Call It a Gift

by Valerie Hobbs

"Jeronimo Smith, seventy-seven, is having a particularly bad day, and he needs the poems of William Butler Yeats to get him through it. But the book has just been checked out of the Santa Barbara Public Library. When he accosts the widow who has the book, he meets the woman who will become the love of his life. They're an unlikely pair - Jeronimo a retired janitor, Emily cultured and wealthy - and both are coping with troublesome adult children and the indignities of aging. Jeronimo courts Emily by mowing her lawn, and when he impetuously invites her to join him on a road trip to Yellowstone, she stuns herself by agreeing." Their elopement is a once-in-a-lifetime adventure and the setting for a bitter-sweet love story about the poignant intensity of old age. The two must find a way to balance family responsibilities against their own needs, and the impulse to stay close to what is wild in themselves despite pressures to age "sensibly."

232 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Valerie Hobbs is the author of many award winning novels for young adults including Sonnys War, Tender, and How Far Would You Have Gotten If I Hadnt Called You Back, for which she was designated a Flying Start author by Publishers Weekly in 1996. Hobbs was the winner of the 1999 PEN/Norma Klein award for an emerging voice of literary merit among American writers of childrens fiction and the Arizona Library Association Young Adult Author of the Year in 2003. Defiance, her most recent middle-grade novel, was given the 2006 most distinguished fiction award by the Childrens Literature Council of Southern California and has been nominated for twelve state awards. "

Reviews

[Lynne Spreen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of an older couple, both in their late seventies, who meet and fall in love, even though they are an unlikely pairing. The novel has everything I look for in an OA story. The main characters are fully formed and they think they know how to navigate life. Yet something happens to change the way they see things, and as a result they learn, grow, and develop. There were places in the book that made me laugh and also cry. I came away feeling empowered about how one might view the end of life, and reassured about our endless ability to improve and grow.

[Pam Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Call It a Gift had particular appeal for me as I endured a life-threatening brain surgery in the sixty-third year of my life. It reminds me to value each moment and each person in my life. Jeronimo and Emily share a unique, somewhat odd friendship late in life, yet their relationship evolves and becomes love. She reads books to him as they travel past breathtaking scenery to Yellowstone in their rush to make the most of their impromptu trip. Mo and Em are actually quite an unlikely pair who met at a library seeking the same poetry book, he a former janitor, and she a Smith Graduate, a well known gardener with a rose named after her, and a Nana with hours of volunteer work to her credit, including the care of her own to grand kids. Mo's impromptu poetic spirit shines when he writes the words of Yeats as a loving tribute gift to her. Mo has a definite poetic side which we see when climbs a ladder to her bedroom window to invite her to escape on a trip. Mo's gruffness contrasts with Em's soft gentility, leading to some laughs. Mo has never before experienced the richness of being read to, and Emily chooses a Hemingway short story, Indian Camp, his favorite. We're all well aware that they have been given a gift of a surprising relationship in the senior years of their lives! Together they manage to capture a zest for life and joy of adventure that I will not soon forget. If you are up for a good cry, this book may do it. I loved Call it a Gift by Valerie Hobbs and will recommended it to friends in my generation particularly! It is a very sentimental read recommended to me by my sister Debbie.

[Jeffrey Stalk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't usually go for the maudlin stories, but this one was a cut above -- about living life to the fullest until the game is really over.