The Snake-Stone

by Berlie Doherty

Overview

James is adopted. He knows that to work out his future he has to make sense of his past. He embarks on a journey to find his birth-mother who tells her own story in this moving and powerful novel.

James's adoptive parents are proud of his talent and determination. He's in training for the Junior National Diving Competition. But when he discovers the snake-stone in a box with his other 'belongings' from his time as an abandoned baby, he determines to set out on a quest to find his birth mother. He must make sense of his past if he is to work out his future. James travels to the Derbyshire Peak District to begin his search. Events leading up to James conception and birth are told in his birth-mother's own voice, in flashbacks, and the most moving, poignant and powerful story is told.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780006740223
Publisher:	HarperCollins Children's Books
Publication date:	01/06/1997
Series:	Collins Tracks S
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.60(d)
Lexile:	710L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Born in Knotty Ash, Liverpool, Berlie Doherty is the youngest of three children. She has been a social worker, a journalist, a teacher, and, for the past twenty years, a writer.

Berlie has twice won the prestigious Carnegie Medal, for 'Grannie was a Buffer Girl' in 1987 and for 'Dear Nobody' in 1992. She lives in the Derbyshire Peak District.

Editorial Reviews

'This story could not be bettered and can only be put down with a struggle before its unforgettable climax'
Independent

From the Publisher

An adopted boy searches for his birth mother in this sensitive British novel from the author of White Peak Farm. Fifteen-year-old James, a champion diver, narrates most of the story, which is interwoven with brief but poignant passages in the unknown mother's voice. James, fortuitously, has the note, written on the back of a torn envelope, that his birth mother presumably left with him ("Look after Sammy") before abandoning him in a stranger's mailbox. Even more fortuitously, the envelope bears fragments of a return address. A portrait in determination, James discerns the beginnings of a trail. As James investigates, the mother recounts, in minimal but telling detail, the wrenching events surrounding his birth. Doherty gradually, deftly draws the two narrative strands together, leading to the moment-all the more powerful for what is left unsaid-when mother and son meet. She leaves both James and the reader ample opportunity to sort out the conflicting feelings inherent to his search, and his eventual acceptance of his true, adoptive home seems all the more satisfying for its being hard-won. A touching exploration of a difficult subject. Ages 11-up. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 7 UpJames, at 15, is a championship diver who hopes to compete in future Olympics. In the midst of his most intensive training, however, he becomes obsessed with the idea of finding his birth mother. His parents have always been open with him about his adoption, offering the scant information they have about his birththe baby clothes he was wearing, a strange stone, and a torn bit of envelope on which a note is scrawled. Examining the envelope closely, James deciphers enough letters of the return address to determine the name of the village, and instead of taking a train to London for a week of coaching, he heads for Derbyshire. Interspersed with James's story is his birth mother's narrative. As he nears his destination, the dramatic circumstances of his birth unfold, giving readers a sense of the desperation felt by a young farm girl who hid her pregnancy from her overbearing father. When the two finally meet, readers know just how littleand how muchthey have to offer one another. The two stories intertwine exquisitely as the climax nears, and the ending is truly satisfying without sentimentality. Doherty's characterizations are especially strong and her plot is well crafted to carry readers through James's emotional upheaval. The Snake-Stone is an important book for anyone who has wondered about the emotions surrounding issues of adoption. The impact is similar to Lois Lowry's Find a Stranger, Say Good-bye (Houghton, 1978), which has a female protagonist.Connie C. Rockman, formerly at Ferguson Library, Stamford, CT

School Library Journal

A teenager adopted as a foundling baby suddenly feels a need to track down his birth mother in this poignant and well-crafted story.

Despite loving adoptive parents, an eager talent for high diving, and a training schedule that takes up every spare minute, James is beset by a restless, rootless feeling. Armed with only a fossil stone and the scrap of an address, he breaks training and secretly sets out for the Derby back country, following a 15-year-old trail. Juggling an array of characters and subplots in ways that enrich rather than crowd the story, Doherty (Dear Nobody, 1994, etc.) lays out not one journey, but two: Elizabeth, a child laden with guilt and remorse for loving a "wild boy," gives birth alone in a hen shed, and treks over the rugged tor on a blustery day to leave her child, and her precious stone, at a strangers door; gathering clues as he goes, James eventually retraces her mountain journey, in reverse. The meeting of mother and son is brief—Elizabeth, now with husband and children, asks a single quiet question—but almost unbearably intense and, at least for James, cathartic; he returns to his familiar life with a new sense of completeness. Although of the two protagonists, Elizabeth has far less presence in the narrative, she is the more vivid character, and her heartrending, heroic trek gives this story most of its emotional impact; still, the space between diving platform and water is not the only place David exhibits native grace and courage.

Kirkus Reviews