conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a description for a story titled A Handful of Time about Award, Penguin, Canada with the genre: Literature & Fiction.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A former librarian, the author is the author of five children's novels, all published by Penguin Canada. She has won many awards for her writing, including the Governor General's Award and the Ruth Schwartz Award for Awake and Dreaming.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a plot for a story titled A Handful of Time.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A Handful of Time: The elderly Martin believes he hears the voice of Anna, the love of his youth who died during childbirth fifty years before.\nGuided by her voice, Martin escapes from his nursery home and begins a journey that echoes a chain of fatal events from his past, which increasingly merge with the present.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a plot for a story titled A Handful of Time about Award, Penguin, Canada with the genre: Literature & Fiction.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A Handful of Time: The elderly Martin believes he hears the voice of Anna, the love of his youth who died during childbirth fifty years before.\nGuided by her voice, Martin escapes from his nursery home and begins a journey that echoes a chain of fatal events from his past, which increasingly merge with the present.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for this story.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A Handful of Time
  Patricia knew she had made a mistake as soon as she got the canoe into the water. The long, green boat had looked so solid on the beach, but once afloat, it seemed to come alive. Patricia had to wade after it quickly before it nosed away. At least she'd remembered to put in the paddle. She swung her leg over one tippy side and gave a sort of jump into its safe middle.
  But it wasn't safe at all. The paddle kept sliding down in her hands. She couldn't duplicate her cousin Kelly's smooth strokes; hers were short and splashy and made the canoe travel in a jerky circle.
  Patricia felt more and more hot and nervous as she realized she couldn't bring the boat back to shore. She dreaded having to call for help. Kelly would come running down the steps and make fun of her Eastern cousin for being so inept.
  Just then a spurt of wind blew the canoe farther out. In desperation Patricia stood up and tried to pole her way in, but the paddle stuck in the lake bottom. Trying to hang onto it, she leaned forward as far as she could—and fell into the lake.
  HALF AN HOUR LATER she sat, changed but still shivering, on the edge of Kelly's bed. Her wet clothes lay in a sodden pile at her feet. She was afraid to open the door as she listened to the low voices coming from the other side of it.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Patricia had never seen Aunt Ginnie like this. Her usually mild eyes blazed as she paced up and down in front of Kelly, Trevor, Maggie and Patricia, who were sitting in a row on the couch.
  After Patricia had been brought in the night before, her aunt had hurried back from Uncle Rod's and fussed over her as if she were a baby. She gave Patricia a hot bath and put her to bed with an aspirin, trying to calm her shuddering sobs. Patricia had barely heard Kelly creep in beside her an hour later.
  Patricia didn't answer. She kept her eyes tightly closed and tried to stop the bed from bouncing up and down like the horse.
  This morning she was surprised to be included in Aunt Ginnie's scolding. "It's mostly Kelly and Trevor's fault, of course," her aunt said to her more gently, "but you knew you weren't supposed to go on the Reserve, Patricia, so I think it's fair that you be penalized as well."
  Patricia frowned at her cousin. She didn't want her sympathy. "It's all right. I was wrong, too," she said quietly.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Patricia wondered where she would be next summer. She might come here again... or she might not. Nothing was certain but the calm water around her and the tremulous bird call she finally heard.
  Then she saw the loon for the first time. It glided ahead of her, peering around warily with its dark, straight-beaked head, its broad back half-submerged. It sank into the water and disappeared.
  For an instant Patricia didn't know what time she was in. The lake and the loon's cry were out of time. They had been there before the Indians came, part of one endless summer that extended infinitely into the past and the future.
  It is the summer of 1940, and all of England fears an invasion by Hitler's army. Still, ten-year-old Norah Stoakes is shocked when her parents decide to send her and her younger brother, Gavin, to Canada as war guests. Travelling across the ocean is an adventure, but Norah's new life in Canada is a bigger challenge that she ever expected. Until, that is, Norah discovers a surprising responsibility that helps her accept her new country and her new home.
  It has been five years since Norah and Gavin arrived in Canada, and how that the war is ending, they will soon be going back to England. Norah is eager to see her parents again, but ten-year-old Gavin barely remembers them. He doesn't want to leave his Canadian family, his two best friends, and his dog. Then something happens that forces Gavin to make the most difficult decision of his life.