Playing Hooky

"Playing Hooky  A Child's Path To Healing" is my first children's chapter book I plan to present to the public on March 15 or thereabouts depending on my cover illustrator.  The story takes place in 1950 and centers around the Kolinski family:  Mary and her two children, Betty Lou and Danny.  Three years prior, Mary's husband was severely injured in the local steel mill where Frank worked as an operations supervisor. He died a few days later. Mary's compensation for her tragic loss was a matron's job, scrubbing floors and cleaning toilets.

After a particularly tough morning at St. Michael's Parochial School, the Kolinski Kids decide to play hooky.
However, if they had only known what awaited them down the road on that fateful day, perhaps they might have reconsidered.  Without revealing more of the story, I can say that any negatives the children endured were nothing compared to the lessons they both learned, lessons that would impact them for the rest of their lives.

Believe me, I'm not advocating playing hooky, but oftentimes education is best served through actual experience.What this brother and sister discovered about the consequences of their actions, the loss of their beloved father, and the inner strength innate even to young children becomes the building blocks of their maturity and independence.

You may ask, how playing hooky could have possibly put these kids on the path to healing?   As unlikely as it may seem, by taking the cinder path which leads to the creek running through their neighborhood, Betty Lou and Danny eventually realize the healing of their own bodies and spirits.  Such lessons could have never been learned in any classroom whether in 1950 or today in 2014.

We find answers to our most difficult problems in the strangest of ways and places.  As long as we stay open to possiblities in our lives, all things are just that, possible!