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A Single Light
The radiant story of a deaf-mute child, a priceless statue-and a miracle.
- GenresYoung AdultFiction
149 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
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47 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 21, 2013
This is one of my all time favorite books. I will admit that my opinion on the book is somewhat skewed because it was given to me by my late beloved grandmother. However, the reason this book has such an impact on me even now, is because it was the very first book that made me cry. How could you not connect with a young girl who wants nothing more than to be loved and to experience the comfort of human touch. This book taught me the dangers of mob mentality and the importance of not getting caught up in the adrenaline that accompanies it. I love this book. I will always love this book.
July 20, 2011
A Single Light involves the story of a rejected deaf and mute girl, a researcher, and a town.The characterization of the girl is well done. The despair and frustration that she feels comes through clearly. the themes of the novel include despair, hatred, love, and understanding.
(I read this novel in the 70s when I was taking an adolescent lit. class. The critique came from one I did for the class.)
(I read this novel in the 70s when I was taking an adolescent lit. class. The critique came from one I did for the class.)
August 18, 2025
mixed feelings about this story of a deaf and dumb girl growing up unloved in an impoverished Spanish village who finds a long lost statue of baby Jesus carved by a famous Renaissance sculptor....Yes, it's nice that that (we are lead to believe) she will be a catalyst for a better, more loving village, but gee, I don't think the author gave enough thought/did enough research on the life experiences of children born deaf who never acquire language and are, indeed, barely communicated with at all. This makes the close third person narration problematic, as when the main character, whose family never even bothered to name her, makes up stories about the saints in the village church. I also found her opinions (not favorable) of the men in small impoverished Spanish villages un-nuanced. And the violence at the end, presented as inevitable and unavoidable, and serving the story the author wanted to tell very well, read to me as over the top Lord of the Flies fan fiction, which is not to my taste. Also not to my taste was that the "hunchback" taken in by the priest to help around the church, was used to drive home the point that to be different and disabled was to be cursed. Ended up at three stars, though, because it's rather fascinating.
June 17, 2009
Disabilities, People, and Life in Spain after the Spanish Civil War.
Anna, is born deaf and dumb to father and Grandfather who see her as only as another mouth to feed and to be used as a goat herder. She finds no love until she goes to the Church in town and finds an object there to love.
Interesting look at disabilities.
Anna, is born deaf and dumb to father and Grandfather who see her as only as another mouth to feed and to be used as a goat herder. She finds no love until she goes to the Church in town and finds an object there to love.
Interesting look at disabilities.
June 26, 2007
I found this book in a box of abandoned paperbacks. It was fine.
February 21, 2009
Loved it...it is currently held together by paperclips
May 9, 2012
I loved thisw book when I was a kid.
December 6, 2012
Yet another quick read. This story was very thought provoking but it didn't go into too much depth.
It is a great story for non readers.
It is a great story for non readers.
January 8, 2014
good book. it was my first large print book I owned
September 20, 2017
Shortly after the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), Ramon de Prada, who was from the village of Almas in Andalucia, Spain, but had gone to Madrid to seek his fortune, returns to Almas, marries, and has a daughter. The girl turns out to be deaf and mute, and the mother dies six months afterward. A kindly neighbor, Flora Garcia, names the girl Anna and takes care of her until she turns five, when she comes back to her father’s house to tend her grandfather’s goats. When the girl is fifteen, Senora Garcia, whose husband has just died, has a sickly child but must go to work in her late husband’s place, so she hires the girl to tend the child. Unfortunately, the child dies. The girl tries to return home, but her father rejects her, so the village priest invites her to live in the parish house and work in the church.
While cleaning, the girl finds a marble sculpture of the Christ child hidden in the church. Having been disowned by her father, having lost the child for which she cared, and finding no affection from either the priest or his housekeeper, the girl adopts the sculpture for her own to love. Then an American art expert, Larry Katchen, comes to town and determines that the sculpture is a long missing piece by a famous Italian artist named Angelini, for which Katchen has spent his entire career looking. The townspeople are overjoyed at the prospect of the fame and fortune the sculpture might bring to Almas and build a special case in which to secure it. However, the girl steals it and runs away into the forest. The townspeople, urged on by a hunchback who also works in the church but has a secret longing to be a leader, go to track her down with murderous threats. The priest and Katchen take the latter’s car in an attempt to locate her also. Will they find her? What will happen to the statue? And more importantly, what will become of the girl?
