Song of the Phoenix. This item is unavailable.Song of the Phoenix

A young adult novel, this is a story for kids from 9 to 99. The setting is Elgin, Illinois in 1939. In Song of the Phoenix eleven-year-old Amanda struggles to claim her own identity in a parochial school where her uncle is the beloved pastor, her mother is his housekeeper, and her dear father has a troublesome drinking problem. Amanda's headstrong determination to succeed results in a tragic accident that nearly costs the lives of those she loves most, and creates a more mature and compassionate young woman.

This first novel is based on the author's true life experience during the Depression, when she went with her family to live in her uncle's rectory in Elgin, Illinois. Even now, 60 years later, she has Amanda's indomitable spirit. After her tenth child was born, she returned to college to earn a both a bachelor's and master's degree, and was a secondary English teacher for 23 years. Today she lives with her husband Bob in southern Wisconsin, where she writes the "Grand Mom" column, syndicated in the Catholic Press, and teaches part time in a city college and in a variety of elderhostels in the midwest.