by Linda Rosenbaum (Author), Barbara Klunder (Illustrator)

A Children’s Book

Linda Rosenbaum‘s story of 10-year-old Georgie Titus is heartwarming, exciting, and based on an encouraging true account.  The cover illustration is a snowy scene with a little boy in a diminutive sled and a happy, excited black dog in the lead. Tucked in the back of the sled, you will see a pair of crutches.   It’s said that “A picture is worth a thousand words,” but LET’S GO, DARBY will continue to tell so much more than what’s on the cover. 

I was surprised that the first chapter actually tells how 10-year-old Georgie plans, undertakes, and makes a trip 40 miles in a dog sled all by himself. Yes, there is an accident and a scary encounter, but he does make it.  So, what’s left to tell?

The “rest of the story,” and it’s wonderful,  Young Georgie has club feet, a not-too-unusual malady (from the information in the back of the book). Even in 1898, when the story’s set, it was hard to cure clubfeet completely, even in infants. And Georgie is ten.  It would truly be a miracle, and a very costly one, if there was surgery for him. 

His parents hear of a children’s hospital in Toronto, Canada where “miracles” are performed. But they cannot afford to take their son there.  “He does well. He can manage. Doesn’t he have a paper route with Darby on his sled? It’s too costly, and it’s too late,” they reason.  But not for Georgie!

Georgie discovers, after his amazing solo journey, that kids are treated for other maladies at the famous SickKids Hospital. He meets and makes friends with two who have seemingly impossible illnesses that are treated there. One has a cleft palate. Another has tuberculosis of the spine. And others have been drastically injured in accidents or abuse.

It would be depressing, but the author keeps an upbeat atmosphere through her character Georgie. He makes friends, and then he becomes a super-friend to others. And the caring nurses deserve a true shout-out as well. You might get a tear in your eye as you read. A happy tear.

There is much, much more to this story, and Rosenbaum tells it well, writing in little snippets of reality that round out Georgie and his friends’ stories and tell a bit about the hospital and its supporters.  The real-life children behind the story and the events on Dominion Day at a seaside care home are truly heartening.  Well done.