e-Book Light A Single Candle download

I wish I could find this book to read to my daughter. I read it in Junior High and still remember it today. It is one of those books that hits truth we can all relate to - insecurity, overcoming obsticles, courage, friendship and dogs! Kathy becomes suddenly blind at the age of fourteen and has to endure rejection by her best friend and then institutionalization at a blind school. She finally re-groups, gets a seeing eye dog and rejoins her regular high school. There are still obsticles, but Kathy handles them with the help of her eye-dog and her family. I recently re-read "Mine for Keeps" by Jean Little and find the themes remarkably similar. Unfortunately, this book is also out of print.

I read this 50+ years ago as a young teenager and it made the biggest impression on me and I became a Spec Ed Teacher because of it.

Once you read this you will never, ever forget it.

great book. good condition. Got it for my great-neiece. Wanted to introduce her to some great books.

Another awesome book that was in wonderful condition. I definitely recommend it to anyone, it is such an inspiring book. Thank you!

good book for teens and adults. I like the aspect that the author went through similar aspects in her life.

I read this book when I was 12 or 13, and couldn't put it down. Found a copy at a thrift store and again in my 40s couldn't put it down til finished. To my delight, there is a sequel I haven't yet read; buying that next. Beverly Butler's use of language is swift, luxurious, and sublime: she immerses the reader in imagery to the point that like Cathy, the reader feels immersed in sensory input. But unlike some other authors who go out of their way to use a richer vocabulary or detailed imagery, it isn't strained or contrived, and the story flows swiftly, tantalizing the reader onward.

That said, like the Harry Potter series, the first chapter or so of getting to know the main character and the immediate environment, is a bit slow compared to the rest of the book, but well worth getting through. The story picks up marvelously thereafter! Great fiction uses language to dazzle and inspire, and transports the reader to an experience that becomes what feels like a memory, that informs and affects one's experience of life thereafter. This is great fiction.

This is such a realistic account of how a teenage girl copes with suddenly going blind, that it must have been based on the author's own experiences or those of people she knew. The protagonist, who has had poor vision for most of her life, loses her eyesight completely in a botched operation, and must immediately learn to navigate a strange and threatening world. She is sent to a state home for the blind, with its own unique culture, hierarchy, and customs, but decides to attend a public high school with the aid of a guide dog. It's a compelling story of a teenager forced to deal with both the changes of adolescence, and blindness which could be taken to represent the challenge of making the transition into adulthood, as all of us did, without being able to see what we're getting ourselves into. As a "young adult" reader, I missed the symbolism of someone losing their sight at the start of the greatest period of change in their life.

It's also taken 40 years, but I suddenly became aware of a plot hole. The surgery to correct Cathy's eyesight involved both eyes at the same time - something that would never be done today. Even when people have comparatively minor Lasik procedures, it's done one eye at a time, with the other eye done only after the first one has completely healed. The reason for this is in case something goes wrong with one of the procedures, the patient will still have one working eyeball. It's entirely possible, of course, that this was not standard practice in the 1960s when the operation in the story ostensibly takes place, but even if everything had gone perfectly, the protagonist would still have had to endure at least a few days of blindness until the bandages came off. It's also possible that her glaucoma was progressing so rapidly that she might have lost her sight in the second eye while waiting for the first one to heal. There's also no talk of a lawsuit, even though the opthalmologist's behavior is extremely odd. At first, when Cathy can see, he's very cold and businesslike, but after she's blind, he's suddenly a different person - warm, friendly, and concerned. Clearly, the doctor is more comfortable relating to blind people, but I couldn't help wonder if he had some perverse fascination with blindness, and had blinded the girl on purpose.

This speculation is a good reason why adults should not read "young adult" fiction (why do they call it that, anyway? An "adult" is someone over age 18, so a "young adult" would be above that age, not below it - "young adult" fiction should really be called "teenage."). These layers of meaning and nonexistent plot points were opaque to my fourteen-year-old self, as they would be to any fourteen year old now who reads this book. Well-written, exciting, and insightful, and not dated in the least (the only notable difference is that today, spoken-word recordings of books are available to all), "Light a Single Candle" is a timeless story of triumph over adversity.