Book Summary
In Dead
End in Norvelt, Jack Gantos gets grounded for the entire summer for playing
with his father’s WWII rifle and mowing down his mother’s precious corn field.
He thinks this summer is going to be torture. It doesn’t help that his old
neighbor, Miss Volker, has called Jack’s house, needing his help—and requesting
his help for quite early in the morning. Jack is also a chronic nosebleeder;
whenever Jack gets flustered or excited, blood floods out of his nose, and he
can’t get it to stop. Jack even has to dig a fake bomb shelter for his father,
who really just wants to create a landing strip for the small plane he bought
so he can leave the little town that he detests. And to top it all off, Jack’s
spunky best friend, Bunny, is incredibly disappointed that Jack isn’t trying
harder to spend time with her.
Although the summer seems bleak, Jack
spends his time reading books about history, which he actually really enjoys.
Plus, he is surprised when he ends up having fun in unexpected places—namely,
in Miss Volker’s house, the elderly neighbor who suffers from extreme
arthritis. Since Miss Volker cannot write the obituaries herself, Jacks
transcribes them for her while reliving history and trying to keep the spirit
of Norvelt alive—the spirit of helping your community and working together. Miss
Volker is obligated to stay in Norvelt until she has written the obituaries for
all of the original Norvelt residents due to a promise she made to Eleanor
Roosevelt, who hired Miss Volker as chief nurse and medical examiner of Norvelt
to keep health records on the original families and write their obituaries as a
final health report. But Miss Volker also made a promise to Mr. Spizz that she
would marry him once all of the original residents of Norvelt were gone. She
didn’t expect he would still be around for this long, so now she is torn—she wants
to finally be free from her obligations, but she absolutely does not want to
marry Mr. Spizz. The story gets particularly interesting, however, when the
original residents of Norvelt are suddenly dying. A gang of dangerous
motorcyclists spice things up too. And, eventually, a mystery ensues: are the
deaths of the original residents from natural causes, or are there murders
taking place in Norvelt? We find out who the culprit is in the end while Jack
realizes that the summer is not as boring as he thought it was going to be.
APA Reference of Book
Gantos,
J. (2011). Dead end in Norvelt. New
York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Girous (BYR).
Impressions
This was a
unique and surprising story and truly unlike any other children’s book I have
read before. I enjoyed getting to know the interesting and bold characters
throughout this book. I appreciated that Jack’s parents were portrayed as realistic
and multidimensional—Jack’s parents fight with each other, they each have
strengths and flaws, and they each have their own set of dreams. Jack’s father
desperately wants to get out of the small, dead town of Norvelt, while his
mother wants to stay, give back, and help revive it. His parents are at odds,
and Jack often finds himself in the middle, which is a realistic situation.
Parents often disagree in political opinions or ideologies, and children
sometime have to witness the uncomfortable arguments that take place.
Furthermore, it
is great to see a young male, main character embrace strong, female characters
of all ages. I really enjoyed reading about the strong female characters in
this story who go against the grain of stereotypical femininity, particularly
Miss Volker and Jack’s best friend Bunny. Miss Volker’s hands may be crippled
from arthritis, but her mouth more than makes up for it—she is strong, witty,
sassy, and quite knowledgeable of history too. She stands up for herself, which
goes against the stereotypical image of a meek and mild elderly woman. Bunny is
also a spitfire. As the daughter of a funeral parlor owner, Bunny is tough.
According to the first-person narration of Jack, “Bunny was a great girl who
was better than any guy I knew because she was tough, smart, and daring.
Because she grew up in a house full of dead people she wasn’t afraid of
anything” (Gantos, 2011, p. 62).
This book has may have themes of death
and gore, but this is pleasantly lightened with the inclusion of humor. For
instance, Jack’s father tries to teach Jack how to hunt, but once Jack actually
sees a deer, he decides he doesn’t want to shoot it at all. In order to save
the deer, Jack does exactly what his dad told him not to do: let out a deer-spooking
fart. So Jack lets out a silent, but stinky, fart to scare the deer away and
save its life. This is how Jack describes it, “Once that creaky coffin door has
opened, the smell of a thousand years of rotting death drifted out through the
thick woven fabric of my clothing” (Gantos, 2011, p. 83). Even though I enjoyed
the humor, the gore and blood was still a little much for me at times—and, as I
was reading, I thought it could be even more difficult for younger readers to
handle. One part of the book in particular made me literally cringe: Jack first
meets Miss Volker on pages 24-26, and it appears that she is burning the flesh
on her hands and biting it off. At this point, Jack gets so flustered that his
nose sprouts a leak, which only adds to the disgusting scenario. Ultimately, we
find out that Miss Volker was only heating up her hands in hot wax, but I was
truly revolted at the descriptions. At the same time, I did have to keep on
reading to find out exactly what was happening.
Although it took me a while to get into
this book, I really ended up liking it in the end due to its fiery characters.
I thought the plot was pretty strange and peculiar, and somewhat unrealistic,
but I really appreciated the inclusion of all of the historical facts to
encourage children to better appreciate history and nonfiction books in
general. I wonder if kids will be as willing as I was to stick around for the
plot to get interesting—especially since this book is 341 pages—but the
engaging characters may be enough to capture their attention. I do think,
though, that the story could have been condensed into a shorter version that
might make it more enjoyable for a juvenile audience. However, overall, I
enjoyed this book.
Professional Review
In Booklist
Online, Ian Chipman (2011) stated:
Looks
like a bummer of a summer for 11-year-old Jack (with a same-name protagonist,
it’s tempting to assume that at least some of this novel comes from the
author’s life). After discharging his father’s WWII-souvenir Japanese rifle and
cutting down his mom’s fledgling cornfield, he gets grounded for the rest of
his life or the rest of the summer of 1962, whichever comes first. Jack gets
brief reprieves to help an old neighbor write obituaries for the
falling-like-flies original residents of Norvelt, a dwindling coal-mining town.
Jack makes a tremendously entertaining tour guide and foil for the town’s
eccentric citizens, and his warmhearted but lightly antagonistic relationship
with his folks makes for some memorable one-upmanship. Gantos, as always,
deliver bushels of food for thought and plenty of outright guffaws, though the
story gets stuck in neutral for much of the midsection. When things pick up
again near the end of the summer, surprise twists and even a quick-dissolve
murder mystery arrive to pay off patient readers. Those with a nose for history
will be especially pleased. (para. 1)
Library
Uses
I think Dead End in
Norvelt would be a great book to include in a book talk for the library.
The book could be utilized for book talk themes ranging from “Realistic
Fiction,” “Books to Make You Laugh,” or “A Little Gore, A Little Humor.” This
book is unique and bizarre enough to provide material for a short and engaging
book talk (1 to 3 minutes long) that will entice young readers to want to find
out more. The best audience for a book talk featuring this book would be
children between 5th grade and 8th grade. A librarian
could perform such book talks in the library during the introduction to a Teen
Program (like for Teen Read Week) or at the end of a Library tour given to kids
in middle school or junior high school. A librarian could also use this book
talk when engaging in outreach opportunities at local middle schools and high
schools. I think these types of outreach activities are important for
increasing teen usage of public libraries. In my experience, the teen
demographic is difficult to attract to the library.
References
Chipman, I. (2011, August). Booklist review [Review of the
book Dead end in Norvelt,
by J.
Gantos]. Booklist Online. Retrieved
from http://www.booklistonline.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment