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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Novelist Shreve recollects her years spent from ages 11 to 13 at Warm Springs Polio Foundation in Georgia: "Traces are little whispers of life in muscles destroyed by the polio virus." The traces of this eloquently written memoir, however, are not merely physical; they are the whispers of the time, brief glimpses into the social climate of the 1950s, into the religious longing of a lonely young girl hoping for a connection, into the mindset of the president who led the country despite a debilitating handicap. While the events take place as Shreve recovers from surgeries that would allow her to walk better, polio becomes a minor character; her friendships with the others in the facility, her innocent romance with a fellow patient and her growing attraction to the priest take center stage as she tries to make herself into a "good" girl: "I remember reading once," she writes, "about the strange attractor, a star that unsettles planetary balance, which was the role I seemed to play in our family life." The writing of this beautifully told story is delicate and precise, even as she calls into question her own memories: "we lived in a kind of maze, a finely spun fairy tale created by my parents in which some things were clear and some were fuzzy.... I assumed that what I saw was true. I didn't realize until I was older that seeing is a matter of choice." (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
It's hard to tell whether Shreve's affecting book on her two years at the Warm Springs Polio Foundation is more memoir of adolescence or agonizing confession. But no matter. What is clear is that, when she entered the facility at age 11, she got off to a running start at teenage rebellion. From developing a prohibited friendship with the daughter of a black cleaning woman to sneaking into the boys' wing to, finally, the stunt that triggered her swift removal from Warm Springs, Shreve proved that a wheelchair was no hindrance to preadolescent high jinks. Despite her precipitous departure, she maintains vivid and mostly fond memories of the place and, especially, of partner-in-crime Joey Buckley and of Father James, on whom she developed a serious crush. Her recollections of the period, the facility, and its staff evoke a time when the U.S. was desperate for solutions to the raging polio pandemic. An appealing memoir and a significant snapshot of an era. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
See all Editorial Reviews
Novelist Shreve recollects her years spent from ages 11 to 13 at Warm Springs Polio Foundation in Georgia: "Traces are little whispers of life in muscles destroyed by the polio virus." The traces of this eloquently written memoir, however, are not merely physical; they are the whispers of the time, brief glimpses into the social climate of the 1950s, into the religious longing of a lonely young girl hoping for a connection, into the mindset of the president who led the country despite a debilitating handicap. While the events take place as Shreve recovers from surgeries that would allow her to walk better, polio becomes a minor character; her friendships with the others in the facility, her innocent romance with a fellow patient and her growing attraction to the priest take center stage as she tries to make herself into a "good" girl: "I remember reading once," she writes, "about the strange attractor, a star that unsettles planetary balance, which was the role I seemed to play in our family life." The writing of this beautifully told story is delicate and precise, even as she calls into question her own memories: "we lived in a kind of maze, a finely spun fairy tale created by my parents in which some things were clear and some were fuzzy.... I assumed that what I saw was true. I didn't realize until I was older that seeing is a matter of choice." (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
It's hard to tell whether Shreve's affecting book on her two years at the Warm Springs Polio Foundation is more memoir of adolescence or agonizing confession. But no matter. What is clear is that, when she entered the facility at age 11, she got off to a running start at teenage rebellion. From developing a prohibited friendship with the daughter of a black cleaning woman to sneaking into the boys' wing to, finally, the stunt that triggered her swift removal from Warm Springs, Shreve proved that a wheelchair was no hindrance to preadolescent high jinks. Despite her precipitous departure, she maintains vivid and mostly fond memories of the place and, especially, of partner-in-crime Joey Buckley and of Father James, on whom she developed a serious crush. Her recollections of the period, the facility, and its staff evoke a time when the U.S. was desperate for solutions to the raging polio pandemic. An appealing memoir and a significant snapshot of an era. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
See all Editorial Reviews
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