A review by ineffablebob
Light a Single Candle by Beverly Butler
4.0
Light a Single Candle tells the story of teenager Cathy Wheeler as she loses her sight and starts high school, all in the short period of less than two years.
It's hard enough being a teenager in the best of circumstances, with changing social relationships and school adjustments and physical changes. Adding a loss of eyesight certainly doesn't simplify matters any. Cathy is a hopeful character, though, and mostly focuses on what she can do rather than what is denied to her. Like anyone, she has her periods of anger and depression, but on the whole her positive attitude serves her well in adjusting to life without sight.
This book reminded me a lot of the early books in the Little House on the Prairie series. It's set later, in the 1960s, but the writing style is similar, capturing life's challenges both large and small in a way that is suitable for young readers. Doesn't harm the comparison any that there's a girl who loses her sight at an early age in both stories.
I recently read And There Was Light: The Extraordinary Memoir of a Blind Hero of the French Resistance in World War II, another novel of a young person that loses their sight. The parallels here are many, most notably the way that the main characters refuse to let their lack of sight hold them back from living life. They require more assistance, certainly, but they don't let their limitations force them to hide away from society. In Cathy's case, she gets a taste of that life when she goes to a boarding school for the blind. She very quickly decides that being treated as if she has little intelligence, ambition, and hope for the future is not for her, and leaves as soon as she can to rejoin her peers at home.
I enjoyed Light a Single Candle, and I think anyone who enjoys coming-of-age stories and the triumph of perseverance over adversity will too.
It's hard enough being a teenager in the best of circumstances, with changing social relationships and school adjustments and physical changes. Adding a loss of eyesight certainly doesn't simplify matters any. Cathy is a hopeful character, though, and mostly focuses on what she can do rather than what is denied to her. Like anyone, she has her periods of anger and depression, but on the whole her positive attitude serves her well in adjusting to life without sight.
This book reminded me a lot of the early books in the Little House on the Prairie series. It's set later, in the 1960s, but the writing style is similar, capturing life's challenges both large and small in a way that is suitable for young readers. Doesn't harm the comparison any that there's a girl who loses her sight at an early age in both stories.
I recently read And There Was Light: The Extraordinary Memoir of a Blind Hero of the French Resistance in World War II, another novel of a young person that loses their sight. The parallels here are many, most notably the way that the main characters refuse to let their lack of sight hold them back from living life. They require more assistance, certainly, but they don't let their limitations force them to hide away from society. In Cathy's case, she gets a taste of that life when she goes to a boarding school for the blind. She very quickly decides that being treated as if she has little intelligence, ambition, and hope for the future is not for her, and leaves as soon as she can to rejoin her peers at home.
I enjoyed Light a Single Candle, and I think anyone who enjoys coming-of-age stories and the triumph of perseverance over adversity will too.