FYI: Before I get started I just want to make note that this is the same review that I have posted on my Myspace profile, and my Yahoo 360 profile.

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

The story takes place in the early 1900s. Eight-year-old, Katy Thatcher lives in a Victorian style home with her mother, father (a doctor), and the serving girl who's name is..Jessie.



Jessie..has a teenage brother named Jacob. Jacob is mental challenged, but has a special gift with animals. He knows and treats them better than anyone in the area. Sometimes Katy will find Jacob in the barn talking to the horses.



Well, next to Katy's house, Jessie's..sister, Nell works as their serving girl...Nell has dreams of becoming an actress and has a secret crush on the teenage boy who lives there. One day Katy sees Nell and the boy in the barn together. Nell seems to be flustered, and runs off with a giant smile on her face. The boy sneers at Nell as she leaves, and Katy knows then and there that the boy does not return Nell's feelings. AKA, he just wants sex.



As the months go by, Katy's mother has a baby and Katy begins to..prepare for her next birthday. She decides to invite Jacob to the party, even though the other kids tease him.



Katy..also realizes that something wrong is happening to the house next door. Nell suddenly had to quit her job as a serving girl, and return home to her parent's farm, and the teenage boy was sent away to a boarding school without saying "goodbye."



Finally, the day comes when Katy has her birthday, but Jacob doesn't show up. Upset that he didn't show up, Katy goes to sleep that night unaware that this will be the last night she will ever come in contact with him. In the middle of the night, Katy is awaken by light footsteps climbing up the stairs. Katy assumes that it is her father returning from a house call (remember he is a doctor), so she falls back asleep. As the night goes by, Katy is once again awoken, this time by..her father yelling and rushing out of the house, Katy's mother gathers Katy into her room and quietly tells her that there is a problem over at Nell's house, but doesn't say what it is. Then she tells Katy to stay put, while she feeds the baby in the nursery. About five minutes later Katy hears her mother scream, and rush out of the room. She pushes..the baby into Katy's arms, picks up the phone to dial Nell's number and tells Katy not to step into the nursery until her father comes home.



Okay, here is where I reveal the ending to the story. If you don't want to know, or you have already figured it out (I figured it out by the third chapter) stop reading.



It turns out Nell got pregnant by the teenage boy next door, that is why his parents shipped him off to boarding school. Nell didn't want the baby, so she refused to feed it. Jacob (Nell's brother) kidnapped the baby, and remembering that Katy told him that he was welcome in her house at any time, took the baby and placed it in the nursery in hopes that Katy's mother would take care of it. Of course the baby ended up dying, and that's what Katy's mother saw when she went into the nursery to feed her baby. Jacob was only trying to..help because he didn't know any better. He knew that if one mother animal didn't nurse her babies, that he could take the babies and give them to another animal to nurse, so he tried to do that to Nell's baby. Anyway, Jacob was found mentally insane, and had to be locked up for life in a asylum.

The story ends with a "whatever happened to the characters?" A short two page biography is featured on everyone of the main characters and it gives a summary of what happened to them after the incident.

Children over the age of twelve. Not for those easily offended.

The old Victorian era pictures of the author's friends and family that she had posted throughout the book.

The fact that this book is currently on a banned book list.

Write a review.

Sad

It tells about the horrible way society treated the mentally challenged back in the early twentieth century.

Lois Lowry

For one reason it is banned in certain libraries. So read it! Another is, I love historical fiction.

N/A

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Created Jan 26, 2007 at 11:08am • Submit your own review...