The Face at the Window

by Regina Hanson, Linda Saport (Illustrations)

Dora learns to overcome her fears of a mentally ill woman who lives in her community in this gentle and compassionate story set in contemporary Jamaica, West Indies.

Genres: Picture Books

32 pages, Hardcover

First published September 9, 1997

Reviews

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dora learns to overcome her fears of a mentally ill woman who lives in her community in this gentle and compassionate story set in contemporary Jamaica, West Indies.

[Jana · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's easy to fear and marginalize those that we don't understand. The children in Dora's Jamaican community make fun of Miss Nella because she has such strange and scary ways. Dora and her friends watch Miss Nella fighting invisible battles in her front yard and then retreat back inside her house. Dora tries to knock a mango off of Miss Nella's tree as part of a dare from her friends. But when she sees Miss Nella staring out the window at her, she becomes terrified that something awful will happen. This is a great story to start a conversation with young readers about mental illness and how we treat those that are different from us.

[Anne E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging story about children and their interaction with a mentally ill neighbor. Set in Jamaica, the ugliness and kindness of schoolchildren toward one another form an important part of the plot, as well as severe weather, and the roles that loving parents play not only in their daughter's life, but in the life of their misunderstood neighbor.

[Marah]

The Face at the Window begins with Dora and two of her friends in their neighbor, Miss Nella’s, yard. They’re trying to hit mangos off a tree to eat. Dora accidentally throws too hard and hits Miss Nella’s door. Her friends all tell her that Miss Nella is a bad, powerful woman and that she will send her three-legged horse to kick her. Dora goes home, afraid, and tells her parents what happened. Dora’s parents explain to her that Miss Nella isn’t a bad, powerful woman, but that she has a sickness in her head that makes her see and hear things that aren’t really there. They take her to Miss Nella’s house to apologize. Miss Nella answers the door, talks to them for a moment, then becomes afraid of thousands of crabs she hears. Dora reassures her that there are no crabs and offers her a tamarind she has in her pocket. As they leave, Dora asks her mother to help her make more tamarind balls for Miss Nella.

The illustrations are lovely, colorful, and assist in telling the story. This story doesn’t have much depth or information about mental illness, but I like it anyways. I think it would be good to read for young children, whether or not they have experience with someone with mental illness. One of the main reasons I appreciate it is because it takes place in Jamaica (as the author is Jamaican) and uses dialectal speech. I think even though this book doesn’t go too deep into mental illness, it’s good to have books from other cultures about these illnesses. Mental illnesses are not exclusive to Caucasians, but many books on them are written through a white lens.

[Jaime Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Face at the Window has such a good moral from it. The main characters of this story are Dora, Miss Nella and her friend Lureen and Trevor. The setting of the story is contemporary Jamaica and the point of view is from a narrative. The story begins with Dora and her friends snooping around Miss Nella's yard because they're trying to knock a mango off a tree. Dora gets frightened when she see's Miss Nella's face in the window of her house. The reason she is frightened is because her friends told her that looking in Miss Nella's eyes is bad luck. Dora still frightened eventually tells her parents what she did and why she is so scared and her parents had to sit down and tell her that the reason Miss Nella acts crazy is because she has a mental illness. The main ideas you can get from this story are to inform children of mental illnesses and to talk to children about starting rumors. I recommend this book to a teacher that needs to talk to her children about starting rumors or hearing rumors. It would be a good book to introduce the topic. I really liked the book, especially the illustrations. Rumors can make someone look really bad.

[Leah]

The Face at the Window was a story based out of Jamaica about a young girl who made a bad decision because she was trying to impress her friends. Dora took off a mango from a tree on Miss Nella’s house, who witnessed her taking it. Dora felt guilty and scared of what Miss Nella might do to her. There were many rumors about who Miss Nella was and what she was capable of. Dora told her parents of what happened, and they take her to go see Miss Nella. What will happen when they see each other again?
The illustrations were done with pastels, with rough representations of the objects in the story. Most of the pictures, except a few, were two page spreads with black, simple text. The illustrations showed the main points of the text to give a reader a visual of what was occurring. Most of the pictures had darker tones to represent the young girl’s fears. The dedication of the author was interesting and touching. She dedicated the book to everyone with mental illness, which was fitting because of details given about Miss Nella. Overall this book was well-written with illustrations to represent the text.

[Kathleen Ruff · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of village and its oldest member, whom all the youngsters thought was completely insane. The youngest of all was also brave by explaining to her dad the insane rumors she had heard and it wasnt before she came to realize that rumors are just things people casually make up and its not always good to believe them. Great book to read to students when one may begin to talk about another, rumors they have heard, or telling stories on other people.

[Leslie Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful award-winning book. There are so many lessons to be had from this book: doing the right thing, taking responsibility for one's actions, compassion, facing your fears, and more. Beautiful, colorful illustrations.

[Takishia Gabriel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book could be read to students to talk about why not to spread rumors or even telling stories on classmates.

[Ruth Quiroa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Américas Award Picture Book 1997