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    My Father's Daughter
    My Father's Daughter
    My Father's Daughter
    Ebook109 pages1 hour

    My Father's Daughter

    By E. L. Konigsburg

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    About this ebook

    Poor Little Rich Boy

    Winston Carmichael has it all: a big house, servants, vacations in Palm Beach, and a fancy private school. But with overprotective parents and a sense of responsibility for his younger sister, Heidi, Winston sometimes feels more as if he's living in a prison than a dream.

    Then one day a woman appears at the front door claiming to be Caroline -- Winston's half sister, who was kidnapped and presumed dead long before he and Heidi were born. Is she really Caroline? Is she an imposter? Or is she something far more complicated than either? And does she hold the key that could unlock the door to Winston's prison?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAtheneum Books for Young Readers
    Release dateMay 24, 2011
    ISBN9781442439689
    My Father's Daughter
    Author

    E. L. Konigsburg

    E.L. Konigsburg is the only author to have won the Newbery Medal and a Newbery Honor in the same year. In 1968, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler won the Newbery Medal and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth was named a Newbery Honor Book. Almost thirty years later she won the Newbery Medal once again for The View from Saturday. Among her other acclaimed books are Silent to the Bone, The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, and The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World.

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    • 4/5
      I can't quite describe this book. It's not a happy book,and yet, when it was over, I felt satisfied. It ended perfectly. The mystery, the characters, the plot - it was perfectly done. As with every Konigsburg book, at the end, I felt like a different person, and it took me some time to come back to the real world. I highly recommend.
    • 3/5
      This book reminded me oddly of The Westing Game.

      I enjoyed this book, but it felt rushed. The story would have been better served had it not been squished into a 115-page young adult novel. (On the other hand, I might not have read it had it not been squished into a 115-page young adult novel.)
    • 3/5
      Summary: Winston Carmichael has not had a normal childhood - his father is one of the most wealthy men in Pittsburgh, he constantly has to take care of his developmentally delayed sister Heidi, and because since his half-sister Caroline was killed in a kidnapping before Winston was born, his overprotective parents keep him isolated from other children. All of that changes, however, when a young woman claiming to be Caroline shows up at their front door. Although she seems to be telling the truth, Winston's not sure if they're even actually related. But the truth is that it doesn't really matter - even if she's not their long-lost daughter, Caroline might just be what this family needs.Review: Meh. While I loved From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler as a kid, I never sought out any of her other books until recently. Father's Arcane Daughter marks the second of Konigsburg's novels that I've read as an adult, and while maybe I've just been picking the wrong books, I'm beginning to understand why Mixed-Up Files was the only one pushed on my by the librarians of my childhood.Part of this book's problem was that it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. For such a short book, it's a jumble of a lot of ideas: it starts out like the brother-of-a-disabled-sibling book (a la Al Capone Does My Shirts), but then strangely morphs into family mystery conspiracy, and part of the way back again. As a result, it's not really effective at either of the genres it attempts. Kongisburg does capture Winston's voice - hyper-educated but under-socialized - really effectively, however, and there are some nice poignant moments tossed in the mix.My biggest problem with the book, though, was its plot, especially its ending. The whole thing lacked believable motivations, and the ending was just so facile and disappointing that it lets the rest of the book down and really turned me off. I can't even recommend this to families of disabled children, since it sort of makes it seem like disabilities are just the result of not trying hard enough to believe the child is not disabled, and can be completely cured/reversed if you'd just bother to put the effort in. Ugh. 2.5 out of 5 stars.Recommendation: Pass. It's a short and fast read, but there are other books out there that are much better at accomplishing what this book was aiming for.
    • 5/5
      One of those books found in the children's section that says a lot to adults. A favorite book that had lots of surprises for me. It was made into a Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie, called Caroline.Caroline was kidnapped years ago and presumed dead in the attempt to rescue her. Her mother died of of grief, her father married the woman who had taken care of her and they had two children. One of them, Heidi, is somewhat deaf and awkward; the other, Winston, feels responsible for her. The mother seems very concerned with appearances; the father works almost all the time. They are very rich. A woman claiming to be Caroline appears and, after being checked out, is accepted by the family. She changes the dynamics of the family and gives the children the chances they would never have had without her; she does this at the cost of her own personal happiness. There is a tragic love story buried in all of this---kind of like Now, Voyager, only very different.

    Book preview

    My Father's Daughter - E. L. Konigsburg

    one

    Later—much,- much later—when we both knew what we had bought and what it had cost, she said that I should tell it.

    But I protested, "there are some farts that I hardly know and other farts that I don’t know at all!’

    She smiled. Life’s like that. A little knowing. A lot of not knowing.

    My telling will he a string of incidents. Like the separate frames of a comic strip. Besides, I said, I’m bound to give myself all the good lines.

    A mood can he an incident she said.

    Oh, no! I protested. No, no, no, no, no. Moods are colors.

    The comic strips are colored on Sundays. And in books.

    I thought a minute. For me it all began on a Thursday, a September Thursday in 1952

    Begin it there she urged. That Thursday is a good place to begin. It is precise. You’ll see, the rest will follow.

    IT WAS EASY to remember which day of the week it began because Thursday was a particular wart in my week.

