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Other Bells for Us to Ring Mass Market Paperback – October 10, 2000
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Then, just as suddenly as they appeared, Kathleen Mary and her family disappear. While Darcy waits to hear from her, she learns that her father is missing in action. Christmas is coming, and Darcy is unsure about the power of God's love. Will the miracle she hopes for really happen?
- Reading age10 years and up
- Print length160 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Grade level5 - 9
- Dimensions4.18 x 0.43 x 6.89 inches
- PublisherLaurel Leaf
- Publication dateOctober 10, 2000
- ISBN-10044022862X
- ISBN-13978-0440228622
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"Beautifully written. . . . Cormier captures the sounds, smells, and mood of wartime America with deft strokes."--Publishers Weekly
From the Inside Flap
Then, just as suddenly as they appeared, Kathleen Mary and her family disappear. While Darcy waits to hear from her, she learns that her father is missing in action. Christmas is coming, and Darcy is unsure about the power of God's love. Will the miracle she hopes for really happen?
From the Back Cover
"Beautifully written. . . . Cormier captures the sounds, smells, and mood of wartime America with deft strokes."--Publishers Weekly
About the Author
A newspaper reporter and columnist for 30 years (working for the Worcester Telegram and Gazette and the Fitchburg Sentinel), Cormier was often inspired by news stories. What makes his works unique is his ability to make evil behavior understandable, though, of course, still evil. “I’m very much interested in intimidation,” he told an interviewer from School Library Journal. “And the way people manipulate other people. And the obvious abuse of authority.” All of these themes are evident in his young adult classic and best-known book, The Chocolate War. A 15-year-old fan of his said, “You always write from inside the person.”
Cormier traveled the world, from Australia (where he felt particularly thrilled by putting his hand in the Indian Ocean) and New Zealand to most of the countries in Europe, speaking at schools, colleges, and universities and to teacher and librarian associations. He visited nearly every state in the nation. While Cormier loved to travel, he said many times that he also loved returning to his home in Leominster.
Cormier was a practicing Catholic and attended parochial school, where in seventh grade, one of his teachers discovered his ability to write. But he said he had always wanted to be a writer: “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t trying to get something down on paper.” His first poems were published in the Leominster Daily Enterprise, and his first professional publication occurred while he was a freshman at Fitchburg State College. His professor, Florence Conlon, sent his short story, without his knowledge, to The Sign, a national Catholic magazine. The story, titled “The Little Things That Count,” sold for $75.
Cormier’s first work as a writer was at radio station WTAG in Worcester, MA, where he wrote scripts and commercials from 1946 to 1948. In 1948, he began his award-winning career as a newspaperman with the Worcester Telegram, first in its Leominster office and later in its Fitchburg office. He wrote a weekly human-interest column, “A Story from the Country,” for that newspaper.
In 1955, Cormier joined the staff of the Fitchburg Sentinel, which later became the Fitchburg-Leominster Sentinel and Enterprise, as the city hall and political reporter. He later served as wire and associate editor and wrote a popular twice-weekly column under the pseudonym John Fitch IV. The column received the national K.R. Thomason Award in 1974 as the best human-interest column written that year. That same year, he was honored by the New England Associated Press Association for having written the best news story under pressure of deadline. He left newspaper work in 1978 to devote all his time to writing.
Robert Cormier’s first novel, Now and at the Hour, was published in 1960. Inspired by his father’s death, the novel drew critical acclaim and was featured by Time magazine for five weeks on its “Recommended Reading” list. It was followed in 1963 by A Little Raw on Monday Mornings and in 1965 by Take Me Where the Good Times Are, also critically acclaimed. The author was hailed by the Newark Advocate as being “in the first rank of American Catholic novelists.”
In 1974, Cormier published The Chocolate War, the novel that is still a bestseller a quarter century after its publication. Instantly acclaimed, it was also the object of censorship attempts because of its uncompromising realism. In a front-page review in a special children’s issue of The New York Times Book Review, it was described as “masterfully structured and rich in theme,” and it went on to win countless awards and honors, was taught in schools and colleges throughout the world, and was translated into more than a dozen languages. I Am the Cheese followed in 1977 and After the First Death in 1979.
These three books established Cormier as a master of the young adult novel. In 1991, the Young Adult Services Division of the American Library Association presented him with the Margaret A. Edwards Award, citing the trio of books as “brilliantly crafted and troubling novels that have achieved the status of classics in young adult literature.”
In 1982, Cormier was honored by the National Council of Teachers of English and its Adolescent Literature Assembly (ALAN) for his “significant contribution to the field of adolescent literature” and for his “innovative creativity.”