This book by Maia Wojciechowska, who won the 1965 Newbery Medal for Shadow of a Bull, was a Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children’s Book Award Nominee in 1970. It has a slow, thoughtful plot with a rather abrupt ending, but other than a few references to drinking wine, there is nothing objectionable. Of course, a lot of Roman Catholic beliefs and practices are mentioned. The themes of the novel include despair, hatred, love, and understanding. The characterization of the girl is well done, and the frustration that she feels is portrayed clearly. The story contains powerful lessons on the ability of genuine empathy for another to change people’s minds and the dangers of mob mentality. And it has an interesting look at people with disabilities. One might even see a spiritual side to the story as it pertains to believing in God.
While cleaning, the girl finds a marble sculpture of the Christ child hidden in the church. Having been disowned by her father, having lost the child for which she cared, and finding no affection from either the priest or his housekeeper, the girl adopts the sculpture for her own to love. Then an American art expert, Larry Katchen, comes to town and determines that the sculpture is a long missing piece by a famous Italian artist named Angelini, for which Katchen has spent his entire career looking. The townspeople are overjoyed at the prospect of the fame and fortune the sculpture might bring to Almas and build a special case in which to secure it. However, the girl steals it and runs away into the forest. The townspeople, urged on by a hunchback who also works in the church but has a secret longing to be a leader, go to track her down with murderous threats. The priest and Katchen take the latter’s car in an attempt to locate her also. Will they find her? What will happen to the statue? And more importantly, what will become of the girl?
This book by Maia Wojciechowska, who won the 1965 Newbery Medal for Shadow of a Bull, was a Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children’s Book Award Nominee in 1970. It has a slow, thoughtful plot with a rather abrupt ending, but other than a few references to drinking wine, there is nothing objectionable. Of course, a lot of Roman Catholic beliefs and practices are mentioned. The themes of the novel include despair, hatred, love, and understanding. The characterization of the girl is well done, and the frustration that she feels is portrayed clearly. The story contains powerful lessons on the ability of genuine empathy for another to change people’s minds and the dangers of mob mentality. And it has an interesting look at people with disabilities. One might even see a spiritual side to the story as it pertains to believing in God.
October 23, 2018
This is a little gem of a book that follows a girl who is born deaf and dumb as she experiences a lack of love from her father and then from those whom she meets. The author has a knack for capturing the essence of a character in a few short words, which makes the book short and spare, kind of like a novel if it had been written by Emily Dickinson, and, like Dickinson, full of insight into the human condition and the need to love and to be loved.
This description of the priest in the village is a good example: "The girl saw that the priests was not a happy man. He hardly ever smiled. He never laughed. His thin face looked tortured, and each day the line between his brows grew deeper, the circles under his eyes darker." The priest does not know how to give love.
Carmen, the priest's housekeeper, initially refuses to work with the deaf and dumb girl when she finally ends up at the cathedral. She tells the priest, "I was born without patience. I will not spend my days trying to make the deaf hear." Carmen does not know how to give love, even though, down deep, she needs to.
Especially well drawn is the character of the American, Larry Kitchen. He comes to Italy to study art—his parents are happy when he leaves for Italy and hope that he decides to stay longer, because he is a, well, bore—and becomes obsessed with one particular Renaissance sculptor named Angellini. He is so caught up in his pursuit of all things Angellini, especially a baby missing from one of his sculptures, that he has really no interaction with people at all. He does not love and he does not know how to be loved.
All of these characters end up coming together due to the deaf and dumb girl and a lost baby (sculpture).
The author takes up themes of the frightening power of ignorance and the crushing weight of rejection; the necessity of love; how circumstances and/or people can be and sometimes are changed when they come to understand how to show love; and how people are often more and certainly deeper than they seem.
A beautiful, little book.
This description of the priest in the village is a good example: "The girl saw that the priests was not a happy man. He hardly ever smiled. He never laughed. His thin face looked tortured, and each day the line between his brows grew deeper, the circles under his eyes darker." The priest does not know how to give love.
