The Giant-Slayer
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
A girl’s imagination transports polio-afflicted kids into a fantastic world.
The spring of 1955 tests Laurie Valentine’s gifts as a storyteller. After her friend Dickie contracts polio and finds himself confined to an iron lung, Laurie visits him in the hospital. There she meets Carolyn and Chip, two other kids trapped inside the breathing machines. Laurie’s first impulse is to flee, but Dickie begs her to tell them a story. And so Laurie begins her tale of Collosso, a rampaging giant, and Jimmy, a tiny boy whose destiny is to become a slayer of giants.
As Laurie embellishes her tale with gnomes, unicorns, gryphons, and other fanciful creatures, Dickie comes to believe that he is a character in her story. Little by little Carolyn, Chip, and other kids who come to listen, recognize counterparts as well. Laurie’s tale is so powerful that when she’s prevented from continuing it, Dickie, Carolyn, and Chip take turns as narrators. Each helps bring the story of Collosso and Jimmy to an end—changing the lives of those in the polio ward in startling ways.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This memorable novel, a skillful combination of real life and fantasy, is by turns uplifting and saddening. Set in 1955 against the backdrop of the polio epidemic in the period just before Jonas Salk's vaccine, the story follows three "polios" Dickie, Carolyn, and Chip as their once-lithe bodies deteriorate in iron lungs in a polio ward. A bright spot comes when 11-year-old Laurie Valentine, a gifted storyteller and Dickie's best friend, regales them with tales of a boy's quest to slay a marauding giant with the help of a majestic unicorn hunter, an oxen driver, and Jessamine, the Swamp Witch. As Laurie concocts each installment, Dickie, Carolyn, Chip, and other kids from the ward begin to recognize themselves in the parable's heroic characters their first glimmer of hope (and distraction from their illness) in years. Grave illnesses such as polio are a difficult topic, and Lawrence's (the Curse of the Jolly Stone trilogy) delicate intermingling of fantasy and reality brings poignancy to the material. Distinctive, emotionally honest characters and consistently engrossing prose make this book a standout. Ages 8 12.
