When I Found You: by Catherine Ryan Hyde | Summary & Analysis

By IRB Media

This companion to When I Found You includes:

• Summary of the book,

• Character Analysis,

• A Discussion on Themes

• and much more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Aug 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781943427697

IRB Media

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Book preview

Summary

When I Found You by Catherine Ryan Hyde is a moving and emotional novel that speaks to the power of unconditional love and how that love in one person can change the life of another. The actions of character Nathan McCann will help to restore faith in humanity.

In October of 1960, Nathan McCann is a childless, unhappily married, middle-aged accountant who finds an abandoned baby while walking through the woods on the way to go duck hunting. His hunting dog acts strangely and leads him to the infant in leaves under a tree. Nathan rushes the baby to the hospital.

The baby survives and Nathan wants to adopt the child. Nathan feels the baby is destined to be a part of his life. His wife, Flora, wants nothing to do with the child.

The parents of the baby, Lenora Bates and Richard A. Ford, are found and arrested. Nathan meets with Ertha Bates, the baby’s grandmother, and asks that she introduce the child to him some time in the future. She agrees and names the baby Nat after Nathan.

Lenora dies from sepsis, an infection brought on by the birth. Richard jumps bail and leaves town. Every birthday and every Christmas, Nathan secretly drops off a gift for Nat.

Over the years, Ertha is evasive in answering Nat’s questions about his real parents. She tries to guard him from being hurt. At twelve, Nat overhears his friend’s mother and another woman talking about how he was abandoned in the woods by his mother. Disturbed by what he has heard, Nat