Once Upon a Time a Sparrow

Once Upon a Time a Sparrow is an autobiographically inspired novel about a woman's journey toward accepting a less than perfect past. Structurally the story is told through the narrative voices of forty-seven-year-old Mary Madelyn Meyers (spring of '05) and nine-year-old "Maddie" (spring of '67). Though thirty-eight years separate these two points in time, a child's old coat with an acorn in the pocket reunites Mary with the long-forgotten Maddie.Mary's mother has died unexpectedly. When Mary opens the Lane hope chest at the foot of her mother's bed, she makes a surprising discovery: her mother kept the black hooded coat she herself had worn every day in third grade, regardless of the weather. This reunion sets in motion a stream of memories that demand Mary's attention. When she returns to her job as a school psychologist, Mary can no longer maintain her usual dispassionate manner while addressing the needs of children with learning challenges.Rural Minnesota in 1967 had no understand