|
|
The Year of Secret Assignments (Booklist Editor's Choice. Books for Youth (Awards)) (Hardcover)
by Jaclyn Moriarty
| Category:
Friendship, General, Ages 9-12, Children's book |
| Market price: ¥ 198.00
MSL price:
¥ 168.00
[ Shop incentives ]
|
| Stock:
In Stock |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
This engaging and entertaining story is told through letters, emails, and diary entries and shows the relationship between different people. |
| If you want us to help you with the right titles you're looking for, or to make reading recommendations based on your needs, please contact our consultants. |
Detail |
Author |
Description |
Excerpt |
Reviews |
|
|
|
Author: Jaclyn Moriarty
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
Pub. in: February, 2004
ISBN: 0439498813
Pages: 352
Measurements: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BC00052
Other information: 1st edition
|
|
Rate this product:
|
|
- MSL Picks -
In her debut for youth, Moriarty follows her adult title, Feeling Sorry for Celia (2000), with another winning novel. Written entirely in letters, diary entries, lists, quizzes, transcripts, and mock subpoenas (there are a disproportionate number of lawyerly parents here), the novel focuses on three Australian girls who have each been assigned to write to a student at a rival school. The girls' pen friends turn out to be three boys, and the entertaining correspondence between the couples reveals the characters' quirky ingenuity, pranks, burgeoning romances, and fierce friendships as well as deeper family stories, including one about a parent's death. When one of the boys turns out to be an abusive fraud, the others craft a delicious retribution scheme that propels the story to a satisfying conclusion. Moriarty's characters speak in voices as playful and inventive as the novel's format. There are a few coarse moments-a reference to a blow job and some caustic outbursts ("eat shit and die" and "bitch face")-and the story's myriad devices wear thin in places. But this is an unusual novel with an exhilarating pace, irrepressible characters, and a screwball humor that will easily attract teens, many of whom will yearn for madcap adventures and unshakably devoted friends like these.
Target readers:
Kids aged up 8
|
|
- Better with -
Better with
It's Happy Bunny: Love Bites
:
|
|
Customers who bought this product also bought:
 |
It's Happy Bunny: Love Bites (Hardcover)
by Jim Benton
Inside this funny full-color gift book, you'll find tips on dating, crushes, & secret admirers from a bunny with attitude. |
 |
Queen Bee (Paperback)
by Chynna Clugston
The funny story speaks to self-discovery, values, and the bitter truth about the social dynamics of middle-school. |
 |
Stanford Wong Flunks Big-time (Hardcover)
by Lisa Yee
This story is a completely different voice which brings out the soul, the heart, the mind of what it is to be a "boy". |
 |
Slam! (Paperback)
by Walter Dean Myers
"Impossible is nothing!" Slam teaches you to do the best and never give up. |
 |
My Thirteenth Winter (Paperback)
by Samantha Abeel
This book is an honest, hopeful autobiography that will inspire anyone who has ever had to overcome an obstacle in his or life and is a must-read for teachers, parents, and kids with learning disabilities (LD), which help them to find the light of hope in the dark. |
|
|
Jaclyn Moriarty grew up in Sydney's north-west with four sisters, one brother, two dogs and twelve chickens. She studied English and Law at the University of Sydney and later wrote a PhD thesis at Cambridge on Children, Law and the Media. She has worked as a media and entertainment lawyer but now writes full time, dividing her time between Montreal and Sydney.
As a child, Jaclyn was always writing stories and her debut novel, Feeling Sorry for Celia, was published in 2000 to great critical acclaim, and won the 2001 NSW Premier's Literary Award. Written in the form of memos, letters, diary entries and fridge notes, Jaclyn's skilled sense of humour allows this book to deal honestly with some fairly substantial teenage issues. Finding Cassie Crazy followed in 2003, a similarly engaging coming-of-age story written with great sensitivity and humour. I Have a Bed of Buttermilk Pancakes, a novel for adults, was published in 2004 and The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie, her latest book for young adults, will be published in 2006.