Carmen, the priest's housekeeper, initially refuses to work with the deaf and dumb girl when she finally ends up at the cathedral. She tells the priest, "I was born without patience. I will not spend my days trying to make the deaf hear." Carmen does not know how to give love, even though, down deep, she needs to.
Especially well drawn is the character of the American, Larry Kitchen. He comes to Italy to study art—his parents are happy when he leaves for Italy and hope that he decides to stay longer, because he is a, well, bore—and becomes obsessed with one particular Renaissance sculptor named Angellini. He is so caught up in his pursuit of all things Angellini, especially a baby missing from one of his sculptures, that he has really no interaction with people at all. He does not love and he does not know how to be loved.
All of these characters end up coming together due to the deaf and dumb girl and a lost baby (sculpture).
The author takes up themes of the frightening power of ignorance and the crushing weight of rejection; the necessity of love; how circumstances and/or people can be and sometimes are changed when they come to understand how to show love; and how people are often more and certainly deeper than they seem.
A beautiful, little book.
February 24, 2020
I probably read this in the early 1970s, but when I picked it up yesterday it didn't seem familiar. I recall loving her books and eagerly hunting them down in used books stores. This was a good story, simply told. It has powerful messages about the importance of human contact and the evil of mob mentality, but it's all just a bit overdone, as though the author wanted to make sure everyone got the point. A little subtlety might have made the book more enjoyable to me as an adult, though I'm not the audience for whom it was written and it's era is long past.
February 19, 2018
A sad book really with some interesting things to think through.
December 17, 2022
Deaf reader reviewing books with deaf characters. This book is listed on my ranked list of books with deaf characters.
This entire book is nothing but ableist tripe, offensive stereotypes, and inspiration porn, so unsurprisingly it has won the Newberry Medal.
Set after the Spanish Civil War in an isolated community, the main character is a deaf girl who was born deaf and subsequently abused and neglected by her father and grandfather, who don't even bother to name her. She is referred to by both the author and other characters as “it” and “dummy.”
Through this character, the author makes deaf children out to be completely unable to use logical thought processes. In fact, the very first line of the book explicitly calls Anna an animal. Partway into the book, the woman who uses her as a babysitter decides to call her Anna. Anna holds the baby and smiles and cries. She is “no longer like an animal” now that she was “involved with another human being.”
More ridiculous things:
-As a child Anna was sent to the village to fetch some rice. How did she understand her task? How did she know how to get the village or where to go or whom to ask? People poked and laughed at her and pointed to everything except rice. So Anna couldn’t find the rice for herself? They weren’t laid out market style or stocked on a shelf?
-“Dummies never grow up to be women” - infantilization and sexualization (showing too much leg, too old to wear her hair down, body of a woman, etc.)
-Anna invents names and stories about the saints whose statues she dusts. Again disproving the animal claim, and then raising questions about language: how would Anna know anything about heroic deeds and stories so that she could cast these figures in those roles?
More ableism:
-There is a “hunchback” in the church who is not unhappy but plays up his chronic pain, especially to Anna. This is another toxic ableist trope, that people who experience pain are milking it for pity. Anna takes over most of his chores out of pity.
-Part 2 reveals Larry, who has stereotypically autistic traits, with some obsessive compulsive tendencies. His parents consider him and his interests “a bore,” and are so relieved that he goes abroad to study that they hope he stays abroad for much longer than he originally intended. They literally open a bottle of champagne when his letter says he plans to remain in Europe for the year. His lifelong quest is to find the Child, which Anna herself inadvertently discovered and keeps secret.
-When Carlos leads the mob, he feels powerful and abled (as in his disability “ceases to exist”). When he realizes the mob wants to hurt the boy, he tries to stop them, so they beat him to death because “they resented being led by a cripple.” Then they come to their senses and try to fix him, but it’s too late.
Overall, the author's intent is clear with the message that everyone needs love and that hate can turn to love and Jesus died for us, etc., but the ableism and inspiration porn is too much. And it's not just because this was written in 1968. It would have been offensive for that period as well.
This entire book is nothing but ableist tripe, offensive stereotypes, and inspiration porn, so unsurprisingly it has won the Newberry Medal.
