Summary
Thirteen-year-old Nick, whose parents died in the 1918 flu epidemic, must find out why his mirror-image is causing mischief around their New England town and making sure Nick gets the blame. Nick is an orphan who has grown up in his uncle Jack's care on the wild, wooded coast of New England. His par... Full description
Summary: |
Thirteen-year-old Nick, whose parents died in the 1918 flu epidemic, must find out why his mirror-image is causing mischief around their New England town and making sure Nick gets the blame. Nick is an orphan who has grown up in his uncle Jack's care on the wild, wooded coast of New England. His parents died when he was a baby during a terrible influenza epidemic that swept the region not long after World War I. Nick first realizes something is wrong when he notices he no longer has a reflection. Then a neighbor he has known all his life accuses him of ignoring her. Soon Nick is blamed for all kinds of trouble around town. Is some other boy who looks like Nick creating all the problems? Nick suspects that something even stranger is going on. Ultimately he proves that someone else is trying to get him in trouble. Refusing to let this shadow of a boy take over his life, Nick develops a plan with his friend Gypsy to get rid of his mirror image for good. Award-winning author James Lincoln Collier has written a haunting story of two boys-one alive, one a ghost-who confront each other and their small town in a battle to determine who is the more deserving of the one life they seem to share. |
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Physical Description: |
192 p. ; 21 cm. |
ISBN: |
1582349495 (alk. paper) |
Author Notes: |
Collier also published twenty-three children's books, five in collaboration with his brother, Christopher Collier. These have been published in seven languages, and have won the Child Study Association Book Award, a Newbery Honor Medal, a Jane Addams Peace Prize, and a National Book Award nomination. Many of them have appeared on the ALA Notable Book List, and others on the New York Public Library's recommended book list. Collier is also a professional trombonist, and writes fiction and nonfiction on the subject of music. His book, Rock Star, won an award from the Child Study Children's Book Committee at Bank Street College. My Brother Sam Is Dead was a Newbery Honor Book in 1975 and was designated a Notable Book by the American Library Association as well as being nominated for a National Book Award in 1975. Jump Ship to Freedom was named a Notable Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies in 1981 by a joint committee of the National Council for the Social Studies and the Children's Book Council. War Comes to Willy Freeman is a companion book to the novel. (Bowker Author Biography) |