When I was still in single digits, I read The Murder of Robbie Wayne, Age Six. It appeared in condensed form, in Reader’s Digest, on the magazine racks in my primary school library. I probably shouldn’t have read it, realistically, but I’d become—unexpectedly—an advanced reader. My parents often wrote letters requesting permission for me to read certain books: one, I recall, was Lord of the Flies. I was 11.
The Murder of Robbie Wayne tells, in unsparing prose, a true story of child abuse that culminated in murder, a trial, and lifelong incarceration. Journalism used to be different, even academic journalism, which meant its author, Mary Jane Chambers, won Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism’s 1981 National Magazine Award for Public Service. It’s difficult to imagine the same award being made today.
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