This week, I'm posting books I have loved forever. No more of a theme than that. Today, it's A Birthday for Frances, by Russell Hoban. You probably know this book already, but I couldn’t bear not to mention it.
Frances struggles with the fact of her little sister Gloria’s birthday, remarking with bitter disappointment, “Your birthday is always the one that is not now.” Frances cannot allow herself to join in the fun of making party decorations, but nurses old injuries inflicted by Gloria, and departs for the sunnier climes of the front porch. When she discovers the gifts that Gloria will receive for her birthday, she informs her mother that she does not intend to give Gloria anything at all. “That is all right,” her mother responds. And then Frances begins to cry: “Everybody is giving Gloria a present but me.” Frances’s desperate efforts to come to terms with her own feelings about exclusion, forgiveness, generosity and love form the rest of this wonderful and wonderfully charged book. The rest of us can aspire to Frances’s honest self-examination, her willingness to rethink a situation, and her strength in following through on difficult decisions. (Russel Hoban, A Birthday for Frances. Illustrated by Lillian Hoban. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1968.)