Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye

Find a stranger indeed. It's a great pleasure to see this back in print and by a publisher who will take better care of it. Always popular with pupils, rarely out of circulation, the only problem has been in keeping track of it. It could be sentimental, and there's much of the American focus on family here, but it works on the whole. Natalie, in the summer before she goes to college, is allowed by her adopted parents to attempt to trace her real mother. It's part mild detective story but mainly a reflection on the bonds which tie us to people and places, about the past and coming to terms with it, learning what to store, what to reject. All done in that breezy, confident way so apparently natural to American writers. To celebrate its return, and at this price, buy several copies and try to hold onto them. (I hope that Lois Lowry's A Summer to Die might also be reissued please.)