Belonging

Fifteen-year-old Meg Hollis is the first blind student in her high school. Her parents worry about whether she can find her way and succeed. The academic pressure is not as difficult as the social scene. Meg longs to be part of the “in crowd.” This novel is written for the young adult reader.

When fifteen-year-old Meg Hollis insists on entering her local high school, her parents are skeptical. Because Meg is blind, they worry that she will not be able to keep up with her classwork or find her way through the halls. They tell her she can try it for a semester; if it doesn't work out, she can go to the Institute for the Blind.

Meg finds herself under pressure to succeed academically, to show her parents that she can handle regular school. But the hardest part for her is the social scene. Meg longs to be part of the "in crowd," and works hard not to appear different from her peers. A group of unconventional friends and a memorable teacher help Meg discover who she really is. During a tumultuous few months Meg learns that it is not her blindness, but her sense of herself that makes her unique.

Throughout the long weeks of discussion about where I should attend my second year of high school, Sam had been the only member of the family to remain calm. He seldom commented, but I knew he listened to everything that was said. And I was certain where he stood when he banged down his fork one night at supper and exclaimed, “What’s everybody fussing about? If Meg says she can do it, she ought to know!”

But it wasn’t easy for Mom and Dad. They didn’t exactly want me to go live and study at the Institute for the Blind. They just didn’t know what would happen if I attended regular public school classes for the first time in my life. I didn’t know what would happen either, but I had known for as long as I could remember that I wouldn’t be happy until I found out.

What comes as a constant surprise is the author’s ability to speak about blindness without sentiment or self-pity. Rarely in a children’s book has a physical handicap been so factually dealt with. There are incidents in Belonging that are very painful, such as the high school principal’s asking Meg to make a display of her Braille equipment for Parent-Teacher Night. But such scenes will only strengthen the story’s appeal for youngsters. Being different is the bete noire or adolescence, and Deborah Kent’s novel handles the subject with skill.

Deborah Kent was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey and grew up in nearby Little Falls. Like Meg in Belonging, she studied at special Braille classes during her grade school years and then attended public high school—the first totally blind student to attend the local public school. She graduated from Oberlin College and received a masters in social work from Smith College. For four years, she was a social worker at University Settlement House on New York’s Lower East Side.

She is the author of more than a dozen young-adult novels, as well as numerous nonfiction titles for children. Ms. Kent lives in Chicago with her husband, children's author R. Conrad Stein, and their daughter Janna.