Caring for others--for the handicapped, the lonely, or the disadvantaged--is a theme that runs through most of Harriet May Savitz's books for young adults. Her motivation may be an unfair law or lack of protection for a significant part of the population. From childhood, she was especially sensitive to the needs of others, as she once explained: "I was always looking at life with a third eye, an eye that I sometimes wished were closed. Why did I have to see the unhappiness in someone's face, or hear the pain in his voice"" But eventually this empathy helped Savitz create believable characters in her fiction: "I learned to use this third eye. . . . Dialogue became more than just words. It became words mixed with movement and expression and atmosphere. Characters had to be molded like pieces of clay, only instead of being objects that were set on a bureau...