The Giant-Slayer (38 page)

M
any people helped with the research and writing of this story. These are just a few of them:

Kathleen Larkin of the Prince Rupert Library;

Richard Daggett of Downey, California;

Kathy O’Kane of Grande Prairie, Alberta;

Françoise Bui and everyone else at Delacorte Press, New York;

Bruce Wishart of Prince Rupert, British Columbia;

Darlene Mace of Gabriola Island, British Columbia;

Alysoun Wells of Grande Prairie, Alberta;

Kristin Miller of Gabriola Island; and all the people, wherever they’re from, who told me their own stories about polio, stories about fathers and brothers and sisters and friends.

Thank you, all of you.

IAIN LAWRENCE
studied journalism in Vancouver, British Columbia, and worked for small newspapers in the northern part of the province. He settled on the coast, living first in the port city of Prince Rupert and now on the Gulf Islands. His previous novels include the High Seas Trilogy:
The Wreckers, The Smugglers
, and
The Buccaneers;
and the Curse of the Jolly Stone Trilogy:
The Convicts, The Castaways
, and
The Cannibals;
as well as
The Séance, Gemini Summer, B for Buster, The Lightkeeper’s Daughter, Lord of the Nutcracker Men
, and
Ghost Boy
.

You can find out more about Iain Lawrence at
www.iainlawrence.com
.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by Iain Lawrence

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lawrence, Iain.
The giant-slayer / Iain Lawrence.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: When her eight-year-old neighbor is stricken with polio in 1955, eleven-year-old Laurie discovers that there is power in her imagination as she weaves a story during her visits with him and other patients confined to iron lung machines.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89374-2
[1. Poliomyelitis—Fiction. 2. Storytelling—Fiction. 3. Imagination—Fiction. 4. People with disabilities—Fiction. 5. Medical care—Fiction. 6. Fathers and daughters—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.L43545Gid 2009
[Fic]—dc22
2008035409

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