The Window

Mandy survived the terrible accident that killed her mother, but she was left blind and alone. Now she lives with relatives she doesn't know, attends a new school, and tries to make friends—all the while struggling to function without sight.
Her unpredictable life takes its strangest turn when she begins to hear the oddest things through the window of her attic room. In fact, what she hears—and seems to "see"—are events that happened years ago, before she was even born. . . .

When she comes to live with relatives on a Texas farm, fifteen-year-old Mandy encounters the grandmother she never knew and begins to come to terms with her blindness caused by the automobile accident that killed her mother.

A girl, blinded by the auto accident that killed her mother, comes to terms with her disability—and her new life.

Children's Literature

Fifteen-year-old Mandy has a lot to cope with-blinded by the car accident that killed her mother, she must deal with her grief, go to live with the great aunt and uncles she never knew, adjust to a new school and new way of learning, and face ghosts, both real and imagined. All this leaves the author with a lot to cope with, but Ingold does more than cope: she intertwines each subplot into a charming tapestry of love, friendship, recovery, and mysteries solved. As Mandy discovers the strength to live with her blindness while developing a healthy interdependence with friends and family, the readers will be sure to discover a new character to care about. The book's narration is beautifully handled through Mandy. Thus, with the exception of the ghost segments-where Mandy can actually see her grandmother as a young woman-the reader experiences the world from Mandy's point of view, only through sounds, scents, and touch. In the hands of a lesser writer, the ghost subplot would have been a second-rate diversion, but here it is an enchanting development, one that helps Mandy as she comes to terms with the skeletons in her family's closet.

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.