Kidnap at the Catfish Cafe

Author Study Selection

Author:  Patricia Reilly Giff, 1998, Viking

Illustrator:  Lynne Cravath

This is the third and final choice for my author study, and I found it quite different from the previous Giff books.  Kidnap at the Catfish Cafe is a juvenile detective book, and it takes the reader on a hunt to find a purse snatcher.  The detective is a teenage girl who lives in Florida, I believe.  She takes a cat, who is thought to be a stray but turns out as someone's missing pet, as her co-detective.  This cat takes on human qualities and is described as nodding and making other gestures that would make one believe it is speaking to Minnie, the main character.  Minnie ends up solving the case, as I would have expected, and she becomes friends with another amateur detective named Cash. 

The entire plot is exactly what I expected from the beginning.  It is one installment in a series called The Adventures of Minnie and Max.  The characters follow the typical route to solving a mystery.  By that, I am referring to some classic mysteries such as Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.  Each book was a carbon copy of the other, just with different twists, turns, and characters.  This makes it easy for readers to fall in love with the books, but it also makes it easy for them to predict what will happen.  While I have not read other Minnie and Max books, I would suspect that they do the same.  I liked this book, but as I said earlier, it was unlike the other books I have read by Patricia Reilly Giff.  Her recent juvenile chapter books are more historical in nature, and they are more believable.  This book was dull, uninteresting, and very predictable.     



The Jazz Man

Author:  Mary Hays Weik, 1966, Atheneum

This piece of realistic fiction takes us into the home of young Zeke.  He is an African-American boy growing up in an urban era in, what I suspect to be, the 1920s.  Zeke does not go to school.  Instead, he stays at home all day by himself in the apartment he shares with his mom and dad.  The family had recently moved from the Deep South where Zeke was born.  Mom and Dad go to work each day, and Zeke stays home and looks out the window at his neighbors.  One day, a piano is moved into the apartment directly across from his, and it is something he has never seen before.  Suddenly, the tenant brings his friends to his apartment, and they have a jazz session.  It is music that Zeke has never heard before, and he is enthralled.  Day after day, Zeke listens to the music, and it is healing for his small, delicate soul.  Soon after, his mom and dad have a fight, and both of them leave.  Zeke is by himself, and cannot afford food because he is a little boy.  His neighbors look after him, but he is tormented by his parents' departure.  One night, while he is dreaming of the music from the Jazz Man, his mom and dad wake him up.  I think this was eluding to the fact that part of the story was a dream, but I am not sure about that.  It is difficult to understand.

I liked the story, but there were a lot of things I could not believe.  First, why doesn't Zeke go to school?  He has a lame foot, but that is not a reason to stay home.  Second, why on earth do his parents abandon him and leave him to fend for himself?  This is perhaps the most shocking part of the story to me.  I can't believe parents would do that to their children, especially to one so young.  It is an unsettling account of what life was like for a black family in the early part of the 20th century.  I suppose children could identify with the musical descriptions, but I think it would be a stretch of the imagination.  I admit, this was not one of my favorite books, but it is a fictitious story that parallels real events that occurred in America, so I must admire it.

Water Street

Author Study Selection

Author:  Patricia Reilly Giff, 2006, Wendy Lamb Books

Water Street is another excellent piece of literature from Patricia Reilly Giff.  The main character, Bird, is only thirteen years old in 1875, but she has many responsibilities that make her seem older than she is.  She meets Thomas, a boy about her age, who moves into the apartment above her family.  Though neither of them wants to be forward about their feelings, she loves Thomas, and he certainly loves her, and that main theme runs throughout the entire story.  They are witnesses to the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, and Bird's father is a worker on the building crew.  Both Bird's and Thomas's families immigrated to the United States from Ireland at the time of the potato famine.  Bird is almost done with the 8th grade, and it will soon be time for her to work.  She has fancied the idea of becoming a healer like her mother, but she is not sure she can stomach all the blood.  Through twists and turns of life, Bird and Thomas both graduate from the eighth grade and attend high school--Thomas on a scholarship, and Bird on the money saved by her parents.  The hard road to this point is the crowning achievement in the lives of these children.

I thoroughly enjoyed every part of this book.  The author carefully integrated love, disappointment, heartache, joy, and family in a seemingly effortless way.  I thought the characters were accurately portrayed as having lived in the 1870s in America, and the real problems associated with this time period, including injury, poverty, and crime, were evident in the story.  This would be an excellent piece of historical fiction for middle schoolers to read.  I think teachers would also really like this book because it is another great story by a time-honored author.        

The Polar Express

Author & Illustrator:  Chris Van Allsburg, 1985, Houghton Mifflin

The Polar Express is an excellent example of  Fantasy literature.  Every child has probably dreamed about the North Pole and Santa's Workshop, and this book brings that dream to life.  The main character wakes up to find a train outside his house ready to pick him up for the journey North.  Along the way, they pass under bridges, through forests, and over bodies of water.  Nothing can prepare the travelers for what they find at the North Pole that Christmas Eve.  Santa and his elves are ready and waiting for the clock to strike midnight so that they can deliver the presents they have been creating all year, but they are also looking forward to the children's visit.  The main character receives Santa's first gift that year, which is a bell from one of the reindeer collars.  He loses it on the train ride home, but Santa puts it in its place under the tree for the next morning.  Though the adults have lost the ability to hear the bell (they no longer believe), this child will always hear the special sound because he actually met Santa. 

