Comfort

by Joyce Moyer Hostetter Narrated by Kate Forbes

Overview

In this award-winning sequel to Blue, Ann Fay's family is back together, but much mending is needed. Ann Fay's polio and her father's post-war trauma stole the good life her family had before the war, before the polio, before the death of her little brother. Now, they are looking for comfort - “the kind
that made you feel safe on the inside, instead of sad or worried. The kind that reminded you of how life was before some disaster snuck up and knocked you off your feet.” Once again, Ann Fay digs deep within trying to fix her family, and her determination brings an unexpected kind of comfort.

Editorial Reviews

School Library Journal

Gr 6-9

At the conclusion of Blue (Boyds Mills, 2006), Ann Fay Honeycutt's daddy is just back from the war and Ann Fay is learning to deal with her polio. The continuation of this determined protagonist's story is even richer than the first installment. It is 1945, and life is anything but normal. Ann Fay, now 14, returns to school after missing a year, and even classmates who do not mock her cannot understand her struggles. Her father's moods fluctuate between apathy and rage. When Ann Fay gets the opportunity to travel to Franklin D. Roosevelt's Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, she is torn: her desire to enter a state-of-the-art polio facility is undercut by the nagging belief that her fragile family will not cope well with her absence. Finally persuaded, she leaves North Carolina and quickly learns to love the welcoming, supportive environment of Warm Springs. Romance blossoms, and she makes rapid gains in her mobility. Then Junior shows up unexpectedly with the news that her father is physically abusing her mother. He also professes his feelings for Ann Fay, and the two, once fast friends, are weighed down by a new awkwardness. While readers of Blue will be instantly drawn into this sequel, Comfort stands alone, and newcomers will find much to appreciate in Ann Fay's attempts to come to terms with the confusion around her. Hostetter's beautiful story about rebuilding, with absorbing back matter about post-traumatic stress disorder and disability rights, is exceptional historical fiction.-Kim Dare, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA

Kirkus Reviews

Ann Fay struggles with polio as her father returns from World War II in this sequel to Blue (2006). The teenager sees his moodiness, depression and anger, and whispers, "What's happening to my daddy?" Despite her concerns, when the town of Hickory, N.C., sponsors a trip to Georgia for treatment, she goes. She loves Warm Springs and is pleased with her progress as "a polio," but her grave family concerns cast a shadow over this. When longtime friend Junior arrives at Warm Springs to tell her that her father's getting worse, she leaves immediately to find her mother bruised and pregnant and her father gone. She finds help for her father in an unlikely source-a lonely misfit veteran who understands postwar trauma. This continuation of Ann Fay's story contains vivid descriptions of postwar rural America, polio treatment, small-town life, the ravages of war and the importance of family, all related in her homespun voice. Helpful appendices provide further information. (Historical fiction. 10-14)

From the Publisher

"Contains vivid descriptions of postwar rural America, polio treatment, small-town life, the ravages of war and the importance of family." —Kirkus Reviews

"The best part of Comfort is Hostetter's loving depiction of life in the rural South in the 1940s." —Booklist

"Exceptional historical fiction." —School Library Journal

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175007566
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	10/11/2022
Series:	Bakers Mountain Stories , #2
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

Read an Excerpt

I used to love how that vine with its purple flowers grew on everything. But that was before I was in charge of Daddy's garden. Before I had to cut it back all by myself because Momma was in a bad way about my brother dying and didn't care two cents about the garden just then. At the time, I was so mad at war and polio that I took all my anger out on that vine. And I hadn't been back to Wisteria Mansion since. But now I didn't know where else to go and cry myself a river. So I crawled in under the vines which had grown thicker than ever. I pulled my crutches in behind me. Then I collapsed in the pine needles and let it all out. All the sadness about losing my good life before the war. My frustration with not being able to cross the room without crutches. And misery about not having anyone who knew what it felt like to be me! —FROM THE BOOK

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