TOM SULLIVAN'S ADVENTURES IN DARKNESS

by Derek Gill ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1976

As a boy Tom Sullivan was the first of his gang to explore the local haunted house and led two buddies on a Huck Finn adventure in a stolen row boat. In college he won an AAU wrestling title and smuggled a girl into his dorm in a hockey bag. As an adult he took up skydiving and became a successful song writer. . .The catch is that Sullivan has been blind from birth. Here his learning to ""see with his cheeks,"" hear snowflakes fall and play, through trial and error, sports in which he could compete with sighted players compensate for his relentless cheerfulness and the cloying sentimentality of his encounter with a suicidal young woman, his triumph in saving his own daughter from drowning and even his meetings with Martin Luther King and LBJ. If Sullivan sounds familiar, it's because you met him before in Gill and Sullivan's If You Could See What I Hear (1975); the need for a juniorized replay is debatable, especially since Tom's childhood and school escapades extend only two-thirds of way through the book and the adult chapters, except for the skydiving, are of doubtful interest to pre-teens. On the other hand, Tom's saga is leagues ahead of most tailor-made low vocabulary material in intrinsic interest and might be worth trying with older, reluctant readers.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1976

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: McKay

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1976

Categories: FICTION