The first part of ["Touching"] has the force, economy, and strongly realized characters which marked [John Neufeld's] noteworthy first novel, "Edgar Allan." But Part Two, in which we learn of the harrowing operations which added blindness to Twink's other difficulties, is oddly compressed and unsatisfying. Taking the form of a scrapbook of Twink's childhood, as captioned for Harry by her older sister, this section is inherently rather relentlessly informative. Though the book's humanity indicates it has aimed at being much more, this near-perfunctory sparseness reduces "Touching" to the level of dramatized socio-medical documentary. As such, it is quite effective, but one regrets the limitation.

Georgess McHargue, "For Young Readers: 'Touching'," in The New York Times Book Review (© 1970 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), November 29, 1970, p. 38.