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nancy@nancykeane.com
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Zindel,
Paul
A BEGONIA
FOR MISS APPLEBAUM
New
York : Bantam, 1990.
IL YA
RL 7.1
ISBN
0553287656
(2 booktalks)
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| Booktalk
#1
Henry
and Zelda had a favorite teacher, Miss Applebaum, whom they helped set
up laboratories with. When she retires and doesn't come back to school,
they set out to find her apartment to carry her a begonia. They arrive
at a time when the doctor is providing a treatment. Despite their fear
of her illness, they respond to her enthusiasm for adventure and arrange
to have weekends free from family to spend the Fall traipsing around Manhattan
doing all the eccentric things Miss Applebaum does without a second thought.
You know from the first page that this book is sort of a confession of
the part Henry and Zelda played in Miss Applebaum's death. It's a truly
interesting telling of good times with a lady they didn't expect to get
to know so well.
Booktalk #2
Miss Applebaum is Henry and Zelda's
favorite teacher. When they return to school and she has retired suddenly,
they visit her, taking with them a begonia. She invites them to visit her
often, and the three go on adventures in New York City. Miss Applebaum's
niece doesn't want the children interfering and risking her health, and
tells them to leave her aunt alone. They don't realize how sick Miss Applebaum
is until they see the treatments she is receiving. * * When Miss Applebaum
has to be hospitalized, Henry and Zelda act as her grandchildren and visit
her daily. They take care of her apartment and the homeless people she
has always fed. When it is time, they bring her home and stay with her
as she dies, and follow her last wishes to be buried in Central Park by
her favorite bench.
(Linda Wolfgram, wolfgraml@crpl.cedar-rapids.lib.ia.us,
Middle/High School Media Specialist, Benton Community Schools, Van Horne,
IA) |
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SUBJECTS:
Teacher-student relationships -- Fiction
Death -- Fiction
New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction |
© 
Permission is granted for the
noncommercial duplication and use of this resource, provided it is substantially
unchanged from its present form and appropriate credit is given.
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