Nora's Story

 Introduction

Nora ClarkNora Clark is 13 years old. She lives in Anchorage with her parents Bob and Andrea, her sister Irene, and her dog Eunice, cats Franny and Arrow, gerbils Hazel and Hershey. She graduated from Chugach Optional Elementary School in June 2004, and she is now in Junior High School.

Nora was diagnosed with cancer just prior to her third birthday. The family spent almost all of her third year in Seattle, at the Ronald McDonald House, and in and out of Children's Hospital for surgeries and chemotherapy and radiation.

Over the summer of '98, between kinDrawing of cat and flowerdergarten and first grade, one of the regularly scheduled CT scans revealed two small nodules in her lungs. Two and half years out and the cancer had come back, or reasserted itself. Nora had another surgery in Seattle, returned for the last few weeks of summer, and started the first grade.

In the pages of "Nora's Story," Bob and Andrea share some of their thoughts about guiding Nora toward literacy. And Nora shares the pictures and stories she has written -- some of which helped her cope with an illness she was too young to understand.


Bob and NoraBob Clark is a stay-at-home dad and a writer with a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of Alaska Anchorage. His short story, "Hospital Game," written when Nora was four years old, is based on his experience with her illness. It was published in 1997 in the Ontario Review.
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