Gentlehands (12 page)

M. E. Kerr
is the winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for her lifetime achievement in writing books for young adults. In announcing the award the ALA Young Adult Library Services Associated cited M. E. Kerr for being “one of the pioneers in realistic fiction for teenagers. Her courage to be different and to address touchy current issues without compromising, but with a touch of leavening humor, has earned her a place in young adult literature and in the hearts of teenagers.”

M. E. Kerr was born in Auburn, New York, attended the University of Missouri, and now lives in East Hampton, New York.

You can visit M. E. Kerr’s website at www.mekerr.com

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We gratefully acknowledge permission to use lines from “If ” from
The Definitive Edition of Rudyard Kipling’s Verse,
copyright 1910 by Rudyard Kipling. Reprinted by permission of Doubleday and Company, Inc., and of the National Trust and the Macmillan Company of London and Basingstoke.

Lines from “Barter” reprinted with permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., from
Collected Poems of Sara Teasdale
. Copyright 1917 by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., renewed 1945 by Mamie T. Wheless.

GENTLEHANDS
. Copyright © 1978 by M. E. Kerr. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Adobe Digital Edition March 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-190962-7

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