Edward's Eyes
(Reprint)

Gr 46When three-year-old Jake, the fourth child in an extraordinary family, is presented with his new brother, he is mesmerized by the baby's gaze and overwhelmed with awe and love. Their special bond grows, and it becomes clear that Edward is an unusual, insightful child who sometimes senses things before they happen. When Edward is eight, their parents announce there will be another baby, and he knows that it will be a girl. They will call her Sabine, and he will sing "O Canada" to her and read her "Goodnight Moon" in French. Edward loves to play baseball and organizes games on the family's seaside lawn where he practices knuckleball pitches with the guidance of a 68-year-old neighbor and his 90-year-old father, a veteran of the Negro League. Jake's spare narration describes an idyll of family life in which parents dance around the house, children are free to explore their surroundings, and books are central. Tragedy is gently foreshadowed, and Edward's death in a biking accident shatters them all, but perhaps no one more than Jake, who lashes out at his parents' decision to donate Edward's organs and corneas. When he meets the cornea recipient, a young ballplayer, Jake can finally begin to accept that Edward does indeed live on. MacLachlan's simple, moving prose includes light touches of humor and weaves a spell that draws readers into an intimate family circle in which hope prevails and deep love promises to mitigate loss. A gem."Marie Orlando, Suffolk Cooperative Library System" Copyright 2007 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

From the start, it is clear that Edward is very special. The day his delightfully eccentric parents bring him home from the hospital, his mother places him in the arms of older brother and narrator Jake, who is immediately smitten: His eyes are the dark mud-blue of the night sky, but there are surprising little flecks of gold in them. They stare right into my eyes.... I want to say that I love him more than anything or anyone I know. But I am only three, and when I try to talk I cant say all those words. Yet Jake, as this resonant story unwinds, proves to be remarkably articulate. His recollections of Edward shape a memorable portrait of a boy who, as a toddler asks to have "Goodnight Moon" read to him in French, insists on walking two steps ahead of his older siblings on his first day of kindergarten, never once strikes out while playing baseball and teaches himself how to throw an impossible-to-hit knuckleball. Edwards vision extends far beyond the power of his striking eyes: he somehow knows, when his mother becomes pregnant, that this sixth baby will be a girl. Shell be Sabine. And well have fireworks! he announces confidently. Newbery Medalist MacLachlan brings her story to a conclusion that is both unbearably sad and uplifting, delivered, like the whole, in perfect pitch. Ages 8-12. "(Sept.)" Copyright 2007 Publishers Weekly Used with permission.