Before the Lark

By Irene Bennett Brown

Book Overview

In 1888 Kansas City, Missouri, twelve-year-old Jocey Royal, who has a cleft lip, no longer goes to school. Jocey believes that she will never have a friend, that others will always chase and make fun of her, as they did at school before she quit. Since her mother died and her father became a drifter, Jocey has lived with her grandmother, a washerwoman. When she's not helping Gram with laundry, Jocey fills her lonely life with books and dreams. Mostly she dreams of Kansas and the farm her father abandoned there. On the farm, she could live in isolation--free from torment. Eventually she persuades Gram to go with her to Kansas. Life on the farm is not, however, what Jocey expected. Hard work was no surprise. But there are neighbors and traveling salesmen who cannot be avoided. Then there's Gram, who seems determined to be sickly. Jocey wonders if she made a terrible mistake, until she discovers that any girl can have friends, if she will open herself to others. And maybe even her cleft lip can be helped.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0896727270
• ISBN13: 9780896727274
• Release Date: September 2011
• Publisher: Texas Tech University Press
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 7.9"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

A diamond in the rough

I was very, very, woefully sorry to find out that the original edition of Before the Lark was out of print and the only edition of the book is in large print. Furthermore, it was sad to know that the sales rank was so low. This really is a great book. I got this book from a school book sale and didn't read it until five years after I purchased it. The story is about a girl named Jocey Royal who lives during the late 1800's, who has the horrible curse of a cleftlip, or harelip. For that, she is an outcast and is driven to go to a patch of Kansas farmland where she finds out more about har grandmother and her never there father. She also lerans that anyone can have a friend, and that some curses can be cured. I really wish that more people would read this. Irene Bennett Brown wrote about a topic that rarely anyone thought about- the defects of a harelip. Many American children don't what a harelip is because the defect is fixed before the leave the hospital when they're born. But many poor courntries can't treat children with harelips, so they are shunned, just like Jocey. I LOVED reading this book. Irene Bennett Brown created an unknown masterpiece and needs to be applauded. PLEASE, for your sake, read this book.