Mark Fins

OH god what a heart-touching story. Mark is an intelligent inquisitive lonely kid, whose parents moved them from NY to Mass. post WW2.
Life as seen thru his eyes. Open and real. Real honest, with a kids sense of humor.

While play-acting one of his daredevil scenes, he inadvertently meets the awesomely rich and reclusive elderly neighbor. Mr. Hawkins. Hawkins encourages Marks imagination and in doing so, enjoys his own life. " You know Tilden ( his manservant ), there is a place in my heart that keeps telling me it was as if our two imaginative souls needed to find each other, and because of my difficulties going outside these walls, he had to find his way in."
So few words i've used, for a book with such a big punch!… (mer)

There aren't enough good books about Jewish kids, so I was happy when I received this book as an ARC Kindle version. I was more than a bit concerned about the child's fire starting behavior because that is what gets children labeled as emotionally disturbed. He did seem to turn around though after getting expelled from school and causing a major breakdown in his family structure. His mother took his side in the issue, and his father wanted to beat it out of him. Typical 1950s family drama with violence and financial problems in those nice suburban row houses.… (mer)