Being with Henry

The car lurches to a halt.The old man finally rolls down his window, studies Laker for one eternal moment while his daughter, behind the steering wheel, fumes and listens to the radio. Laker stands, shrunken and zipped and snapped and collared inside his damp, sweaty leather jacket, and then he hears this unexpected question: Do you do yard work?

Kicked out of his house, sleeping on the street, Laker Wyatt meets eighty-three-year-old Henry Olsen, a lonely widower with family troubles of his own -- a bossy daughter and a beautiful granddaughter, Charlene, with whom Henry admits he doesn't always get things right.

Eventually, Laker's stay with Henry leads him not only to the revelation of a long-kept secret, but to a deeper understanding of the mysteries and difficulties of love.

MARTHA BROOKS is an award-winning novelist, playwright and jazz singer whose books have been published in Spain, Italy, Japan, Denmark, England, Germany and Australia, as well as in Canada and the United States. She is a three-time winner of the Canadian Library Association Young Adult Book of the Year, as well as the Ruth Schwartz Award, the Mr. Christie’s Book Award, the Governor General’s Award, and the Vicky Metcalf Award for her body of work. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta.

• McNally Robinson Book for Young People AwardWinner 1999
• Ruth Schwartz AwardLong-listed 1999
• Governor General's Literary Awards: TextShort-listed 2000
• Mr. Christie's Book AwardWinner 2000