Love and First Sight

SundQuist, Josh. Love and First Sight. 2017. 281p. 382 mins. ISBN 9780316305358. Available as an audiobook on Overdrive.

Will Porter is excited about starting his junior year in high school. This is the first time he will be attending a public high school. He has spent his entire school career away from home, at a school for blind students. Will is completely blind. He has never seen colors, movies, or his own face. Being blind from birth means he can’t even imagine what darkness looks like, because he has no contrast to draw on. Wishing to gain independence, Will made the decision to step away from the comfortable environment he went to, and now looks forward to typical high school experiences.

His first day starts on the wrong foot when he accidentally gropes a girl while climbing stairs. Guided by the vice principal, who is uncomfortable with Will but attempts not to show it, Will locates all of his classrooms and memorizes the directions. In journalism, he makes a girl names Cecily cry because he was accidentally staring at her. His teacher informs the class that Will is blind, marking him as different. During lunch, Will finds what he thinks is an empty table but he ends up sitting on Nick.

Soon, however, Will becomes friends with a group of kids, including Cecily and Nick. As their relationship deepens, Will worries that having a girlfriend will undercut his independence. When his mother returns home one day with an incredible possibility, Will is torn. The hospital where his father works is conducting trials where stem cells are implanted in the eye along with new cornea, providing the blind the possibility to see for the first time. If Will accepts this opportunity, his entire life will change. He may never see very well, for his mind will not have a frame of reference for everything he sees. But he might see colors, shapes, and a general glimpse of the world. There is the danger that the operation could fail, however, leaving him blind again.

In a world dominated by the sighted, however, there is a lot of information that is visually acquired and that is never shared orally. What do his friends really look like? What visual signals do they send each other that Will cannot see? And is Cecily really as gorgeous as his fingers tell him she is? Being able to see will change his life, but it may not be as perfect as he imagined ...

Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes

Auxier, Jonathan. Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes. 2011. 397p. ISBN 9781419700255. Available at FIC AUX on the library shelves.

Discovered floating at sea with a raven sitting on the basket and with his eyes pecked out, Peter grew up a blind orphan in the port town that became his home. Adopted by a master thief, Peter became schooled in the art of pilfering, stealing, plundering, lock-picking, and pick-pocketing. He could maneuver in the tightest spots, climb the highest buildings, and explore through people’s houses with them in it. But this was never enough for Mr. Seamus, his evil master and his equally evil and vicious dog.

So when Peter manages to steal a box of magical eyes from a mysterious haberdasher, his life irrevocably changes. With nothing to lose, he decides to place one of the pair of eyes in his empty sockets, since they seem about the same size as his eyeballs would be. He is instantly transported into the waters of a tropical island, where he has to struggle to get out of the water while attempting to save a strange creature who turns out to be Sir Tode, a not-so-brave knight who was bewitched and turned into a strange mixture of cat and horse.

The two of them land on the island, where they meet the Professor and the haberdasher, who live on this island. Peter is to be sent on a very important mission: he must go to the missing kingdom and help the inhabitants restore the true king. At first Peter doesn’t want to go on this mission, but he and Sir Tode reluctantly agree to go.

They meet many strange creatures along the way, and end up in the desert, for the kingdom has lost all access to the ocean due to a curse. As Peter and Sir Tode make their way towards the distant castle, they must figure how to cross the uncrossable moat and help the people inside the castle. But ravens fly the skies and jealously guard the desert. And the evil king rules the castle with an iron fist and an army of armed gorillas.

Equipped only with his wits and his skills as a master thief, Peter must help the princess and the other children overthrow the king and escape from the bonds of slavery. As dangers grow and the stakes get higher, can Peter and his magical eyes shift the balance of justice?

A companion volume is called Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard. If you enjoyed this magical story, you might like Fake I.D. and The Great Greene Heist. Auxier also wrote a great horror story titled The Night Gardener.