Love and Life

About the Book

This book is a collection of short stories that are graded for 8 through 14 years or age. Each of these has its own topic and style. Hence, there is some difficulty in attempting to provide a general classification. The closest to an overall picture is that these stories will make you laugh, cry, and feel emotion. Each of these stories contains a different mix of these above ingredients, but all will leave you satisfied.

Bird in the Rabbit Hole shows how two different creatures work and live in harmony. They help each other and provide delightful mutual company. They even keep one another from being consumed by an enemy.

No Room for Dolls tells of a little girl who was forced to abandon three dolls when the poor family moved halfway across the country. There simply was no room in the small van. Each doll has advantages and weaknesses. Spurred on by the love of the girl, the dolls pool their resources to make the trek to follow the girl to her new home.

Trading Toys for Candy describes the evils of bad monsters that trick the children to part with food, toys, and beds in trade for ice cream and candy. Each monster has a strength and a weakness. Good monsters and a soldier boy help the children to fight the bad monsters and to regain their rightful possessions.

Linda’s Dark Silent World concerns a deaf-blind child who is befriended by a girl her age. Through love and effort, the girl learns how to communicate with a child who can neither see nor hear.

DZ on the Trestle is a story about a little train and his father, a switch locomotive. Wheelchairs and beds must be transported by rail to a children’s hospital. There is heavy rain, which damages the trestle, the only tracks to the hospital. The trestle cannot support the weight of ordinary locomotives. The only train light enough is DZ. But can such a small locomotive pull the load up the steep incline in heavy rain?

Puffer Brown in the Tunnel tells the tale of a tiny locomotive that learned to say words with his whistle. The fastest train in the world starts it speedy journey along the track that passing through a tunnel. However there is a cave-in at the far end of the tunnel. The speeding locomotive will not see the damage until it’s too late. And at that speed, it takes two miles to stop. Puffer Brown must race towards the speeding train and try to tell it that the tunnel caved in. Can he reach the train soon enough, and how will he get out of its way when it slows down to a stop?

Rag Doll on Our Street is a poem with rhythm and rhyme about a poor girl who finds a rag doll in the trash can. She makes clothes and a bed for it. The garbage men come by and thinking her doll and bed are trash, they these into the truck. Is her love strong enough to catch up to the truck to rescue her doll?

No Food for the Puppy has a sad opening when a very poor boy finds a puppy in the trash. It is starving and cold. Holding the puppy in his torn but warm coat, he brings the neglected animal home. Realizing that the trembling creature is hungry, he feeds it the family’s last meal. When they come home, what will happen?

Wings on His Fingers is a humorous fantasy of a boy who can fly by wiggling his fingers. While flying, he sees a villain stuff a girl in a cannon on the top floor of the highest building in New York. He decides to rescue the girl, but that entails fighting an armed villain. The cannon goes off and the girl plummets toward the earth form a high altitude. Can the wiggle-fingered boy save her in time?

A Janitor Retires is a story about a boy whose father died and he has found a substitute father in the school janitor. He makes a coffee mug as a farewell gift, but is very sad to lose a father for the second time. In tender words the janitor explains why people and fathers die.

Trottin’ Trickin’ Race is a poem with rhythm and complex humorous-style rhyme. The riders sit on different animals. Close to the finish line, there is one highly dishonorable rider. It’

About the Author

Ira Cochin worked as an engineer for 15 years in industry for such companies as Kearfott, and Bendix. Then he was a professor for 36 years at New Jersey Institute of Technology. During his professorship, Ira became blind and then deaf. He went for training at the Helen Keller Center for the Deaf-Blind. He became the world’s first deaf-blind professor to teach engineering. His accomplishments appeared in the New Jersey Supplement of the Sunday New York Times in December 18, 1977. Ira Cochin has written eleven novels, two technical books, and dozens of articles in various trade journals.