On Being Sarah
Elizabeth Helfman, Judith Mathews (Editor), Lino SaffiotiOverview
Twelve-year-old Sarah Bennett has the same wishes that many girls have: she hopes she will like her new school and will find friends there. She wants to see more of the world, and dreams about what she might do, about who she will become.But Sarah is also different from most girls; she was born with cerebral palsy. She must move about in a wheelchair, and she cannot speak but uses a symbol board. Sarah has a lot to say, though--when she makes a school friend, Maggie, who learns to read Sarah's symbols; when she takes a disastrous trip to the zoo with her family; and when she meets Johnnie, a boy who can't walk, but who gives her glimpses of new worlds. Sarah's life is filled with adventure--enough for any girl.Even though life with cerebral palsy isn't easy for twelve-year-old Sarah, she manages with the help of her loving family and several new friends.
Synopsis
Twelve-year-old Sarah Bennett has the same wishes that many girls have: she hopes she will like her new school and will find friends there. She wants to see more of the world, and dreams about what she might do, about who she will become.But Sarah is also different from most girls; she was born with cerebral palsy. She must move about in a wheelchair, and she cannot speak but uses a symbol board. Sarah has a lot to say, though--when she makes a school friend, Maggie, who learns to read Sarah's symbols; when she takes a disastrous trip to the zoo with her family; and when she meets Johnnie, a boy who can't walk, but who gives her glimpses of new worlds. Sarah's life is filled with adventure--enough for any girl.
School Library Journal
Gr 5-8-- Sarah, 12, is confined to a wheelchair, with limited movement and no speech, the result of cerebral palsy. Her story involves her struggle and growth in regard to self-image; her relationships with family, peers, and neighbors; her adjustment at school; and the beginnings of a romance. Her thoughts are set in italics, reminding readers that she is nonverbal. Charles Bliss's system of pictoral/symbol communication is worked in throughout the story, as Sarah uses this system. Helfman supplies keen realism and compassionate descriptions of the girl's response to physical and emotional frustration, and her heroine is both introspective and outwardly determined. She thinks and feels with complexity. The story's closure is a bit abrupt, but overall, the book is very successful.-- Judith Lipshutz, Norristown Public Library, PA