Wikipedia article
'Story for a Black Night' is a 1982 family drama novel by Robert Locke, under the pseudonym Clayton Bess, set in Africa. It won the 2002 Phoenix Award Honor Book award.
Plot
A 40-year-old man tells a story of his childhood, when he was ten, living with his sister, mother and grandmother. When strangers left a baby with smallpox at the house, the family is affected by the disease.[
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Reception
The book was included in the University of Chicago's Center for Children's Books' volume "The Best in Children's Books:
The University of Chicago Guide to Children's Literature, 1979-1984", which called it "a stunning first novel", "taut and tender, deftly structured, vivid".[
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There is also a link to the efforts of Rose-Marie Vassallo-Villaneau in her two translations into French. After the English version won the Phoenix Honor Award in 2002 for a book that has endured, she decided that she wanted to do a second translation, this time attempting her own French West African dialect.
Awards
* 1982 California Book Awards - (silver) First Novel
* A Contribution of Cultural Significance - the 'Southern California Council on Literature for Children and Young People'
* 'Family Circle' - Best Book for Kids
* 2002 Phoenix Award Honor Book
Play
Also from this main page is a link to the 2014 one-act play "PURE HEART in Black of Night" with the author now using his playwright's name Robert Locke.
References
[Zena Sutherland, 'The Best in Children's Books: The University of Chicago Guide to Children's Literature, 1979-1984', U of Chicago Press, 1986]
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