Finding Gilbert: A Promise Fulfilled - 4991

*Gold Award Winner, 2019, The Society of American Travel Writers, Western Chapter. How do the unfulfilled dreams and promises of our parents shape our lives and our destinies? During World War II, just after the D-Day Invasion in Normandy, France, an American lieutenant took a French orphan boy Gilbert under his wing, making sure the boy had enough to eat and giving him attention and love. As the months passed and their bond deepened, he tried unsuccessfully to adopt the boy and bring him home to America. Years later, the soldier’s daughter grew up hearing her father’s stories about his time in France and about the orphan Gilbert. During her childhood, the boy felt like an invisible brother, hovering in her consciousness, slightly out of focus. Fifty years after the war and two years after her father’s death, she found herself compelled to write about how his stories of his time in France had influenced her life. As she journeyed to France to retrace her father’s footsteps, would she be able to complete what he had left unfinished? Could she find his orphan and tell him that her father had never forgotten him? In this true story about the power of love and kindness, Covington-Carter weaves a tale that spans eight decades, beginning and ending on the shores of Normandy. In it, she discovers the role that forgotten dreams play in guiding us towards our destinies. This book is a testament to the importance of a father's love and how a caring father can change lives in ways that ripple down through the generations. The faculty at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, who chose the book as a GOLD AWARD Winner, had these comments: “This is a gripping travel memoir of how childhood stories of World War II turn into a quest. A lot of travel is driven by the quest for answers—and this book fulfills that desire to find the truth in faraway places. This piece about a father’s love and fulfilling a promise to a French war orphan is well done, and a recommended read.”
ASIN: 099104469X
VSKU: BVV.099104469X.G
Condition: Good
Author/Artist:Covington-Carter, Diane
Binding: Paperback