Set after the Spanish Civil War in an isolated community, the main character is a deaf girl who was born deaf and subsequently abused and neglected by her father and grandfather, who don't even bother to name her. She is referred to by both the author and other characters as “it” and “dummy.”
Through this character, the author makes deaf children out to be completely unable to use logical thought processes. In fact, the very first line of the book explicitly calls Anna an animal. Partway into the book, the woman who uses her as a babysitter decides to call her Anna. Anna holds the baby and smiles and cries. She is “no longer like an animal” now that she was “involved with another human being.”
More ridiculous things:
-As a child Anna was sent to the village to fetch some rice. How did she understand her task? How did she know how to get the village or where to go or whom to ask? People poked and laughed at her and pointed to everything except rice. So Anna couldn’t find the rice for herself? They weren’t laid out market style or stocked on a shelf?
-“Dummies never grow up to be women” - infantilization and sexualization (showing too much leg, too old to wear her hair down, body of a woman, etc.)
-Anna invents names and stories about the saints whose statues she dusts. Again disproving the animal claim, and then raising questions about language: how would Anna know anything about heroic deeds and stories so that she could cast these figures in those roles?
More ableism:
-There is a “hunchback” in the church who is not unhappy but plays up his chronic pain, especially to Anna. This is another toxic ableist trope, that people who experience pain are milking it for pity. Anna takes over most of his chores out of pity.
-Part 2 reveals Larry, who has stereotypically autistic traits, with some obsessive compulsive tendencies. His parents consider him and his interests “a bore,” and are so relieved that he goes abroad to study that they hope he stays abroad for much longer than he originally intended. They literally open a bottle of champagne when his letter says he plans to remain in Europe for the year. His lifelong quest is to find the Child, which Anna herself inadvertently discovered and keeps secret.
-When Carlos leads the mob, he feels powerful and abled (as in his disability “ceases to exist”). When he realizes the mob wants to hurt the boy, he tries to stop them, so they beat him to death because “they resented being led by a cripple.” Then they come to their senses and try to fix him, but it’s too late.
Overall, the author's intent is clear with the message that everyone needs love and that hate can turn to love and Jesus died for us, etc., but the ableism and inspiration porn is too much. And it's not just because this was written in 1968. It would have been offensive for that period as well.
August 4, 2016
Much darker than I remembered. 48 years ago I loved this story but could not remember the title. A resourceful librarian helped me track it down...cheers for librarians.
I remembered a motherless deaf girl who lived on a farm in Andalusia, tended goats and lived happily ever after. The descriptions made Andalusia sound like a wonderful place to live.
Funny how much I had forgotten: the bleak description of village life, the loneliness, the cruelty and most of the action.
It is a fable, full of symbolism and commentary on human behavior. A girl, ostracized because she is different, makes a discovery that could save her poverty stricken village or destroy it. Main characters include: the girl, two women who care for but do not love her, a disillusioned priest, a disabled and disaffected villager and a self-absorbed tourist. All are dramatically, some miraculously changed. There is a strong Roman Catholic undercurrent.
I remembered a motherless deaf girl who lived on a farm in Andalusia, tended goats and lived happily ever after. The descriptions made Andalusia sound like a wonderful place to live.
Funny how much I had forgotten: the bleak description of village life, the loneliness, the cruelty and most of the action.
It is a fable, full of symbolism and commentary on human behavior. A girl, ostracized because she is different, makes a discovery that could save her poverty stricken village or destroy it. Main characters include: the girl, two women who care for but do not love her, a disillusioned priest, a disabled and disaffected villager and a self-absorbed tourist. All are dramatically, some miraculously changed. There is a strong Roman Catholic undercurrent.
July 27, 2016
I read this book twice in elementary school and was entranced by it. I forgot the title, but not the basic story. I always wanted to read it as an adult, to see if I found it as meaningful. However, I had forgotten the title. It took years of random Googling to reconnect with the title. Luckily, I was able to find a copy on Abehbooks. I did enjoy reading it again, but didn't feel the emotional connection wasn't as strong as I remembered. Maybe because, this time, I tried to understand the symbolism in the book rather than give myself fully to the narrative.
September 17, 2016
Pretty good quick read. It's a touching story. A quote I loved is "love is like a gift, it has to be acepted"
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews