Book
Under the Watson's porch
Record details
- ISBN: 9780375826306 (trade)
- ISBN: 9780375926303
- ISBN: 0375826300 (trade)
- ISBN: 0375926305
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Physical Description:
print
199 p. ; 22 cm. - Edition: 1st ed.
- Publisher: New York : Alfred A. Knopf : Distributed by Random House, c2004.
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| Subject: | Friendship -- Juvenile fiction Parent and child -- Juvenile fiction Summer -- Juvenile fiction |
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More information
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2004 July #1
/*Starred Review*/ Gr. 5-8. Twelve-year-old Ellie, sitting alone on her birthday, having not been invited to a more popular girl's birthday party, meets Tommy, a foster kid whose family has just moved in next door. Tommy puffs on unlit cigarettes, shrouds himself in lies, and is absolutely adorable. By the time Tommy gives Ellie a beautiful diamond necklace, readers will have fallen for him every bit as hard and as fast as she has. Most will realize that a kid like Tommy couldn't afford such a necklace, but it's hard not to love him in spite of his problems, particularly when he suggests to Ellie that they run a camp for younger kids under the old Watson sisters' porch. There, Tommy intends to have kids plant seeds that will magically sprout into lollipops. Tommy's believable mix of sweetness and danger makes him a compelling love interest, and Ellie's first-person narration is utterly and immediately believable. As in her previous novel, Trout and Me (2002), Shreve imagines a troubled kid with unusual sensitivity and depth, and this novel will be treasured by readers for the way it renders the mundane magical, making seeds sprout love and lollipops. ((Reviewed July 2004)) Copyright 2004 Booklist Reviews. - BookPage Reviews : BookPage Reviews 2004 August
The boy next doorUp until now, growing up has been relatively easy for 12-year-old Ellie Tremont. Her schoolteacher parents are fine, as parents go. She may not be a popular girl, but she is popular enough, pretty enough and contented enough. She does have a troubling habit of lying to her parents, but it is all within the limits of normal, like watching TV when her parents tell her she is "on her honor" to turn it off. Ellie seems neither troubled nor troubling, but her boring life is about to change.
Enter Tommy Bowers, the 14-year-old foster son of Ellie's neighbor. Complete with a mysterious past, a bad reputation, floppy black hair and a handsome dimple, Tommy has an open manner and smooth talk that completely capture Ellie. When she first meets him, Tommy offers her a cigarette. "I just carry cigarettes and candy to make friends," he says. Soon, Tommy is offering Ellie more than that.
When Tommy wants to start a summer camp for the neighborhood children, under the porch of the elderly and deaf Watson sisters' house, Ellie is thrilled to be co-director. But, when the two of them set off to buy the required lollipops for their magic garden, Ellie is faced with her own moral quandary. Tommy effortlessly shoplifts two bags of candy and appears neither sorry nor worried about his behavior.
For all her young teen angst, Ellie does know right from wrong. Her friend's shoplifting troubles her. But, more than that, she is unhappy with her own reaction, which has been to say nothing about Tommy's behavior. Little by little, Ellie and her parents come to realize that Tommy is neither a good boy nor a bad boy. He is just a boy, a victim of some very bad luck, in search of a family.
Living on the edge of adulthood is uncertain, emotional and sometimes traumatic. Shreve captures Ellie's hopes and fears with an intensely introspective first-person point of view that brings the reader the immediacy of this important time of life. Copyright 2004 BookPage Reviews.
- Horn Book Guide Reviews : Horn Book Guide Reviews 2005 Spring
Twelve-year-old Ellie befriends the new neighbors' "handful" of a foster son. Together they start a day camp for the neighborhood kids, but trouble comes when Tommy gives Ellie a diamond necklace that doesn't belong to him. The introspective novel moves slowly; though Shreve's exploration of right and wrong, good and bad, is commendably nuanced. Copyright 2005 Horn Book Guide Reviews. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2004 June #2
Twelve-year-old Ellie Tremont has the blues until "bad boy" Tommy Bowers, who's been shuffled to different families, moves in next door. Although not popular and usually dutiful, Ellie has a penchant for telling lies and wants more excitement in her boring world. She's instantly intrigued by this boy with a past and has no intention of going to an all-girls summer camp now. Her mother quickly judges Tommy as a person to avoid, while Ellie has trouble reconciling Tommy's shoplifting and the Saturday morning camp for the neighborhood children he creates under the elderly Watson sisters' porch. Both begin to understand that Tommy's camp is a way to create his own family and that he is neither a bad boy or a good boy, but just a boyâa lesson that unites mother and daughter after weeks of arguing. Sipping lemonade out of wine glasses and feeling goose bumps from Tommy's touch, Ellie evokes the pangs of first love and the tension between eagerly leaving childhood behind and reluctantly embracing adolescence. (Fiction. 10-13) Copyright Kirkus 2004 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved. - Library Media Connection : Library Media Connection Reviews 2004 October
When Tommy moves in next door to Ellie, it stirs up her ordered life. Tommy has been in foster homes, and it's rumored that he's been in trouble. Her parents don't want Ellie to be friends with Tommy, so naturally he and Ellie bond instantly. At Tommy's instigation, they start a Saturday morning club, held under the porch of the elderly Watson sisters. Many things work very well in this coming-of-age novel, but the story does have some problems. The climax is predictable, the Watson sisters are clueless, and problems are overcome too easily. Additional Selection. Sylvia Adair, Educational Reviewer, Germantown, Wisconsin © 2004 Linworth Publishing, Inc. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2004 July #3
The tone and rhythm of the tweenage blues are deftly captured in this heartfelt story of a special friendship. On the day she turns 12 and all of her friends are attending another girl's party, narrator Ellie Tremont's grim mood lifts when she meets her new neighbor, Tommy Bowers, a charismatic 13-year-old who holds an unlit cigarette in his mouth and is reputed to be a "handful." At a time when Ellie is feeling out of sorts ("Nothing bad happens to me but the sadness comes creeping over my shoulder like an insect"), Tommy offers unconditional acceptance and excitement. Together, the two create a secret getaway under the old Watson sisters' porch, where they sit on beach chairs, share confidences and plant a "magic" lollipop garden. Ellie's summer would be nearly perfect if it weren't for her mother's disapproval of Tommy and her own creeping suspicions that he perhaps goes too far breaking rules. With her taut writing, Shreve (The Flunking of Joshua T. Bates; Trout and Me) creates an ideal outsider in Ellie, who gives voice to the inexplicable ennui of budding adolescence. The author tenderly evokes the thrill and anxiety of first love and the universal yearning to belong as she invites readers to form their own judgments about characters' motives and moralities. Ages 9-13. (July) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2006 April #3
In a starred review, PW wrote, "The author tenderly evokes the thrill and anxiety of first love and the universal yearning to belong." Ages 9-12. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information. - School Library Journal Reviews : SLJ Reviews 2004 August
Gr 5-8-The novel opens on Ellie Tremont's 12th birthday; she is the quintessential bored preteen. Her summer begins to look up when she meets her new neighbor. Tommy Bowers, 13, is a foster child with lots of swagger, a mysterious past, and bad-boy appeal, and Ellie senses right away that her parents won't like him. He decides that they should run a camp under the elderly and deaf Watson sisters' porch on Saturday mornings for the little kids in the neighborhood. The children love the charismatic boy and he genuinely enjoys entertaining them. Not wanting to leave him, Ellie asserts her independence and refuses to go away to camp. She stops going out with her friends and family, waiting for presumptuous and controlling Tommy to call. He steals an expensive necklace from his foster mother and gives it to Ellie; she is suspicious, but wants to believe everything he says. When he shoplifts some candy, she eventually confronts him. In an ending that seems abrupt and too neat, Tommy inexplicably wins over Ellie's parents. Although Shreve nicely captures emerging adolescence and adeptly explores the thrill and complexity of a girl's first infatuation, some didacticism and the lack of resolution are disappointing.-Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. - Voice of Youth Advocates Reviews : VOYA Reviews 2004 December
Ellie Tremont meets thirteen-year-old Tommy Bowers for the first time on her twelfth birthday. She is bored and wishes that something would happen to make life more exciting. When Tommy walks out of his house next door, Ellie has a feeling that her summer just got more interesting. Tommy suggests creating a camp for the kids on the block under the neighbor's porch. Tommy is a handful. He is adopted and has been in trouble before, but Ellie likes him and goes along with things that she normally would not do just because Tommy asks In this story of a girl's first crush on a "bad boy," Tommy turns out to be not as bad as he seems. Ellie and Tommy are shown as complex characters with problems typical of early adolescence. Tommy is trying to adjust to his new family after moving from place to place. As he begins to feel a part of the family, he improves his behavior. Ellie is basically good, but she is willing to go along until she has proof that Tommy has done something wrong. Although it takes some time, she confronts him, and he promises never to do it again. Ellie's relationship with her parents shows the changes that happen when children become adolescents. Communication becomes strained, but her parents understand and allow her relationship with the boy. This novel is an additional purchase.-Deborah L. Dubois PLB $17.99. ISBN 0-375-92630-5. 3Q 3P M J Copyright 2004 Voya Reviews.
