Amazon.com Tale of a Sky-Blue Dress is enough to convince loving parents never to leave their children in the tender care of a baby sitter again. Thylias Moss's memoir begins when she is 5 and a family with an older girl moves into the apartment downstairs. The girl， Lytta， becomes Thylias's baby sitter， and over the course of several years her propensity for cruelty blossoms into a full-fledged reign of terror culminating in young Thylias's rape. Though she never tells anyone of the abuse， its effects have already begun to poison her life: "Evil， presumably the only product of hell， perhaps it is like a virus， but given what certain strains of virus can do， given the way these viruses can completely possess (and usually ravage) their hosts ... then a virus actually becomes a possible model of God." She goes on to add， "From what appears evil emerges the best established symbol of goodness." And indeed， though Thylias Moss recognizes the terrible evil that was visited upon her and its destructive aftermath， she also realizes that she wouldn't be who she is now--an award-winning poet， a wife， a mother--if not for what she experienced then. Moss's memoir is often grim yet through it all runs a steady undercurrent of hope. "Joy is too necessary to abandon，" she writes， and in this story of a difficult life overcome， the author is as good as her word. --Margaret Prior --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Publishers Weekly "Splendor is not defined by tyranny， for I knew joy before I knew anything else，" writes award-winning poet Moss (Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler; Forecasts， Feb. 23)， whose gift for language permeates her memoir. She explores what she calls the opposing forces of good and evil that dominated her early years. Her mother， who was employed as a maid， and her father， a factory worker， lavished love and attention on their only child. But after the family moved to Ohio from the South when Moss was five， she was subjected， over a four-year period， to brutalization from Lytta， her 13-year-old baby-sitter. Moss， who never revealed Lytta's sadistic behavior to her parents， coped by surrendering to this victimization and keeping it emotionally distant from the rest of her family life. According to her， this initial surrender was followed by her later willingness to submit to cruel treatment from a girlfriend and from her first boyfriend， who forced her into a sexual relationship that resulted in an abortion. Moss credits her emergence into a happy marriage and a productive writing life to the capacity for joy that was also nurtured in her childhood. Author tour. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information， Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. See all Editorial Reviews