8 Plus 1, an anthology of short stories that have appeared in such publications as the Saturday Evening Post, The Sign, and Redbook, was published in 1980. In later years, many of the stories in the collection, notably “The Moustache,” “President Cleveland, Where Are You?” and “Mine on Thursdays,” appeared in anthologies and school textbooks. The collection also received the World of Reading Readers’ Choice Award, sponsored by Silver Burdett & Ginn, especially notable because young readers voted for Cormier to receive the prize.
I Have Words to Spend, a collection of his newspaper and magazine columns, was published in 1991, assembled and edited by his wife, Connie.
Robert Cormier’s other novels include The Bumblebee Flies Anyway, 1983; Beyond the Chocolate War, 1985; Fade, 1988; Other Bells for Us to Ring, 1990; We All Fall Down, 1991; Tunes for Bears to Dance To, 1992; In the Middle of the Night, 1995; Tenderness, 1997; Heroes, 1998; and Frenchtown Summer, 1999. This novel won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Fiction in April 2000. All his novels have won critical praise and honors.
In the Middle of the Night and Tenderness were short-listed for the Carnegie Medal in England, and Heroes received a “Highly Commended” citation for that same award, unique honors because the Carnegie is traditionally awarded to a British book.
Cormier's novels have frequently come under attack by censorship groups because they are uncompromising in their depictions of the problems young people face each day in a turbulent world. Teachers and librarians have been quick to point out that his novels are eminently teachable, valuable, and moral. His novels are taught in hundreds of schools and in adolescent literature courses in colleges and universities.
Though many of his books are described as written for young adults, in fact people of all ages read and enjoy Cormier’s work. His themes of the ordinariness of evil and what happens when good people stand by and do nothing are treated seriously, and he never provides the easy comfort of a happy ending. Cormier’s gripping stories explore some of the darker corners of the human psyche, but always with a moral focus and a probing intelligence that compel readers to examine their own feelings and ethical beliefs.
In an interview last year, Cormier was asked if he had accomplished what he set out to do at the beginning of his writing career. He answered with characteristic humility: “Oh, yes. My dream was to be known as a writer and to be able to produce at least one book that would be read by people. That dream came true with the publication of my first novel–and all the rest has been a sweet bonus. All I’ve ever wanted to do, really, was to write.” That writing has left the world a legacy of wonderful books, a body of work that will endure.
Product details
- Publisher : Laurel Leaf (October 10, 2000)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 160 pages
- ISBN-10 : 044022862X
- ISBN-13 : 978-0440228622
- Reading age : 10 years and up
- Grade level : 5 - 9
- Item Weight : 3.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 4.18 x 0.43 x 6.89 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #4,235,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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Darcy, age eleven-going-on-twelve, struggles to find belonging in her peers as her father's Army career has shuffled the family around the country. Set during World War II, the ever-growing fear that her father will be taken away from her as well keeps Darcy to herself until Kathleen Mary O'Hara manifests herself in Darcy's life.
Despite their differences, specifically focusing on religion, Darcy and Kathleen Mary hit it off. They find adventure where they can and quickly determine that they are best friends in that super fast way kids are capable of accomplishing. Though Darcy is Unitarian and Kathleen Mary is Catholic, they do not allow the differences of Frenchtown, the Massachusetts town full of diversity, keep them hampered. It's clear their friendship means more, but when Darcy's father is sent off to Europe and Kathleen Mary and her family suddenly disappear without a trace, Darcy is left to salvage whatever meaning she has left in her life. Her mother and her can simply hope for the best.
This tends not to be enough, and Darcy turns to religion, delves into its depths to find comfort, and struggles to bridge the divide between Unitarianism and Catholicism that seemed relatively easy when Kathleen Mary was around. Her trust in God is all she has left.
With a gut-punch ending, which was actually quite good, I didn't quite dislike the story. But, the religious overture throughout this novellas pages becomes increasingly fantastical, and it pulled itself away from the stark realities of life. What could have been a beautiful tale about faith and hope turned into what almost felt like a religious conversion for our youth.
I was reminded of another similar book for young people I read a few years ago, also set during WWII, but in southeast Michigan, called WILLOW RUN, by Patricia Reilly Giff. It would make a suitable companion piece to read with this one. Both books bring back the wartime experience from a child's point of view.
In short, OTHER BELLS FOR US TO RING is a beautiful little book about those three things we always heard so much about while growing up - faith, hope and love. My son picked a good one; Cormier is a wonderful writer. I will recommend this book highly. - Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir BOOKLOVER