The Silent Boy (by Lois Lowry)

Great-grandmother Docky sets down the story of her childhood, from ages six to ten, when she befriended Jacob, a strange mute boy, brother of her family's servant girl, who had an affinity for animals. Katy, as she was called then, was fascinated by her father's medical practice, and dreamed of one day being a doctor like him.

Jacob roams over the town and countryside, making friends with animals, and Katy often finds him in her family's stable with their horses. Though he doesn't speak, or even look at her, she comes to feel she understands him. Meanwhile she describes her life as the privileged and precocious child of a loving family in the first decade of the 20th century, a life that includes much that she doesn't fully understand at the time. But when Jacob disappears with his sister's newborn illegitimate baby, she may understand more than anyone else.

Author: Lois Lowry
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Children's Books
Publication date: September 28, 2003
Number of pages: 178
Hardcover price: $15.00