The Window - Hardcover

Ingold, Jeanette

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0152012656 ISBN 13: 9780152012656

Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers, 1996

Synopsis

A girl, blinded by the auto accident that killed her mother, comes to terms with her disability--and her new life. “This is a sensitive and well-told story, inhabited by appealing and believable characters, and given a twist by the unexpected element of the supernatural.”--Kirkus Reviews

About this title

About the Author

JEANETTE INGOLD, the author of six young adult novels, has been writing since she worked as a reporter on a daily newspaper many years ago. Her novel Hitch was a Christopher Award winner. She lives in Missoula, Montana.

Reviews

After the car accident that leaves her blind and kills her mother, Mandy, 15, goes to live with her elderly great-aunt and uncles in Texas. Coping with her grief, blindness, a new school in a new town, and relatives she didn't know existed makes Mandy resentful and angry. Enter Hannah, a classmate assigned to guide Mandy around the building for the first few days, who refuses to tolerate Mandy's self-pity and draws her into normal school and social activities. Mandy also meets Ted, who is deaf, in one of the special classes she takes, and he becomes a friend and more. In addition to settling in at school, Mandy has found that, through her bedroom window, she can ``see'' her family's unhappy past, gaining an understanding of her guardians, her beloved mother, and the father she never knew. This is a sensitive and well-told story, inhabited by appealing and believable characters, and given a twist by the unexpected element of the supernatural. That element, however, doesn't steal the story's credibility; the scenes outside the window are carried to a wistful, grieving Mandy like whispers on the wind. (Fiction. 12+) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Gr.7^-10. When Mandy is blinded in an accident that kills her mother, the teen goes to live in Texas with relatives, who heretofore have not known of her existence. Another YA novel ringing with excess tragedy? Perhaps, but Ingold does such a good job of bringing Mandy's character to life, along with that of her great-aunt Emma and those of great-uncles Abe and Gabriel, that the reader gladly sticks with the story to find out what will happen. And there's plenty to find out. From almost the moment Mandy enters her new home, her mysterious family history begins to emerge. The girl seems to hear voices from another time and is gradually able to piece together what happened that caused her mother's family life to be unknown for so many years. The voices and time travel devices are deftly handled and make the suspension of belief workable. The real power of the story, however, is the girl's voice, which makes us feel what it would be like to suddenly face the world with no sight, and the touching, albeit unsentimental, efforts of the relatives to accept and love her. As it turns out, Mandy's social adjustment at school is almost too smooth to be convincing, and she may end up overloading a bit on self-knowledge and success, but this is nonetheless a strong and satisfying work. Anne O'Malley

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1: "Stay seated, Mandy," the flight attendant says. "When the other passengers have gotten off, I'll come get you."

Right. She should try staying seated herself, when everybody else is standing up and the guy by the window wants out and stuff's tumbling from the overhead bins and you get bumped half into the aisle.

A man says, "Watch it," and some other man says, "Hey." Suddenly there's a pocket of hot silence. Everyone around has just realized I can't see.

"Those must be your folks. They've got a sign with MANDY on it."

Then a woman is hugging me, Aunt Emma, I guess. Her front is soft and she's shorter than me. She laughs, flustered. "I knew you were fifteen, but somehow I hadn't pictured...I mean, I thought of you younger..."

A man hugs me, and another, hugs of wool jackets and aftershave, clumsy big hugs, and their voices rumble.

One tells me he's my uncle Gabriel. Great-uncle Gabriel. They're all greats, for that matter, Great-uncles Abe and Gabriel and Great-aunt Emma, who is Gabriel's wife.

"So, Mandy," he says. "I hope you're going to liven up our gloomy old house."

"Gabriel, hush," Aunt Emma whispers. "It's too soon."

"Don't worry about me," I say. "It's OK."

And even if it's not, I can take care of myself.

That's my gift. Other girls get blond hair and nice families and brains that tell them the right things to say. I've got knowing how to take care of myself, and how to face what I have to face.

Like that night I woke up in the hospital and heard the nurses talking about whether they should take me to my mom. One said, "I hate for her to see," as if there was any way I could through bandages over eyes that had stopped working.

Besides, did that nurse think I couldn't imagine how my mom was? That I couldn't guess what happened to people when they got thrown from cars and smashed against utility poles?

I fussed until she put me into a wheelchair, took me to another floor, to intensive care, and I was too dumb to wonder why I was getting to go there now when they hadn't let me for days and days.

"Here's your mother," the nurse told me, and I had to take her word for it. The only sounds in the room were machine sounds.

I found my mother's arm, reached for her face, but the nurse moved my hand away. "You'll dislodge the tubing."

I listened for Mom to make some noise, even to just breathe out loud, but all the room became one steady, tiny monitor blip.

"Hey, Mom," I said, "you sure we can afford the rent here?"

I could feel the nurse get uptight, knew she was thinking: Hard case; people like these don't have feelings like they should.

"Don't worry, Mom," I said. "I'll get along."

My mom died the next morning, without me ever knowing if she'd heard.

This is my first time to Texas. The cold air surprises me. Somehow I thought Texas, even in the north, would be warm and dusty-smelling, not damp and cold and made empty by a wind without scent. There is no sun; I would feel it through my eyelids. I would see it. I can see sunlight, bright light. There is none this day.

We drive a long while after leaving the Dallas airport, first over highway and then back roads, and then I'm inside a house and still chilly. Aunt Emma puts a bundlely sweater on my shoulders and I hear a furnace coming roaring on. "Cold November," says Uncle Abe. "We'll have heat in just a few minutes."

I can't stop a shiver.

"Em," says Abe, "guess we've got another cold-blooded one," and I think he's saying that I'm mean, but he's not.

Gabriel says, "You Uncle Abe means thin-blooded. Emma always wants the heat up."

The house smells of cooking, onion and broccoli and meats layered one meal into the next, nice smells, but smells.

And of flowers, but not sweet ones like my roommate's at the hospital. I ask Aunt Emma what kind and she says marigolds. "About the last, I guess. We could get frost any night now."

"Most people plant marigolds to keep deer away," says Gabriel, "that's how bad they smell. But Em likes them."

"An honest smell," says Aunt Emma, "and they're easy to grow." Her answer starts another question. It seems to hang in the air: This Mandy, does she grow easy?

No, I want to shout. I don't grow easy. I'm trying the best I can and messing up terribly and I don't see how the three of you are going to make anything any better.

No, I want to shout. Don't you read? It's never easy to raise a child, not even for the people whose job it's supposed to be. Mothers grow children. Not great-aunts and old uncles.

No, I want to shout. Stare at me, in this bundlely sweater. I don't even know quite where to look, now that you're silent and your voices don't tell me where you are. Do I look easy to grow?

"May I see my room, please?" I ask.

Again that silence. I'd said, May I see. You'd think I'd know better, would have learned these last weeks what see and look do to people who can, when they hear the words said in front of someone who can't. When someone who can't says them herself.

"Certainly," answers Aunt Emma. She laughs, an embarrassed little laugh. "Actually, we have a choice for you. About what room you want, I mean. There's one here on this floor..."

(Copyright c 1996 by Jeanette Ingold. Published by Harcourt, Inc. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.)

Edition details

• Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0152012656
• ISBN 13: 9780152012656
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192