Public Libraries of Suffolk County, New York

The copper beech, Maeve Binchy

eng

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fiction

The copper beech

large print

Maeve Binchy

It is the Copper Beech, shading the school yard, which is the novel's centerpiece, the Blarney stone and the talisman of their lives. The Copper Beech has long, supple branches like a sturdy woman's mottled arms, wrapped firmly around grocery bags or fidgeting children. Through its leaves one can see flickering pieces of sky and the gray white of the school building, like chips of color in a mosaic. Its trunk bears messages -- battle scars that its young carvers cannot take back. It links them together, fixed and enduring through time. Even as children they were vaguely aware of the inequities : Maura, whose father drank up the weekly wages ; Niall, who would be off to university when his Shancarrig schooling was through ; Foxy whose father was in prison for assault. But in their innocence of the future they were indifferent to the differences

adult