The Wide Awake Fourth Reader (1913)

My story is a tale about a young boy thrown into foster care when his father goes to prison. He is five when this occurs. Coincidentally, his father is incarcerated for the disappearance of his mother and sister. When the boy is fourteen, he is finally told the real reason why his father is in prison. During this period he is bounced around from one abusive foster home to another until the age of eighteen, when he is emancipated. He enrolls in college and lives in the fast lane, wanting to feel normal and accepted, but he never can let go of that unanswered question. What happened to his mother and sister? After sixteen years his father is released from incarceration. The boy is now a young man at twenty-one years old. His father is no help in finding answers to his questions, and they have a tumultuous relationship. The young man is forced to live with him or be homeless, for he has no other family. He searches for the answer, however heartbreaking, or has to submit to the fact that in life there may be unanswered questions and that the reality may be that to move ahead one must let go of the past.