From: Robin Smith <smithr>
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 10:25:08 -0600

Dear all,
        I too belong to a book group where we discuss Newbery books. Each year, we take a break from our march backward through history to read the current medalist. Everyone had found or borrowed a copy, so the discussion was a full one.
        I had been a cheerleader for this book when it was first published, so everyone knew how I felt. Others found some anachronisms distracting. (apparently there is a reference to a cheap watch and the members wondered if there was such a thing in the 50s, stuff like that) One member of the group had lost a sibling to cancer in the 60s and the book had, of course, special resonance with her. We all wondered about the course of the illness, where the patient would feel better and then worse and then better again. A doctor in the group explained that, yes, there was chemotherapy in those days, even if it wasn't quite like we think of it now and that treatment would have lead to the ups and downs we read about.
        Everyone found something to love about the book: the lists of wishes the girls made before falling asleep, the presence of the journals, the rich lives of the minor characters, the whole chicken sexing industry and the accompanying union organizing, the anger and frustration of the father, the terror of the trap...

        But, mostly, I think we loved the girls, Sammy, and the strength they found in their family.

Robin Smith The Ensworth School Nashville, TN 37212
Received on Thu 17 Feb 2005 10:25:08 AM CST