My lovely and well-read niece
Shelby, when asked which book she had read would she most like for me to read,
immediately suggested Kate DiCamillo’s MiraculousJourney of Edward Tulane. I was primed, therefore, to very much enjoy the book.
I was not really prepared for falling so hard for it. The following are some of
the more powerful moments for me – you would, of course, have your own:
“Edward knew what it was like to
say over and over again the names of those you had left behind. He knew what it
was like to miss someone. And so he listened. And in his listening, his heart
opened wide and then wider still.”
“You are down there alone,” the
stars seemed to say to him. “And we are up here, in our constellations,
together.”
“I have been loved,” Edward told
the stars.
“So?” said the stars. “What
difference does that make when you are all alone now?”
Edward could think of no answer
to that question.
At one
point, Edward is badly damaged. His friend, a boy, brings him to a doll maker
to be repaired. When told that he had to choose whether to keep Edward as he
was or give him to the doll maker to be repaired but lose him forever in the
process, the boy makes a Huckleberry Finn-type decision. The doll maker tells
Edward: “Your friend chose option two. He gave you up so that you could
be healed. Extraordinary, really.”
“I have already been loved,” said
Edward. “I have been loved by a girl named Abilene. I have been loved by a
fisherman and his wife and a hobo and his dog. I have been loved by a boy who
played the harmonica and by a girl who died.”
“Don’t talk to me about love,” he
said. “I have known love.”
“You disappoint me,” she said.
“You disappoint me greatly. If you have no intention of loving or being loved,
the whole journey is pointless.”
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