    It was early day at Wardhill Academy, which by itself was good, but it was also early day at Holton Progressive, Heidi’s school, and that was bad. Our mother always went to the beauty parlor on Thursdays, and with Mother gone, it became my responsibility to amuse Heidi. And that was what actually made Thursday the most disagreeable day of the week.

    Heidi sat at the table in the breakfast room, waiting. She watched while I ate the snack that Cora had prepared. She sat there, her head propped on her hand, her elbow on the table and asked, What’ll we do today, Winston?

    I knew the question would come. Once a week it came, and I waited for it, the way I waited for the bell changing classes—with a mixture of expectation and dread. I never answered immediately. She watched my face for an answer, and I waited until she turned aside and then I said, in a quiet monotone, in tones I knew she could not hear, Why don’t you go into the kitchen and have Cora teach you how to do two things at once, my’dear? Like putting your head in the-oven and turning on the gas?

    Heidi turned’ back, Did you say something? I chewed on -my’brownie, looking straight at her, I said nothing, and. she got tired of watching my lips in motion, not making words. Mummy says … she began.

    I stopped chewing. "Why don’t you call our mother, Mother?" I asked. I looked at her and added, A mummy is something all stiff and wrapped in bandages.

    But Mummy sounds cozier.

    I chewed on the brownie some more and took a swig of milk. Cora was one of our better cooks. I hoped she would stay. The cook before Cora had lasted six months, and the one before that had lasted seven meals; she had quit after breakfast on the third day. No wonder. With Heidi around, it was like cooking for two different households on one salary.

    Heidi leaned closer, she was watching my lips, not wanting to miss the moment when my chewing would change into talking. I opened my mouth, a huge moosh of chocolate, nuts and milk and made a gargling sound. It was a quiet gargle, and its sound—effectively repulsive, I thought—was lost on Heidi. She just stared at my maw, waiting, watching, leaning over, not wanting to miss anything I might say.

    Look, I said at last, speaking slowly now so she could easily read from my lips those sounds she couldn’t hear, Let me finish my snack. Let me go upstairs, and let me take care of certain important body functions. Let me also change my clothes. Let me do all those things out of sight of you, and I’ play the Invisible Game."

    I watched Heidi smile that warm, wet, creature smile of hers, and then she larrupped away. I liked the word larrup, it suited her; water buffaloes larrup, and so do hyenas. I had accumulated a secret vocabulary of words that applied just to Heidi’s queer, bumpy ways.

    I could see her waiting in the library as I passed by on my way to my room. In her lap were her gatherings for the game, I hung up my school blazer; the school year was new enough that it had not yet become short in the sleeves, but old enough to have one soup stain and one small spaghetti. I did everything I had told Heidi I would do, and when I couldn’t drag things out any longer, I went downstairs to face my Thursday fate: fun and games with Heidi.

    The Invisible Game was her favorite. The chief rule was that everything was invisible to everyone except Heidi. Everyone really meant me, for I was the only one who ever played with her. I was blindfolded and seated at the far end of the library. Losing the full use of one of my senses made me Heidi’s equal. Heidi brought me things to identify. Each item was given a value, depending on its difficulty. If an article had a value of three, and I identified it correctly, I was. permitted to take three blindfolded steps out of the library. If I bumped into a piece of furniture, I had. to take double that number of steps back. Once I made it to the door, the game was over.

    She was clever at finding things hard to identify. She gathered them from all over the house. A toenail clipper, a napkin ring, a single cuff link, a lace-paper doily.

    On that Thursday I had advanced through toilet paper roller and paper punch when the doorbell rang. Partly out of annoyance—I had in my hand a tiny dress snap, which I couldn’t identify—and partly out of a need to assert myself, I tore’ off my blindfold and ran to the door.

    Heidi screamed, Winston, W-I-N-S-T-O-N, and came running after me.

    I managed to flick on the switch of the intercom and ask, Who is it? when Heidi arrived in the foyer and in her rage espaliered herself against the black and white marble floor and bit my ankle. I screamed, and the voice at the other end of the intercom called, What’s happened? What’s the matter?

    I couldn’t tell that voice that what was really the matter was that I had broken a cardinal rule of the Invisible Game, Heidi’s Game. I had allowed myself to use all of my senses.

    The person at the door jiggled the door knob just as Simmons, who had heard the remote in the kitchen, reached the foyer. He switched off the intercom with his right hand and picked Heidi up in his left arm and deposited her a knight’s move away from my foot. He then switched the intercom back on and asked in a voice as cool as autumn rain, Who is it, please?

    Is everything all right? the voice asked.

    May I help you? Simmons responded.

    Is someone injured? the voice insisted.

    Everything is fine, thank you, Simmons answered. "How may I help you?’

    I am here to see Mr, Carmichael.

    He is not in at the moment. Did you have an appointment?

    No.

    I suggest that you call his-office and-arrange an appointment.

    And then, as if the person were at the other end of a telephone not the other side of a door, Simmons asked, Whom may I say is calling, please?

    This is Caroline.

    There was no further voice at the other end of the intercom. I heard footsteps, and I hobbled over to the parlor window, listing starboard, rubbing my ankle.

    I saw the back of a tall, thin lady as she walked toward a taxi. She had a lighted cigarette in her hand. I watched her raise

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