cover image The Children at Santa Clara

The Children at Santa Clara

Elizabeth Marek. Viking Books, $16.95 (177pp) ISBN 978-0-670-81509-8

Taking a year off from her Harvard undergraduate studies to settle perplexities within herself, Marek went West. At the ""Santa Clara Child Care Center'' (to protect privacy, the author has changed the names of all those involved) in the mountainous Southwest, she worked for a year as an unpaid staffmember. Though lacking training or relevant experience, she became a case manager of sorts, therapist and substitute parent for emotionally damaged children. She tells their incredibly sad stories here and their small advances. In reaching out to children who are exceptionally needy, her own needs were met to the extent that she returned to Harvard. Lightly touched on in this picture of a rather laissez-faire child-care center is the fact that, subsequent to Marek's departure, Santa Clara was closed by state order. Having since graduated from college in 1984, the author works at a school for autistic children in New York. (April 6)