She Is Not Invisible

Parents need to know that She Is Not Invisible, by Michael L. Printz Award-winner Marcus Sedgwick (Midwinterblood), is about a blind girl who makes an impulsive and dangerous decision to take her 7-year-old brother from London to New York without permission. But Laureth has a good reason: wanting to find her dad. Her heart's in the right place always, and she shows particular patience when dealing with her brother. During their adventure, a man pulls a knife on Laureth, her brother ,and a new friend -- causing their friend's older brother and his friends to beat the man up. Later, a man breaks into Laureth's hotel room and chases her around in an attempted robbery. They learn that their father was mugged. Other than that, there are a few uses of words like ass, crap, damn, and Laureth smells smoke on the clothes of one of the bad guys, who later strikes up a cigarette around her. A young man on a plane takes an interest in Laureth, until he realizes she's blind, and other men make suggestive remarks to her at a bar. The book introduces readers to a number of intellectuals, including Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud (and also to terms such as apophenia, "the thing we all have inside us ... to spot patterns"). The books also encourages readers to consider what it's like to operate in the world as a blind person. In the end, Laureth learns to stop being so afraid for her own future, and to "have faith" in herself.