Almost Forever

by TESTA, MARIA

• ISBN13: 9780763619961
• ISBN10: 0763619965
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-08-11
• Publisher: Candlewick

Summary

A spare, lyrical - and ultimately heartening - novel about one family's experience during the Vietnam War that has much to say to a new generation of readers. Doctors don't fight; doctors heal. But when the young narrator of Maria Testa's lyric novel watches her father march off to serve a year in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, a year seems like a very long time. A year is a long time when you're waiting for letters, waiting for word. A year seems endless when you don't know where your father is anymore. A year is almost forever when you're wondering . . . and forgetting. Through the eyes of an observant child, Maria Testa, author of the critically acclaimed BECOMING JOE DIMAGGIO, has written a taut and tender American ballad of one family's experience in the year 1968 - a year that would be a turning point in both U.S. involvement in South Vietnam and American public opinion.

Author Biography

Maria Testa has written several children’s books, including the middle-grade novel BECOMING JOE DIMAGGIO. A lifelong New Englander, Maria Testa grew up in Rhode Island, graduated from Brown University and Yale Law School, and now lives in Maine. About ALMOST FOREVER, she says, "It is a tribute to the children of Vietnam veterans and to those who did not come home from the war. It is my hope that we can always remember ourselves as children, so as not to forget the new generation of young people still waiting for the end of forever."

Table of Contents

Christmas 1967	p. 2
Doctors Don't Fight	p. 4
Valley View	p. 6
Packing	p. 9
Green Day	p. 11
One Year (Not Such a Long Time)	p. 13
Just Like Always	p. 15
School Day	p. 17
Letters	p. 19
Lollipops	p. 22
You Go Play	p. 24
Mr. Roger Mudd	p. 27
Demonstration	p. 30
Shades of Gray	p. 32
Backseat Conversation	p. 34
Mama Tells a Lie	p. 37
Every Friday Night	p. 40
Prayers	p. 41
The Wedding	p. 44
Christmas 1968	p. 46
All the News ...	p. 48
Telephone Conversation	p. 50
Different	p. 52
Be Still	p. 55
Mama, Dancing	p. 57
Dreams	p. 59
Car Ride	p. 62
The Race	p. 65
Almost Forever	p. 68
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

CHRISTMAS 1967

We were all together
decorating
the Christmas tree
the day the orders came
for Daddy,
Special Delivery.

Daddy opened
the envelope
slowly,
unfolded the letter,
and said only one word:
Vietnam.

Mama sat down
right there
on the floor,
right there
in front of the tree.
I leave in February,
Daddy said.

It was 1967.
And we never finished
decorating
the Christmas tree.

DOCTORS DON'T FIGHT

Daddy needed
to explain
to my brother
and me
what doctors do
when they go
to war:
Doctors don’t fight.
We take care of
the people
who get hurt
in the fighting.

"Doctors get hurt, too,"
Mama
needed
to say.
"Bullets and bombs
do not care
that you went
to medical school."



ONE YEAR (NOT SUCH A LONG TIME)

The four of us
gathered
with other families,
we all gathered
in a building
on the Army base,
all in a special room
set aside
for saying goodbye.

One year
is not
such a long time,
Daddy said,
kneeling on one knee
in front of me,
squeezing
my shoulders.

In one year, Baby,
you’ll be in
second grade,
not first,
and you’ll be
seven years old,
not six,
and then
I’ll be home.
One year
is not
such a long time.

I did not
tell Daddy
that he was wrong —
that second grade
was half a hallway
and a whole world
away from first,
that seven
was everything
six was not,
and that one year
was forever.

---

Excerpted from Almost Forever by Maria Testa
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.