This is another book published by Scholastic. When one of Elizabeth's old high school mates had a house warming party, she borrowed a big bagful. I am very thankful for generous folks who share their collection with me. There is no way I could get hold of such books. All my children have gone past high school. Such books are not sold through book distributors.
While I was in the United States, many a times the older folks talked about what they were doing that day when J.F. Kennedy was asassinated. It seemed that act stopped a nation and it was well remembered years later. In Here Today, the mother Doris' life was changed by her reaction to the tragic event.
Doris came from working class parents. As soon as she could, she escaped from small town life by marrying someone who could take her to a bigger town. By marrying young, she had three children at a relatively young age. She strived and worked hard at keeping trim and looking beautiful. While her children were young, she kept at acting, taking classes and worked at getting herself commercial and modeling jobs. After seeing the life of the President cut short in a moment, she cut loose and went to New York city to try breaking into the acting scene.
Things in NYC was more difficult than she thought. She did not give up. Instead, she went home on a weekday to remove her summer clothes so that she could relocate to Hollywood. While all these things were happening, her eldest daughter was being bullied unmercifully in school. That poor girl had to care for her younger siblings and her father on top of her own school work. Meanwhile that small community had to deal with hate crime and vandalism linked to prejudice.
This could be used to open a dialogue with a sensitive child over the topic of school bullying, social prejudice, self- centreness of any individuals and how a person deals with such behavior.
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