[CALIBK12] Richie's Picks: COLD HANDS, WARM HEART

[BudNotBuddy at aol.com]

Richie's Picks: COLD HANDS, WARM HEART by  Jill Wolfson, Henry Holt, April 
2009, 256p., ISBN: 978-0-8050-8282-1, (12 &  up: language)
 
 
"And I'm only alive here today and talking to you here today  because a young 
man said to his mom, if anything ever happens to me, I want to  be an organ 
donor." 
-- Phil Lesh, whose liver, ravaged by Hepatitis C, was  replaced with a 
transplant in 1998.  (Anyone who has attended a  Phil and Friends concert has heard 
his "Donor  Rap.") 

 
"People struggle, people fight
For the simple pleasures in their life
But trouble comes from everywhere
It's a little more than you can bear
I know that it will hurt
I know that it will break your heart"
-- Natalie Merchant
 
COLD HANDS, WARM HEART features two teenage girls living just miles apart, 
who will never meet, but who  will share a heart. 
 
The donor:
 
"And then.
"Afterward, after it was all over, one of Amanda's teammates  swore that this 
was when she heard a gasp.
"'Like someone seeing a ghost,' she said.
"But the head judge, who was well trained to pick up on  anything out of the 
ordinary -- a toe not pointed, a back with a few degrees too  much arch -- 
testified she had noticed only the very slightest  overrotation.  'It was a 
beautiful routine.  Until she...the  girl...Amanda...until she just lost it...
"Her body hurled forward, then dropped.  No one could  agree on what hit 
where first, only that there was a clink of bone hitting  metal, then a sickening 
thud when Amanda landed face down on the floor.   The head judge jumped from 
her chair, hand pressed over mouth.  People in  the stands stopped chewing 
their nachos."
 
The recipient:
 
"And then without any ceremony, as if it were the most common  thing in the 
world, she placed my own heart in the palms of my own  hands.
"There.
"I was holding it.
"It wasn't slimy, more the texture of a rubber  ball.
"I waited for something.  For what?
"I expected to feel something, a sensation related to  electricity.  A shock, 
a twitch, a vibration.  But there was just  this weight in my hands, with no 
more connection to me than baby teeth  after they had fallen out."
 
Amanda, the uber-competitive, fourteen-year-old gymnast.   That is as much as 
most of her schoolmates likely know about her before -- or  after -- her 
accident and untimely death.  Even her big brother Tyler  -- who was so close to 
her when they were both little kids -- really  does not know who she has been 
as a teenager.
 
"Every time I see you lookin' my way
Baby, baby, can't you hear my heartbeat?"
-- Herman's Hermits
 
Fifteen-year-old Dani the sick girl is moved to  the top of the list for 
recipients when there is nothing else  that can be done with the swollen, 
inefficient heart that has been repeatedly  worked on since her birth.  There comes a 
point when  the worst-case scenario is that she has two weeks to live.  Does a 
 fifteen-year-old girl with possibly two weeks to live think about the 
meaning of  life and the possibilities of an afterlife?  Not if her hormones have  
anything to say about it!  The guy in the next room awaiting a  liver may have 
yellow skin to go with his green hair, but there is  something about him...
 
Milo, that green-haired teen awaiting a liver, already  has had one liver 
transplant.  Is it reasonable or a waste of a  precious, life-saving gift to want 
to behave (or misbehave) like a normal  teenager?
 
"Remember to let her into your heart"
-- Lennon/McCartney
 
I really like how COLD HANDS, WARM HEART gets beyond the  medical drama.  It 
probes the feelings of Amanda's estranged  parents who -- in the midst of the 
most horrible thing that has ever happened to  them -- must come together to 
decide whether to permit the donation of their  brain-dead daughter's organs.  
It probes the feelings  of Amanda's big brother who -- living the life of  the 
typical American teen -- had really lost touch with the person  living just 
footsteps away, the sister who had once idolized him.  He  is the one who ends 
up handling correspondence from the grateful organ  recipients at the same 
time that he is finding out who Amanda  really was.  And the book examines the 
question that Dani, other  characters, (and certainly some readers) have: With 
all of the emotional  stuff that we attribute to "the heart,"  is there a piece 
of Amanda  that lives on in Dani that she should be able to feel?
 
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks _http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/) 
Moderator, _http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/_ 
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/) 
BudNotBuddy at aol.com
_http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks_ (http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks) 




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