A Perfect Friend - Softcover

Price, Reynolds

Softcover

ISBN 10: 074322521X ISBN 13: 9780743225212

Publisher: Scribner, 2002

Synopsis

A Moving Fable For Readers Of All Ages -- From National Book Critics Circle Award-Winning Author Reynolds Price Ben Barks loved elephants long before he'd seen one. He sometimes wondered how that love started.... It's been a whole year since Ben's mother died, and nothing has soothed his broken heart -- except thinking about elephants, those magnificent creatures his mother loved too. Imagining their awesome grace always calms him in a way that his sad father and closest friends never can. When a one-ring circus comes to Ben's small town, he discovers Sala, an elephant who survived a wicked trainer's abuses. And soon, their powerful bond becomes a miraculous healer -- and gives Ben renewed hope for the future.

About this title

About the Author

Reynolds Price (1933-2011) was born in Macon, North Carolina. Educated at Duke University and, as a Rhodes Scholar, at Merton College, Oxford University, he taught at Duke beginning in 1958 and was the James B. Duke Professor of English at the time of his death. His first short stories, and many later ones, are published in his Collected Stories. A Long and Happy Life was published in 1962 and won the William Faulkner Award for a best first novel. Kate Vaiden was published in 1986 and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Good Priest's Son in 2005 was his fourteenth novel. Among his thirty-seven volumes are further collections of fiction, poetry, plays, essays, and translations. Price is a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and his work has been translated into seventeen languages.

Review

"When most people hear 'large-print book,' they immediately think senior citizen. But large-print editions of popular children's books -- from the powerhouse Harry Potter series to timeless classics like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer -- are now making their way onto the shelves of the Children's Department at the Canton Library. . . . Although large-print editions are targeted to the visually-impaired or dyslexic child, they can also be used by standard-vision readers. So Kershner [Children's librarian at the Canton Public Library] has decided against creating a special section in the Children's Department (as exists in the Adult Department) opting instead to intersperse large-print books on the shelves with the regular print versions of the same titles."
-- The Observer and Eccentric (October 2000) (The Observer and Eccentric 20001001)

"Thorndike Press has helped me not only find books I want to read, but they also look like regular books. That's important when you're a kid and you can only read Large Print, you want your book to look like all the other books. I'm reading a lot more now that we have found Thorndike Press."
-- Jim Bernardin, Islamorada, FL

"Everyone loves to read, there's nothing like curling up with a good book. We're a reading family, so when our son was diagnosed with Stargardt's Disease and only able to read Large Print, it was particularly difficult. Books on tape are wonderful but they don't fill the void of actually reading a good story. Large Print books have been around a long time for older people, but to find a good novel for a young person in Large Print began to feel nearly impossible. The books that Thorndike Press publishes have truly made a difference in my son's reading life. He can enjoy current novels as well as some of the classics that he missed reading when it became too difficult with regular print."
-- Sara Bernardin, Islamorada, FL

"Strong readers who know loss or imagine the inner lives of animals will be stirred by this layered, challenging novel."
-- Booklist (Booklist )

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 074322521X
• ISBN 13: 9780743225212
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176