Being with Henry Book

"You never know where this life will take you," Henry Olsen tells Laker Wyatt when he finds the boy could, penniless, and sleeping on the street.Raised by his hapless, childlike mother, Laker has often had to act more like a caretaker than a son. It's become easy for him to soothe her with a cup of tea or fake a phone call to her boss on a bad day. But when stepfather number two, Rick the Prick, comes on the scene, everything changes. After Laker fights with Rick, his mother, Audrey, does the unimaginable: She kicks her son out. Drifting aimlessly, Laker meets Henry, eighty-three, a widower with family troubles of his own. Being with Henry brings its own challenges, as well as surprises. How these two disparate souls -- an angry, homeless teenager and a lonely, crotchety old man -- come to know and care for each other makes a sometimes funny, often poignant, and ultimately moving novel about truth and family and the courage it takes to search for these in unexpected places.

Laker, age 16, has always looked after his vulnerable mother, and when Rick the Prick becomes his second stepfather, Laker is resentful and angry at the way Rick picks on her. He attacks Rick physically--and is shocked when his mother tells him to leave. Laker takes a bus from Duluth to a nearby town and lives in the streets until Henry, a loneyl old man, takes him in and finds him work, and eventually steers him back to school. Henry isn't a saint--he's fussy and cranky, and he has family problems of his own. One of the reasons he takes Henry in is to annoy his bossy daughter, who disapproves of Laker. Sad and sullen at first, Laker gradually comes to care for Hnery, and he falls in love with Henry's granddaughter. When the trhree of them take a trip up to Hnery's summer cottage in Manitoba, Laker meets an old woman who turns out to have played a role in his past, throwing light on his mother's reaction to his violent behavior. He goes to see his mother and they are reconciled, but Laker realizes that he belongs with Henry. This is a moving story about families and belonging, based on a short story called 'The Kindness of Strangers' in Brook's collection 'Traveling on into the Light and Other Stories'. The coincidence of meeting the old woman might be a bit much to swallow, but otherwise this is a sad and powerful tale, beautifully told, with characters readers will believe in. (KLIATT)

When a confrontation with his latest stepfather turns violent, 16-year-old Laker is kicked out of the house, boards the first bus bound for anywhere else, and ends up panhandling on the street. There he meets Henry, an 83-year-old widower who can't adjust to life alone. The two strike up an uneasy relationship when Henry offers the young man a place to stay in exchange for yard work. In this expansion of a shoart story from her collection TRAVELING ON INTO THE LIGHT (1994), Brooks turns a coming-of-age plot into a fresh discovery. The interplay between the two characters is both brittle and caring, the most casual gestures layered with a quiet affection. readers who like their fiction strictly realistic may balk at Henry's overly patient manner and at the almost magical coincidences that lead Laker to the truth about his biological father. But by this time, most of them will already have fallen under the spell of this bittersweet depiction of a powerful male freindship that reaches across generations. (Booklist)

Martha Brooks is an award-winning playwright, novelist, and author of short fictions. Being with Henry takes its genesis from "The Kindness of Strangers," one of the most popular short stories in her collection Traveling on into the Lights and Other Stories. School Library Journal praised the collection in a starred review, saying, "Each story creates a single emotional impression, which is hiding like a pearl at its center. . . YA's are likely to find their friends and classmates in these pages." Traveling on into the Light was chosen a Hungry Mind Review Book of Distinction, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, and a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year. Ms. Brooks lives in Winnipeg, Canada.

Forced out of his home by a disagreeable and bullying stepfather, sixteen-year-old Laker moves to another town and strikes up an unexpected friendship with a frail but determined old man.