Last year I ordered Edward's Eyes from a Scholastic book club, curious about the subject matter and enticed by the cover boasting a handsome youngster looking into the sky for his baseball to come down (presumably, and a good picture to invite predictions) I ordered Edward's Eyes by Patricia MacLachlan, the award winning author of Sarah, Plain and Tall. After reading it to my class aloud over several days I was not disappointed for having chosen a book by its cover.
Personally, I have always gravitated towards books that tell stories relating to mortality such as On My Honor, Tuck Everlasting, Searching for David's Heart, and Death be not Proud because children very rarely view themselves as being vulnerable beings. Children by their very nature take life and health for granted, never too often having it on their minds that, yes, even young people can have accidents, or fall ill. I certainly don't want children to run around panicked about their own fates or fearing accident or death at every corner, but a healthy and age appropriate awarness of our own mortality, I believe, is always a good thing.
Edward's Eyes tells the story of a very close family. At the center of this family is Edward, a loving boy with a knack for baseball. This family is wound tightly together, at the beginning of the story all eagerly awaiting the birth of a new sister. They're so close and secure with one another that the children call the parents by their first names rather than the often obligatory "mom" and "dad." It seems as if this family's happiness could not be surpassed, but that world is turned upside down when Edward rides his bike off to the store and never comes home.
His death strikes at the heart of the family, but they find hope in donating Edward's corneas to science, eventually connecting with the man who benefited from them.
Edward's Eyes is not Captain Underpants, and you wouldn't want it to be. I found myself even as the teacher having to go back and sort out the characters, as there are several family members, and the way the author sets up the scenes children have to make inferences about what happend to Edward earlier on before it's altogether revealed what happened. The book evoked much discussion in class and was good for predictions, inferences and thoughful reflection. it is a short chapter book geared for an intermediate audience.
I had my kids get a copy for the beginning of the year so we could start it as a whole class book study. It's a great book to start the year.