One thing was for sure: Rebekah Uwitonze was independent.
Born with her feet twisted sideways and backward, her
shoulders stiff, and her middle fingers bent to her palms,
Rebekah never let her problems stop her from anything. She
could feed herself – she wasn’t a baby! – and though it took
awhile to figure out how to quickly reach the bathroom a few
feet from her back door, she otherwise got around just fine.
So what if she crawled, or lurched about on the tops of her
feet? So what if folks in her Rwandan village told her
parents to let her die when she was born? So what if some
people said she was “cursed”? As long as Rebekah stayed
strong and smart and loved, her feet and her hands weren’t
important.
Yes, she’d seen doctors: when she was small, they tried to
turn her feet but it hurt a lot. It didn’t work, either, nor
did a second attempt, so when a white stranger came to her
parents’ home and offered to take Rebekah to America to fix
her feet, she was afraid. She remembered being left at the
hospital, and how much it hurt. Still, as Papa said, “Chance
comes once” and so Rebekah went with a translator on her
first airplane trip from one continent to another.
But Bugesara, Rwanda was nothing like Austin, Texas!
In Texas, dogs are allowed in the house and on the bed.
There were new foods to try, a trampoline to play on, and
new holidays to experience. Rebekah learned English, made
new friends, and ate French fries while her surgeries healed
and she learned to walk again.
But then it was time to leave Texas and go home. Was she
ready for it?
Some days, nothing goes your child’s way. From the moment
she wakes up until the second she shuts her eyes, it’s one
thing after another but this is for sure: have “Her Own Two
Feet,” and things will fall into perspective.
Beaming strength from every page, authors Meredith Davis
(the matriarch of the Texas host family) and Rebekah
Uwitonze tell the latter’s story in a matter-of-fact way
that elicits compassion without begging for it. That gives
readers a chance to quietly observe Uwitonze’s
determination, practicality, and her sheer bravery in a
quest to overcome a disability. Without being a spoiler,
this will leave your child cheering.
“Chance comes once,” as Uwitonze’s Papa said, so seize it
and find Her Own Two Feet. If your
eight-to-12-year-old wants a good biography or a tale of
gratefulness, having it is the first step.
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