad Barney had Claire. I saw her as one of the ways Mahy provided to keep a young child from becoming too frightened while reading a quite scary story - for a young reader. There were other comforting dimensions for young readers, the pace, for example. Did you notice how Mahy paced the story, how an alarming plot event would usually be followed by something safe? One way Mahy accomplished this was by having Barney or Tabitha telling a responsible adult enough so readers know the children will be safe even if the fictional children don't know this. Did you notice other ways? ... Ginny Kruse
********************************************************************* Ginny Moore Kruse Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) A Library of the School of Education University of Wisconsin - Madison gmkruse at macc.wisc.edu
Received on Fri 11 Aug 1995 05:28:00 PM CDT