Author: Willo Davis Roberts (1928-2004)
Publication: Scholastic, paperback, originally published in 1980
Genre: Juvenile fiction
Setting: A mid-20th century midwestern city
Description: Until recently, Katie lived with her grandmother who was unnerved by Katie’s ability to move things using her mind. Katie knows she is different and she learned the word for what she can do – telekinesis – but she doesn’t understand why people fear and talk about her. After her grandmother dies, Katie is reunited with her mother and they move to the city but before she even has time to settle in, a mysterious man, Mr. Cooper, moves into the building and starts asking strange questions about her. Through eavesdropping, Katie figures out there may be other children like her with silver eyes and strange powers and she tries to find them. In the meantime, Katie hears Mr. Cooper speculating that she was involved in her grandmother’s death and runs away, fearing he wants to arrest her and she will have no one to stand up for her.
My Impression: When I saw this at a library book sale recently, I decided it was definitely worth 50 cents! Everyone who liked Lois Duncan’s books also appreciated this story (written for a middle-grade audience) of a smart but worried nearly-ten-year-old who just wants to be less alone. Katie’s parents divorced when she was three and she was brought up by her father’s mother who did not understand her and even burned one of her books when she caught Katie reading after bedtime! Other children tormented her for being different. Of course, I identified with the girl with glasses who reads so intently she forgets to turn on the oven for dinner. I was so glad when Katie makes friends with a neighbor in her apartment building, Mrs. M, who is kind and loyal, and lends her The Scarlet Pimpernel. Katie is a smart child, trying so hard to figure out why she is different and yet unable to resist using her power, especially against bullies, although that feeds the suspicions around her.
My Impression: When I saw this at a library book sale recently, I decided it was definitely worth 50 cents! Everyone who liked Lois Duncan’s books also appreciated this story (written for a middle-grade audience) of a smart but worried nearly-ten-year-old who just wants to be less alone. Katie’s parents divorced when she was three and she was brought up by her father’s mother who did not understand her and even burned one of her books when she caught Katie reading after bedtime! Other children tormented her for being different. Of course, I identified with the girl with glasses who reads so intently she forgets to turn on the oven for dinner. I was so glad when Katie makes friends with a neighbor in her apartment building, Mrs. M, who is kind and loyal, and lends her The Scarlet Pimpernel. Katie is a smart child, trying so hard to figure out why she is different and yet unable to resist using her power, especially against bullies, although that feeds the suspicions around her.
Katie sank onto the nearest chair, stroking Lobo’s head and back, trying to think. She had no one to turn to, no one to help her.Roberts wrote 99 books, primarily for children, and was a member of the Mystery Writers of America. Many of her books were mysteries or contained supernatural or gothic elements, a few of which I found at the library and she gave some of her papers to the de Grummond Collection. However, I just recalled I am not the only one who specifically remembers this book. Lizzie Skurnick in Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading spends several pages on this book, and like me condemned the anti-reading grandmother (mine also took my book away once, And Both Were Young, when she caught me reading after bedtime, but at least she didn’t burn it!).
Unless . . .
What about those other children? The ones who might be like her? Would they be able to help? Would they understand?
They seemed her only hope.
I have two favorite parts in this book: one is when Katie’s only friend her age, Jackson Jones, the paper boy helps her disappear by hiding her in plain sight at his sister’s slumber party; the other is when she and another silver-eyed child will a third into bring them hamburgers in the park, although they don’t even know him! As a reader, I was so glad when Katie finds the other children who share her silver eyes and telekinesis; although there are no easy solutions at the end it is clear Katie’s mother is not all bad and that the four children will have each other as they figure out how to navigate their special powers.
Source: Personal copy. I think this counts as a mystery for Carol's Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge.
This was one of my daughter's favorites! I used to send filled up circulation cards to authors, and I had one for one of Roberts' book, but she had just passed away. I mailed it instead to her husband, who wrote the most heartbreaking letter about missing her. I don't have many of her books left that are still in one piece, although my daughter owns this one!
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely thing to do! I am sure he was very touched. I think as a preteen I confused Willo Davis Roberts and Wylly Folk St. John who also wrote juvenile mysteries but both were popular in my libraries. I think both the supernatural aspect and the lonely girl theme made this book very popular.
ReplyDeleteI would've adored this as a child! My grandmother also did not really understand me being such a bookworm. As she was born in the 1880s I wondered how much of that was to do with the 'girls should not be seen to be reading because it smacks of intelligence and that won't get you a husband' mindest that would have been very prevalent when she was a girl. I certainly don't ever remember her reading a book. To be honest we were not a reading family and I think my mother wondered where I came from!
ReplyDelete