About the book: 1960 / A nurse bent over a pale young woman, refreshed her face with a cotton swab dipped in lavender water, and announced that she had given birth to a wonderful little boy . When Maud Bessette heard these words, she was so filled with joy that the gray Liverpool sky, looking through the window of Walton Hospital, seemed blue to her. This happened to her for the first time in her life. The cry of a child who was being washed reached her, and she smiled, firmly knowing that no little Englishman had ever cried so beautifully and that, by giving life to her son, she had accomplished the only feat of this kind in the history of the United Kingdom. Maud Bessette held out her hands, and something red was placed in them, twitching and choking with a furious cry, which the young mother joyfully recognized as the eighth wonder of the world.