Petey

Petey

Author	Ben Mikaelsen
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Children's novel
Published	1998-09-15 (Hyperion Books)
Media type	Print
Pages	281 pp
ISBN	978-0-7868-0426-9
OCLC	38391184
LC Class	PZ7.M5926 Pg 1998

Petey (1998) is a children's novel by Ben Mikaelsen, published in 1998 and set in the 1920s and 1990s.^[1]

Based on the real-life story of cerebral palsy patient Clyde Cothern, Petey illustrates for children an understanding of people with disabilities, and helps them to discover what these people go through. Re-occurring themes include growth, understanding, wisdom and love that shows that beauty and friendship can be found inside the simplest things.

Plot summary

In the 1920s, at a hospital in Bozeman, Montana, a boy named Petey is born with Cerebral Palsy. The doctor caring for him and his mother, Sarah Corbin, diagnosed him as physically and mentally disabled, look at her unable to walk or talk and believed to have no capacity for thought. Devastated, she and her husband spend two years and enormous sums of money attempting to find doctors who would give them a positive answer, but every one had told them to send Petey to an institution.. The Corbins decided to give up on trying to receive good news regarding Petey and they send him to a Psychiatric Hospital in Warm Springs, Montana.

The story's point of view then shifts to Petey, following his life in the hospital. Crowded, unsanitary, and terrible, the institution appears awful to Petey. When nurses care for him, they do it lazily and improperly, some even abusing him. A male nurse named Esteban begins to work at the institution and quickly befriends Petey. Whenever he can, Esteban talks to Petey and brings him chocolate, as Petey is "his favorite". understands (unlike most people) that Petey is not retarded, but that it is only his body that is deformed. Esteban believed that Petey could think like anyone else, but that he was trapped in his twisted body. Esteban was right, but he was discharged for informing civic leaders from Butte that Petey isn't, in fact, retarded.

At the age of eleven, Petey is transferred into the Men's Ward. Soon after, he notices a family of mice living in his room. They are his only joy until a new person, named Calvin, moves into Petey's room. Mildly retarded, and club-footed, Calvin quickly becomes Petey's best friend, and the two spend all their time together.

Petey and Calvin meet many people in the Warm Springs Insane Asylum including Joe, Cassie, and Owen. Eventually, many patients are moved to different facilities and Petey and Calvin are separated with Petey being taken to a nursing home in Bozeman, Montana. Though Petey vowed when he was separated he would not let anyone else get close to him, he eventually befriends a young boy named Trevor after Trevor shows him compassion. Trevor is unsteady at first, but soon reaches out and starts to get to know Petey and his different and wonderful way of thinking and his magic of never losing his love of life throughout all his horrible experiences. Trevor tries to help Petey and tracks down Calvin so that they can reunite and also finds Owen now living in Bozeman and reacquaints Petey with him. Trevor also helps Petey by getting him a new wheelchair and by just taking him out and showing him things and generally being friendly to him. Eventually, though, Petey gets ill and then starts to decline in health and take a turn for the worse. Since Trevor knows Petey is passing soon, he visits him in the hospital as much as possible and asks Petey to be his symbolic grandfather because of what great impacts Petey made on his life and since he loves Petey like family. As Petey dies in the hospital, he communicates that Trevor should go and live his life. As the story draws to a close, Trevor says goodbye to Petey and goes home with his newly reunited family while he reflects how important it is to live and how Petey's life has been about living.

References

1. Mikaelsen, Ben (1998-09-15). Petey (1st ed.). Hyperion. p. 256. ISBN 978-0-7868-0426-9.