I regard this story as a Christmas classic.  It makes me feel happy, gives me images for what I have always pictured in my head, and provides me with amazing illustrations.  In case you hadn't noticed, the author and illustrator are one-and-the-same.  The pictures give a look of shrouded mystery, and it helps, too, that the events take place overnight.  I not only love the book, but I also love the movie of the same title that features Tom Hanks in many roles.  This is a must-read for children of all ages, including those of us who will forever love the magic of Christmas.    

Eleven

Author Study Selection

Author:  Patricia Reilly Giff, 2008, Wendy Lamb Books

Sam is afraid of the number eleven, and he can't remember why.  He is eleven years old, his birthday is April 11, and he vaguely remembers something about his childhood that deals with the same number.  The trouble is, Sam finds a newspaper clipping with his picture at age 3 only with a different last name.  Is he adopted?  Why hasn't his grandfather, Mack, ever told him the story?  What is the secret behind this family? 

Sam has a reading disability and, at eleven years old, cannot read simple words.  He goes to the resource room every day for help, and he is disgusted by his impediment.  That does not impair his ability for craftsmanship, however.  Sam is excellent at woodworking, a trait he learned from his grandfather.  Sam's teacher assigns him the project of crafting a medieval castle for an upcoming event.  He deftly includes a new student, Caroline, in his work because he wants her to help him read the newspaper clipping.  Under the guise of working together on the project, Sam and Caroline find out the details of Sam's early years through careful research.  I will not reveal the inner-workings of this story because you need to read it for yourself. 

This was an incredible book.  I was captivated by every turn of events, and the author did a fantastic job of creating suspense for the reader.  One can tell that Patricia Reilly Giff is an expert in her field, and expert writer that is.  Sam's difficulty will allow anyone else with the same situation to identify with him.  He is a determined young fellow who seeks to understand his past, and in doing so, he makes a new best friend.  This is a story of surprise, suspense, and superb writing.  I give it two thumbs up.   



Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Author:  Roald Dahl, 1964, Puffin Books (2nd ed. 1998)
Illustrator:  Quentin Blake

I would hypothesize that many of your students have at least heard of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or by a more current title:  Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  This book has been made into movie adaptations, the most recent starring Johnny Depp.  I saw the 1971 version with Gene Wilder, and honestly, it was the strangest movie I had ever seen.  I believe, though, it was a somewhat accurate portrayal of the book, because the book was strange too.  Charlie is dirt poor and lives with his four grandparents and mom and dad.  The grandparents are all over 90 years old and sleep in a bed together, which they never leave. (Weird.)  Charlie is fortunate enough to find one of Willy Wonka's 5 golden tickets that allows him an inside look at Wonka's ultra-secret factory.  In his midst are four spoiled children who all end up receiving the treatment they use on others.  For example, Violet Beauregarde chews gum incessantly, and she chews one of Wonka's unperfected blueberry gums.  She expands to the size and color of a blueberry, and she has to be "stretched" out to her normal size, which ends up being very tall and thin.  The moral of her story is that too much gum is bad for you.  In the end, Charlie is promised the chocolate factory when Wonka retires because he survived the tour.  Therefore, his family never again lives in poverty and inherits an expansive chocolate empire.

This book is purely fantasy, and is, rightfully so, extremely unbelievable.  The odds that Charlie would find a golden ticket are more than impossible, and the cherry on top is his inheritance.  I did not care for the movie, and I can't say I cared for the book, either.  The descriptions are so colorful and unimaginable that you almost wonder what the author was eating when he wrote it.  I dislike the fact that the author made all the bad things happen to the wealthy children and allowed the reader to believe that Charlie had a better chance of winning because he was poor and unsuspecting.  I suppose the author was going for a "feel-good" story instead of a believable one, and he certainly achieved that.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Author:  Judith Viorst, 1972, Scholastic
Illustrator:  Ray Cruz

Have you ever had an "Alexander" day?  By that, I mean, have you ever had such a horrible day that you wish you could move to Australia?  Judith Viorst does a fantastic job of identifying with children's and adolescents' everyday troubles in this classic piece of realistic fiction.  Alexander wakes up to find gum in his hair; his brothers all find toys in their breakfast cereal and he doesn't; he gets smushed on the ride to school; his friends decide he is suddenly their "3rd best friend"; he goes shoe shopping with his mom and brothers after school only to discover the shoe he wants is out of stock; he disrupts his father's office; and, in the end, he has to eat lima beans for supper.  All through the book, he wishes he could move to Australia.  His mom assures him that, even in Australia, little boys (and others) have bad days every once in a while. 

Realistic fiction is an important genre for young readers.  Sometimes, ordinary adults and individuals cannot identify with children on certain issues, and this type of literature allows readers to understand that others face the same trials as they.  Everyone has faced at least one bad day, including children.  I think Judith Viorst created a standard by which other realistic fiction can be written.  The words and illustrations are simple, the storyline is smooth, and the issues covered in the story are common to all.  This book has a permanent place in my bookshelf, as I'm sure it does in many households.  I believe this is one book with which any child can identify, even those who live in Australia.