At the center of The Eyes of the Amaryllis is the difficulty of achieving understanding between the generations.

Rarely in a book for an adolescent audience has the difficult relationship between a grandmother and granddaughter, or, for that matter, between an adult son and his elderly mother, been so well sketched. Geneva Reade's inability to deal with the loss of her husband, shows itself in her obsessive need to remain by the ocean, the site of his death. Her son's inability to come to terms with that death shows itself in an obsessive fear of the ocean and an avoidance of it. Mother and son still love each other deeply, but they can neither communicate their love, nor deal with each other's pain. Only through Jenny, who can feel the pain yet distance herself from it, can some resolution be reached. Children often find themselves drawn...