Radiance Descending (Laurel-Leaf Books) - Softcover

Award-winning author Paula Fox succeeds again with Radiance Descending, a novel about a boy struggling to ignore his brother who has Down's syndrome. Paul can spin mental circles around Jacob, and he's tired of the way his parents focus all of their attention on his younger brother just because Jacob has a problem. Jacob dawdles, laughs endlessly, messes up Paul's room, and has a pumpkinlike face. Most of all, Jacob embarrasses Paul. Disgusted by the way Jacob fawns over him and angry at the way he feels erased in his own family, Paul focuses all of his energy on ignoring Jacob. Slowly, though, Paul begins to wonder if, perhaps, not thinking about Jacob is only another way of thinking about him? Radiance Descending is an enchanting, deeply felt tale about family pain and the courage it takes to reach out into the unknown.

Fox (The Eagle Kite, 1995, etc.) offers acute psychological insight into a boy's feelings of anger and rejection, fears about what his classmates will think, and his loss of ``normal'' family life when his brother, who has Down syndrome, is born. From the opening pages, readers gain a strong, worrying sense of how Paul feels about his younger brother, without being shown (until much later) just what it is about Jacob's looks and behavior that so upsets him. Only his grandfather seems to understand, writing Paul special letters, taking him on outings, and making gentle attempts to persuade Paul to accept Jacob. The only peace Paul finds is in a nearby woods; it is there he runs to escape Jacob's birthday party, and it's there Grandpa finds him in the book's epiphany. It's also where the story's hold begins to abate, as Fox brings it to a rapid close without the intensely articulated examination of feelings that has filled the preceding pages. Other than Grandpa's admission that Jacob is ``an eerie child at times,'' there's no explanation of what it is that changes in Paul, making him want to build a relationship with his brother. But if only for the authentic delineation of a loving family's coping with one member's special needs, this is a worthwhile, poignant story. (Fiction. 11-14) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.