phyllis campbell

After her father's death, when she was eight, Jill and her mother moved from town to town as her mother moved from job to job, each taking her higher on the ladder of success. When her mother marries the owner of a prestigious line of dress shops, six-teen-year-old Jill thinks her life is perfect—a beautiful home, a private school, and she's dating the most popular boy in school. Then disaster strikes when she loses her sight due to a brain tumor.

The day before she leaves the hospital her mother tells her that she'll be going for an extended visit with her father's mother, someone she's seen only once, while her mother and stepfather go to Europe on business

As she travels to rural Virginia, she feels totally abandoned. She knows that her stepfather is paying her grandmother for her keep, and she can't shake the feeling that her mother simply doesn't want to be bothered with a daughter, and especially with one who is blind. Too, there is the matter of why her grandparents and parents never had anything to do with each other.

Travel with Jill as she masters her new world of darkness, learns to love family and friends, faces the thing that forced her father away from her grandparents, and finds the true secret of belonging.

This is a story of courage and love, and a must read for anyone facing blindness, as well as for anyone who has an interest in learning more about the world of the blind, especially that of a young blind person. Besides that, it's just a good story for anybody young or old who likes to read.