14. The Warden's Daughter by Jerry Spinelli

listened to on Audio cd in the car
6 unabridged cds, 7 hours
2017, Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
352 pgs.
Middle grades Historical Fiction
Finished 3/6/17
Goodreads rating: 3.62 - 680 ratings
My rating: 4
Setting: 1959 Hancock County, (Pennsylvania?)

First line/s: (from Chapter 1, Cammie, 1959)
"Breakfast time in the prison.  The smell of fried scrapple filled the apartment.  It happened every morning."

My comments:  I listened to this book.  I don't know if I would have read it.  I seem to be getting particular about the way a story starts, and this one did not immediately draw me in.  But the reader, Carrington McDuffie, with her smoky almost male-sounding voice DID begin to draw me in.  The story takes place in 1959 in Brooklyn New York, where Cammie is being raised by her single dad, who happens to be the warden of the county jail.  This is the story of a motherless girl during the summer before seventh grade, the summer when the loss of her mother becomes too much to bear.  It was a mesmerizing story.  The ending takes place 50 years later, still told in the first person by the protagonist, and I almost wish that it had ended back in 1959.  I'm not sure why Spinelli decided to write it this way.  Perhaps the ending is for the adult readers....  This was definitely a marvelous book, once you get into it.

Goodreads synopsis:  From Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli (Maniac Magee, Stargirl) comes the "moving and memorable" (Kirkus Reviews, starred) story of a girl searching for happiness inside the walls of a prison.
          Cammie O'Reilly lives at the Hancock County Prison--not as a prisoner, she's the warden's daughter. She spends the mornings hanging out with shoplifters and reformed arsonists in the women's exercise yard, which gives Cammie a certain cache with her school friends. 
But even though Cammie's free to leave the prison, she's still stuck. And sad, and really mad. Her mother died saving her from harm when she was just a baby. You wouldn't think you could miss something you never had, but on the eve of her thirteenth birthday, the thing Cammie most wants is a mom. A prison might not be the best place to search for a mother, but Cammie is determined and she's willing to work with what she's got. 
           "Jerry Spinelli again proves why he's the king of storytellers" (Shelf Awarenss, starred) in this tale of a girl who learns that heroes can come in surprising disguises, and that even if we don't always get what we want, sometimes we really do get what we need. 
          "This book is never boring and never predictable. Fame, good and bad fortune, friendship and mental illness all make their way into [Cammie's] narrative."--The New York Times Book Review 
Praise for the works of Jerry Spinelli: 
          "Spinelli is a poet of the prepubescent. . . . No writer guides his young characters, and his readers, past these pitfalls and challenges and toward their futures with more compassion." --The New York Times 
          "It's almost unreal how much the children's book still resonates." --Bustle.com on Maniac Magee

68. Eggs - Jerry Spinelli

Audio read by Suzanne Toren & Cassandra Morris (excellent)
Recorded Books/Hachette, 2007
Jerry Spinelli, 2007
4 unabridged cds
4.5 hours
253 pages
Rating: 3.5

David’s mother has died in a “freak accident.” That’s putting it mildly – she slipped on a wet floor and fell down a flight of stairs. But David’s only 9, and he and his bereaved dad move from Minnesota to the east coast so that David’s grandmother can care for him while David’s father works. David is a mess. He resents his grandmother. His father is only home on weekends. He knows not a soul.

But then he meets Primrose, a 13-year-old free spirit who lives with (and resents) her psychic mother in a teeny tiny house on the end of a road. There’s an old van out in the yard that Primrose takes over for her bedroom. She paints. She decorates. She drags in mismatched furniture.

David and Primrose have an extremely odd relationship, but it works for them. They spend the nights roaming the town – trash-picking, hanging out in the all-night quick stops, visiting with their friend Refrigerator John. This part was a little unbelievable to me. A nine year old sneaks out of his bedroom each and every night and his grandmother, who loves him and worries about him, never discovers this? And they hang out in the home of Refrigerator John and he never questions it, or worries about what will happen to him if he’s found out? Yes, he’s their friend…that’s wonderful, and special. But in this day and age, this sort of arrangement between adults and kids would NOT look good……

The story was very well read in two voices, a young girl doing David and Primrose, and “older” female voice doing the narrator and grandmother. Easy and enjoyable to listen to. I didn’t think I’d continue on much past the beginning, but it hooked me and I listened happily all the way through. But it was just a bit too unbelievable. I have a student who’s listening to it right now. It’ll be interesting to see what she has to say about it….she’s enjoying it so far.

I Can Be Anything - Jerry Spinelli

Illustrated aby Jimmy Liao
Little Brown & Co., 2010
$16.99
16 pgs. - plus the two end pages both fold out
For: anyone, young kids, those who enjoy great rhyme and rhythm...
Rating: 4.5
Endpapers: Azure

A young boy is laying (lying?) in the grass pondering what he should be when he grown up. Spinelli uses clever rhyming to think of all sorts of "jobs" a boy would love to do....

"paper-plane folder, puppy-dog holder.....

puddle stomper, apple chomper.....

deep-hole digger, lemonade swigger.....

honeysuckle smeller, silly-joke teller....."

I'm reluctant to let me fourth graders include too much rhyming in their poetry writing, because they rarely "make sense." This is a great book to show that you can make silly rhymes, but they have to MAKE SENSE.

The illustrations are glorious! Bright, whimsical, with great expression and lots to think about on each page, they can almost stand alone! Wonderful book.