Mariel, a victim of polio, lives with her adopted mother, Loretta, in Brooklyn. She has a good life, loving baseball and living right next to the one and only Brooklyn Dodgers stadium. Through her journeys in this book, she is always wondering about her natural mother. She has faint memories, when she got polio, and was at the hospital, or so she thinks. Brick comes to stay from Windy Hill (where Mariel was adopted), because his parents' crops got burned down, and the family had to split up to make money. Loretta was a friend of Brick's mother. Mariel finally makes a friend, and they both go back to Windy Hill, Brick struggling to help his old neighbors in need, Mariel to get answers. They both get what they wanted, and the Dodgers won their first pennant in 20 years when Mariel arrives back home to Loretta.

Setting, Time, and Place

This story occurs switching back between Brooklyn and Windy Hill. It happens year round, in an apartment in Brooklyn and 2 small country houses in Windy hill.

Images or Symbols

-Loretta- Happiness

-Claude (The neighbor Brick helped)- Hope

- Polio- Fear

-Apples- Life

-Ambrose (A Brooklyn cop)- Trust, Understanding

-Street Picture- Brooklyn

-Country picture- Windy Hill

Key Words

Polio

Home

Apples

"The only thing to fear is fear itself"

Likes/Dislikes

There isn't really anything I didn't like about this story. I really liked the way it switched characters every chapter.

Illustrations

There were only 2 illustrations in this book, and they were both repeated several times. One illustration was of a street with 4 or 5 kids playing baseball, surrounded by apartments, with a baseball stadium in the back. The other one is of a curving dirt road surrounded by tons of apple trees, with a small country house in the back. At the beginning of each chapter it would have 1 or both illustrations in it. These illustrations represented where they were. The street illustration for Brooklyn, the dirt road illustration for Windy Hill, and both for when they were switching from one place to the other. I thought this was very clever.