"The book that follows is about a child from Mooreland, Indiana, written by one of the three hundred. It's a memoir, and a sigh of gratitude, a way of retuning. I no longer live there; I can't speak for the town or its people as they are now. Someone has taken my place," p. 4.

"I took to talking for Julie the way some children take to water. I talked for her at school and at home, and her parents were nothing but grateful, because they were completely worn out from trying to read her mind," p. 33.

"It seemed to me that Dan should have shown some sign that he had won, but he didn't. Whatever battle he was fighting was so complicated it couldn't be described in terms as simple as victory, or loss," p. 45.

"The truth of the situation was not lost on my dad, and a...