The Baby Angel

Forever Angels

by Suzanne Weyn

When her aunt and uncle go on vacation and she remembers how her parents went away, Katie feels abandoned until she finds a mysterious baby in the woods.

163 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1995

About the author

Suzanne Weyn grew up in Williston Park, Long Island, New York. She has three sisters and a brother. As a girl, she was very interested in theatre and in reading. Louisa May Alcott was her favorite author, but she also read every Sherlock Holmes story. Suzanne lived pretty close to the ocean and going to Jones Beach was one of her favorite activities. Even today, if she goes too long without seeing the ocean, she starts feeling restless.

Suzanne now lives in upper New York State with her husband, two teen daughters and Abby the cat. Her house is at the edge of the woods and is nearly 200 years old. She graduated from State University of New York at Binghamton and received her master's degree from Pace University. She teaches part-time at City College in New York.

Suzanne's other books for Simon Pulse include South Beach Sizzle, a romantic comedy written with Diana Gonzalez. Her novels for the Simon Pulse line "Once Upon a Time" are The Night Dance: A Retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, Water Song: A Retelling of the Frog Prince, and The Crimson Thread: A Retelling of Rumplestiltskin. She very much enjoys rethinking these classic tales from an original point of view, always looking for the real psychological underpinning of the story. Suzanne is currently doing revisions on her fourth book in the line, which will be coming in 2009.

Suzanne's other recent novels are include The Bar Code Tattoo (2004) and its sequel, The Bar Code Rebellion (2006). The Bar Code Tattoo was selected by the American Library Assoc. (ALA) as a 2005 Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers and was a 2007 Nevada Library nominee for Best Young Adult Fiction. It is currently translated into German and was nominated for the 2007 Jugenliteraturpreis for Young People's Literature.

Reviews

[jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel conflicted about this book. On one hand, I was genuinely touched by Katie’s emotional journey and its surprising depth. On the other hand I have no idea who this book is trying to appeal to. Middle-grade aged girls, sure, who fantasize about being responsible for a baby, that makes sense. The angel stuff gives it a distinctly Christian flavor, but these seem to be secular angels since there aren’t any bible quotes or proselytizing. So is this for young baby-loving Christian girls who don’t care much about the bible? Because that seems like a very narrow demographic.

My biggest issue here is the angels themselves and the role they take in Katie’s life. They truly are everywhere- pretty much every non-established adult character is an angel in disguise, giving out free diapers or stealing the baby when Katie turns around. The animals are angels too, protecting Fern during her Baby’s Day Out shenanigans or stealing Katie’s keepsake of her dead parents and dropping it in a river. Do you see where I’m going with this? Every good thing in Katie’s life is a direct result of the angel’s actions, but so is every bad thing. If they want to help Katie so bad that they send her an angel baby to love after her parents died, doesn’t it follow that they were responsible for her parents’ deaths in the first place, even just by inaction? Wouldn’t preventing their deaths have made Katie happier in the long run? Why can they wave their hands and fix all Katie’s problems, including sprucing up a bike she stole (Good Omens reference?) but not the one problem she actually has? Does it only count as an angelic act if we see them glow and sing and drag the baby angel up to the heavens?

Also my copy did not include the promised stickers.

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I almost gave this a two because it is so far fetched but young girls would probably enjoy it.

[Noelle Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book! It really brought back how much I loved it and the series as a tween. Now if I could finish finding the series, it would be great!