STONE FOX
By John Reynolds Gardiner
HarperTrophy, 1980
Category: Middle-grade Fiction
This little book shocked me. It was recommended by our children’s librarian, who knows emotional books get to me, and who knows that a book with racing sled dogs on the cover would get to my boys. We read the book in two sittings and I’m still thinking about it three days later.
Little Willy is ten and lives alone with his grandfather on their potato farm. One morning he wakes late to find Grandfather still in bed. Grandfather’s eyes are open, but he is unresponsive. Little Willy runs for Doc Smith, who examines Grandfather and offers this cryptic diagnosis:
“There is nothing wrong with him.”
“You mean he’s not sick?”
“Medically, he’s as healthy as an ox. Could live to be a hundred if he wanted to.”
“I don’t understand,” little Willy said.
Doc Smith took a deep breath. And then she began, “It happens when a person gives up. Gives up on life. For whatever reason. Starts up here in the mind first; then it spreads to the body. It’s a real sickness, all right. And there’s no cure excpet in the person’s own mind. I’m sorry, child, but it appears that your grandfather just doesn’t want to live anymore.”
So Little Willy takes it upon himself to bring back Grandfather’s will to live. I thought I knew how this one was going to end. In fact, I was rather smug about how see-through the plot was. But the author slipped in a doozy of an ending that left me wondering whether I loved the book or hated it. I mean, if a book is technically flawed (and I think this one has several logistic holes) but the story pulls you in and keeps you turning the pages, if certain aspects of the plot bother you, but the story as a whole leaves you, at the last, in tears … well, then, can you criticize it? I think not.
If you’ve read STONE FOX, I’d love to hear what you thought.