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John Neufeld |
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THE HANDLE
AND THE KEY is the moving story of a young boy whose past is filled with
foster homes who finally is adopted. But can he trust the kindness of these
people when others were so different.
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"Thoughful and honest. Neufeld, author of the classics
Lisa, Bright and Dark (1969) and Edgar Allan (1968), uses
a fascinating perspective to explore the challenges associated with
adopting an older child and the effects it may have on the children
already in the family. Unsettling and memorable." "This low key novel about a family's adoption of
an older child is the genuine article. The depiction of changing family
structures, children's fears and jealousies, and parents' attempts to
maintain the family as things change are very real in this restrained
gentle story--as heartwarming as it is true to life. "In a story like this it might have been easy to
let Mary Kate and Dan become stereotypes...but Neufeld never allows
that to happen. Dan shows some spunk, but gradually, in a real-life
sort of way, and Mary Kate is allowed to be really quite horrible in
the way only middle school girls can be...For a child there are many
lessons in the spare story..." |
