A Night Without Stars, A YA Medical Novel Review
Book cover image from AbeBooks
Everyone remembers the first book that really made them think. For me, that book is A Night Without Stars by James Howe. Some readers may know James Howe as the author of the children’s book series Bunnicula; others may know him for the Pinky and Rex series, or any one of over ninety(!) books for all age ranges that he’s written in his lifetime.
I came across A Night Without Stars, a middle grade book published in 1983, at my local bookstore when I was ten years old, and it’s stayed with me ever since.
What’s A Night Without Stars About?
A Night Without Stars begins with Maria getting ready for open heart surgery to correct a ventricular septal defect. She’s as scared, as you would expect an eleven year old kid to be. She has no idea what to expect, and between her parents and her doctors, no one seems to want to tell her.
When she’s admitted to the hospital, she meets a boy named Donald, who was badly burned in a fire years before. The other children avoid him, partly because of his appearance and partly because of his behavior towards them. Maria, however, connects with Donald, and it’s only then that she finds someone who understands her fears and acts to put her at ease.
What’s My Take on A Night Without Stars?
Apart from educational reading, A Night Without Stars was my first foray into books that dealt with a serious subject matter. Now, as an adult, I’m struck by how much empathy and respect James Howe has for his audience and his characters, all of whom are perfectly distinct from each other.
He takes great care to detail Maria’s feelings about her surgery, from her fear of dying to her concern that her breasts won’t grow normally because of the surgical scar on her chest. Howe also writes the other children realistically; sometimes they’re huge jerks, sometimes they have intense feelings about their illnesses or disabilities, and sometimes they’re just people who see the world differently.
Parents, particularly those with sick children, can recognize themselves somewhat in Maria’s parents as they respond to most of her concerns with some variance of “don’t worry, you’ll be okay” and how useless it ends up being, even if it’s all they know what to say.
Others may recognize how the medical professionals behave towards Maria; they’re ultimately there to help, and some of them do try to talk to her on a more human level, but Maria is just one of many patients on the pediatric floor that they have to help.
In the end, they’re all human beings, each with their own role to play in the lives of others — even the most minor characters — written to be so specific that you can feel all of them. Whether that’s the scared parent, the knowledgeable patient, or the experienced professional.
Who Should Read A Night Without Stars?
Anyone who’s read James Howe’s work before will probably enjoy this, too. I would also recommend this to anyone who enjoys middle grade fiction regardless of how old they are, or to anyone who wants an easy read that also makes you feel better about humanity for a little bit.
Additionally, if you have or know someone in a situation similar to any of these characters, A Night Without Stars might be comforting to them. It’s more about the characters than it is the plot, although the plot is never lost, so to speak. People who care more about plot and adventure may not enjoy something as interiority-driven as this.
Great for a Kid, Still Great for an Adult
Not every book you read as a kid holds up as an adult, even when that book stays with you all your life. Thankfully, A Night Without Stars absolutely still holds up for me as an adult. And I care about Maria and Donald now as much as I did when I was ten.
James Howe’s writing is as distinct and evocative as the story needs it to be. More importantly, it offers a great lesson in how to help and understand the people around you without being preachy or cheesy. It’s just a damn good story.
Ready for your next quietly powerful read? Explore more book reviews from MockingOwl Roost:
- Iphigenia Murphy – Coming-of-Age Novel Review
- My Grandmother’s Hands – Book Review
- This Here Flesh – Nonfiction Book Review
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Mary Lipiec
Mary is a writer from Northern California (not the Bay Area, the real Northern California). She earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English from Cal Poly Humboldt. As a lifelong reader, her tastes can’t be pigeonholed—she’ll read just about anything that catches her interest. She was first published in Seven Gill Shark Review (no archive available), and she was the Archive Editor for Toyon Multilingual Literary Magazine from Fall 2019-Spring 2020. Her Master’s project, “Nothing about us without us: three models of disability in three works of literary fiction”, was completed in 2023.
Read her Master’s project, or enjoy some work from the Toyon Multilingual Literary Magazine.
