Comfort
Joyce Moyer Hostetter ——— $17.95
Reading level Young Adult, 306 pages, 2009
In this sequel to Blue (2006), Hostetter continues her WWII-era story about Ann Fay and the North Carolina teen’s efforts to recover from polio, which has left her physically challenged and emotionally vulnerable. Sadly, Ann Fay is not the only one now dealing with illness. Her father, newly returned from combat and suffering from postwar trauma, becomes angry and abusive. His worsening condition forces Ann Fay to interrupt the course of her therapy in Warm Springs, Georgia, to return home and help her family. The best part of Comfort is Hostetter’s loving depiction of life in the rural South in the 1940s. Less successful is her attempt to integrate factual material about Warm Springs, postwar trauma, and post-polio syndrome into a fictional context. As a result, the novel is too often didactic and, occasionally, preachy. Nevertheless, readers of the well-received Blue will welcome this new story about a close-knit community and a courageous protagonist. Grades 6-10. —Michael Cart — Booklist

Curriculum Applications: 3rd-8th Grade Social Studies, Language Arts, and Science.

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