The Night the Bells Rang - Hardcover

"I grew up on a dairy farm in a region known as Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, along with one sister and three brothers in an area our Scottish ancestors settled almost two hundred years ago.

"Since graduating from Johnson State College Vermont with majors in both art and athletic training, I have worked as a coach, trainer, energy auditor for the Extension Service, and most recently as Elderhostel Director and cross-country ski instructor at the Craftsbury Sports Center before turning to writing full-time.

"I have many passions. I am an athlete, naturalist, artist, and a writer, and all of the things I do are rooted in the Northeast Kingdom. I run five to ten miles each morning, cross-country ski, mountain bike, swim, and play tennis. I also played field hockey all across the country for many years. I love the outdoors, and study and sketch birds and wildflowers which are most often the subjects of my watercolor paintings. For the past seven years, my husband, Tom, and I have been building a timber-frame house. We both enjoy working with wood, and Tom shares my love of the land, sports and animals: we have a Morgan horse, five dogs, and eight cats. We love gardening and have planted an orchard of old apple varieties. And I love histories and walking old cemeteries.

"My first children's book, The Canada Geese Quilt, grew out of my love and admiration for my grandmother, Helen Urie Rowell, and a special quilt the two of us made together. My grandmother began quilting when she was in her sixties, and over the next fifteen years she made over 230 quilts. I designed about twenty of them. Most of them are of birds, wildflowers and starry skies, but one is of Canada geese -- and that inspired the book.

"My husband and I live in Albany, Vermont, where I am always at work on new books."

copyright © 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.

Grade 3-6-- It is 1918, and Mason finds that the new year isn't much different than the old in his rural Vermont community. The adults are still talking about the war overseas, but Mason's biggest problem is closer to home: the bully Aden Cutler. Frustrated and helpless to fight back against the older, larger boy, Mason wishes that Aden were dead. Then Aden joins the army, and he never comes back from the war. In its examination of a young boy's feelings of guilt over another's death, the book has echoes of On My Honor (Clarion, 1986) by Marion Dane Bauer, but without that novel's power. Mason's guilt is not so much because he believes that wishing for Aden's death made it happen, but because he never thanked Aden for one small, unexpected act of kindness. In a subplot that runs counterpoint to Mason's relationship with Aden, he also has to deal with a little brother whom he views as a pest. Even when railing against the injustices of the bully's actions, Mason seems oblivious to the fact that he treats his brother in the same manner. By the end of the year, and the book, Mason has matured, reevaluated his treatment of his brother, and repaid Aden's kindness with a simple gesture of his own. There are some qualities to recommend this book, but it tries to cover so much in so few pages that it lacks impact. Readable, but ultimately not very memorable. --Susan M. Harding, Mesquite Pub . Lib . , TX
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.