Girl with the Silver Eyes (Apple Paperbacks) [Paperback]

Willo Davis Roberts (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 9 and up | Series: Apple Paperbacks

Katie, who has supernatural powers, attempts to start a new life in another town with hermother. The attempt succeeds until Mr. Cooper asks Katie too many questions.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Willo Davis Roberts wrote many books for adults and children during

her long and illustrious career. Three of her children's books won Edgar

Awards, while others received great reviews and other accolades. The

One Left Behind would have been her hundredth book for children. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Paperback: 198 pages
• Publisher: Scholastic (January 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0590442481
• ISBN-13: 978-0590442480
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #615,570 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you read it, it will become a favorite, January 21, 2005

By 

Matt Hetling "Matt" (Bethel, ME USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Girl with the Silver Eyes (Apple Paperbacks) (Paperback)

Katie is different from her peers; she has silver eyes, can move things with her mind, and can even read the minds of animals. But she's also a 10 year old girl, and she is beset by the usual problems of fitting in with the other kids, and relating to her mother. But her life takes a turn for the worse when a mysterious man starts asking questions about her. She is eventually forced to strike out into the world in an attempt to learn more about herself, and to help herself deal with the special pressures she must face.
The Good and the Bad:
This is a great book, not least of all because the premise is incredible. Every ten year old dreams of having superpowers, and this book inserts that exciting proposition into a realistic background that is more typical of young adult reading. As a child, I read this book again and again, and even remember having dreams in my adult life that are related to the imagery in the book. The writing is clean and engaging, and allows us to fully enjoy the fascinating story as it unfolds.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended for extremely gifted children 6 & up, September 26, 2006

By 

Lydia Joyce - See all my reviews

This review is from: Girl with the Silver Eyes (Apple Paperbacks) (Paperback)

This book was written in 1980, but I read it for the first time eleven years later. Honestly, I picked it up because of the cover. *g* I was on a paranormal kick after having read Anne McCaffery's To Ride a Pegasus and Pegasus in Flight (both good books, but the second is great) and though it looked like typcial Apple Paperback fare, I figured it was worth giving a shot.

First, what the book isn't. It isn't brilliantly written. It isn't fabulously plotted. It relies on coincidences that definitely stretch credulity. The end was contrived.

But what it is is wonderful in its own way. It's the story of a 9-year-old girl who is diffeferent in two ways: first, she is incredibly intelligent, and second, she has silver eyes and paranormal powers. The story centers on her paranormal powers, but in many ways, it's as much about the way her intelligence makes people see her as about anything else. By using the paranormal powers as a framework, the author can speak quite bluntly about extreme giftedness in children in a way that connects viscerally with them. This is hardly an accident, as Katie's intelligence is mentioned in conjunction with her other "strangeness" almost every time.

The author frankly states that many people hate people who might seem "better" than them simply for existing and that they scare people. She portrays Katie's differentness not as something that is wrong with her-however others might treat her-but as something of value. She confirms the experience of many very gifted children by creating a parallel in Katie's life, and she also gives those children the holy grail of having others like them through Katie's successful quest to find three others who are the same as she is-she offers up the hope of a group identity to individuals who might never have experienced any sort fo group. She also gives Katie the gift of an adult around whom she can be herself without fearing judgement, dislike, fear, or censure. And the end offers the most wonderful vision of all while still admitting the limitations of existence in such a statictically unlikely minority. The new group of children learn that there's an entire school for kids like them, but the downside is that it's far away and, to some extent, the people who run it share some degree of clinical interest (versus PERSONAL interest) in the children. But on the other hand, their differences are no long muttered about and whispered about by their parents-they're openly acknowledged, and as they are acknowledged, they are ACCEPTED and no longer treated as a fault. A compromise is struck in which the children can go to school like normal and live with their parents like normal for a while and meet on Saturdays for guided advanced lessons and for practice with their paranormal powers, but there is the possibility-even likelihood-that the children will choose to go to the special school at some point in the future.

This book is a relevation and a validation for the isolated extremely gifted child, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. The paranormal twist might give it a slight Indigo Child odor, but that would be invisible to a kid, and there's plenty to redeem it, anyhow.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read this almost twenty years ago and still love it!, January 8, 2002

By 

--corinne-- (Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Girl with the Silver Eyes (Apple Paperbacks) (Paperback)

I read this book when I was seven. Now I'm 26 and still love it! I became a bookworm after reading books like this one and now I'm a librarian.
I think back on this book fondly from time to time. 'The Girl with the Silver Eyes' has just stayed with me. I started asking about Thalidomide after I read this story.
I treasure so many of the books I read in elementary school, among them: Bridge to Tarabithia and Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Patterson, Anastasia Krupnik by Lois Lowry, Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls, Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt,

Why are there so many wonderful children books while adult books are dominated by mystery and romance schlock? <<Sigh>>