Jaclyn is an effervescent and entertaining personality and is available to talk to school groups about her work. By the way, her favourite things to do on the weekend are sleeping in, going to the beach and eating popcorn at the cinema, and the twelve chickens got blown away in a thunderstorm while she was overseas.
|
|
The Ashbury-Brookfield pen pal program was designed to bring together the "lowlife Brooker kids" (as they're known to the Ashburyites) and the "rich Ashbury snobs" (as they're called by the Brookfielders) in a spirit of harmony and the Joy of the Envelope. But things don't go quite as planned. Lydia and Sebastian trade challenges, like setting off the fire alarm at Brookfield. Emily tutors Charlie in How to Go On a Date with a Girl. But it's Cassie and Matthew who both reveal and conceal the most about themselves - and it's their secrets and lies that set off a war between the two schools.
|
Richie Partington (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-27 00:00>
Lots of laughs, plenty of attitude, mystery, and hijinx permeate this book. Three longtime girlfriends in high school-Emily, Lydia, and Cassie-who are connected through parents, who went to law school together, are each required to become penpals with guys in a cross-town school with a bad reputation. The story is told primarily through these letters back and forth, along with some journal entries, and a hysterically funny fill-in-the-blanks writing workbook that Lydia's dad has given her.
I'd considered myself pretty waterlogged from the publishers' wave of girl-writes-a-journal books of the past few years, but this is a horse of an entirely different flavor. I'm sure there are some great lessons to be garnered from this book, but, above all, I found it to be a totally delightful read. And the author's background as an attorney is certainly put to good (comedic) use.
At first I wasn't sure what more to say about the book.
But being away for a couple of days up in the middle of the (cold, snowy) Sierras this week, with nothing to do at night, I found myself rereading it like it was comfort food. And it's as good as leftover lasagna the second time around. For one thing, I caught many of those little clues concerning who did what that I'd missed the first time through. But, more importantly, I understood all the Emily-isms that I wasn't clear about on the first go round.
In the same way that non-Americans might find it a bit more difficult to understand the wisdom of Yogi Berra or the rapid-fire dialogue in a Marx Brothers movie, I wasn't sure on the first read exactly what was Emily and what was the English language as it is spoken Down-Under. But the second time I understood what the author has accomplished in creating the wacky voice of this young woman who longs to be a lawyer someday:
"I am not saying that this is true. I am only giving a hyperactive situation of how you might give offense."
" 'You must have dislocated it. Try looking again.' "
"I was just nom-plussed..."
"I decided to use this opportunity to practice my handwriting. As you can see, I am developing a highly eloquent style."
"Anyway, I didn't believe that for one millimeter..."
"They have very sun-dewed light so you look attractive in the mirror..."
"I think this is a "play" on Thompson, which is my last name. I think it is an angiogram of Thompson, actually."
"I can't explain how beautiful the singing was because you can't write music."
"We need to cook on the element of surprise."
"It's immortal keeping a secret."
"...he says that schools which are close to one another should forge ties, and I hope you are as keen as I am to get started with the forgery."
"Hyperbole is something to do with graphs. What is it in particular? I don't know. I hate maths."
"Also, I have seen on TV that you can get head transplants and it seems to me that it is a tragedy if you are bald and you don't get a head transplant."
Bravo for the girls from Ashbury and the guys from Brookfield. I have no doubt that this will be a major hit with our students. That is, if they can wrestle it away from us grown ups.
|
Kelcony (MSL quote), Penfield, USA
<2006-12-27 00:00>
This is not a difficult assignment because this book is hilarious, touching, and filled with penpal letters, diary entries, writings in The Notebook (tm), and even court transcripts, complete with adverbial phrases. TYOSA is also from the excellent author of the terrific book Feeling Sorry for Celia, Jaclyn Moriarty. This novel is in fact a companion to said terrific book, and if you have not yet read FSFC, that is your next assignment. |
A kid (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-27 00:00>
I really enjoyed The Year of Secret Assignments by Jaclyn Moriarty. It was about three girls, Cassie, Lydia, and Emily, and three boys, Seb, Charlie, and Matthew. They are from rival schools who are forced to talk to each other through a pen-pal program. Starting out as enemies, two of them become friends, two of them become more than friends, and the other two hate each other even more than they did when they met.
I would recommend this book to all girls because girls can relate to it. I wouldn't recommend this book to people who can't pay attention in books because this book switches around a lot and it can be confusing. "The Year of Secret Assignments" was funny and sad. Everyone would benefit from reading this book. My favorite part of of the book was when Cassie, Lydia, and Emily tricked Matthew. My favorite character was Lydia. Lydia was funny and interesting, I really liked her. I would definitely recommend "The Year of Secret Assignments".
|
|
|
|
|
