The Great Whale of Kansas |
Buy The Great Whale of Kansas here, one of 749 Kansas History books offered for sale at discount prices here in the history books section at R bookshop. There are currently 72649 history books in our history books section, and over 1,000,000 books listed in our book store. We greatly appreciate your patronage at R bookshop and look forward to offering you a large selection of great books at discount prices now and in the future. Thank you for shopping at R Bookshop!
|
You Are Here: Home > History Books > Kansas History > Item 39
 |
The Great Whale of Kansas
|
by Richard W. Jennings
Sales Rank: 87194
|
List Price: $15.00
$15.00
At Amazon
on 6-18-2008.
|
|
|
|
Features
Reading level: Ages 9-12
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 160 pages
Published by: Houghton Mifflin/Walter Lorraine Books September 24, 2001
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0618102280
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0618102280
Book Dimensions:
8.7 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
Weighs: 12.3 ounces
From Booklist
Gr. 5-7. With a tip of the hat to Louis Sachar's Holes (1999) and Oliver Butterworth's Enormous Egg (1956), this odd yet engaging work, more allegory than story, is told by an unnamed 11-year-old Kansas boy who digs a hole in his backyard and finds the fossilized remains of a prehistoric fish. As he digs deeper, he discovers that the creature has been preserved inside a whale--although conventional wisdom has it that whales never lived in Kansas, even when Kansas was underwater. As the fossilized whale is gradually uncovered, its ownership becomes murky. In a convoluted plot twist, some people assume the boy has created fossil art by drawing the fish inside the whale. This causes a sensation, and the state, which had considered the whale a fake, becomes interested again, demanding the fossil and the land around it for a theme park. A court battle ensues, but the boy's Native American friend manages to claim the land by invoking treaty law, and the fossil is ceremonially reburied (sticklers for authenticity may find the ceremony a bit casual). There's almost as much wrong with this book as there is right. The narrator himself says he sounds like a 40-year-old man (a snooty butler might be more on the mark). What's more, the story is wildly erratic--instructive one moment (information on fossils and Kansas), fantastic the next (the idea of a one-boy dinosaur dig). It juggles issues as diverse as the power of the state and the state of the boy's crush on his teacher. Yet it's hard not to be impressed by the ambitious plot and the quality of Jennings' writing, as apparent here as they were in his debut Orwell's Luck (2000). Jennings' best move, though, was building his story around a mysterious gigantic creature and a boy who loves it enough to do the impossible. The slow emergence of this fossilized wonder, a million years away from its last daylight, will captivate children who naturally allow for mystery. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Product Review
"A quirky wonder about truth, perseverance, and the vagaries of fame. In Melville, Kansas, located at the geographic center of the country, an unnamed 11-year-old-boy discovers a fossil unlike any ever excavated before. . . .Jennings draws a delightful portrait of this remarkably determined and self-contained child." (Kirkus Reviews with Pointers )
"Odd yet engaging. . .it's hard not to be impressed by the ambitious plot and the quality of Jennings' writing." (Booklist, ALA, Boxed Review )
Reader Reviews
THE GREAT WHALE OF KANSAS is a tall tale about an 11-year-old boy living in Melville, Kansas, who loves to dig holes. Big holes. "I believe there is nothing, absolutely nothing, half so much worth doing as simply digging a hole," the unnamed narrator explains. "A hole is an achievement. A great hole is a great achievement." While attempting to build a pond in his backyard, the boy uncovers what appears to be a fossil. His persistent digging reveals it to be an extremely large fossil of a unique nature. Soon, thanks to the financial aspirations of the digger's father, the "Fossil Expert" for the state of Kansas gets involved and a series of controversies ensue involving who owns the fossil, what should be done with the fossil and whether or not it is really a fossil at all. The unlikely tale is great fun to read because Jennings has given his narrator a perfect voice --- smart, wise-cracking and honest, the narrator tells his story engagingly, reporting the bizarre occurrences that pepper the story with a straightforwardness grounded in the idea that most anything can happen in a state as odd as Kansas. The narrator is both supported and opposed by a wacky cast of characters --- a mother who only makes sandwiches for meals, the pretentious "Fossil Expert," a bevy of eccentric members of the Quattlebaum family, and Phil, the solitary duck --- whose various outrageous actions are in perfect keeping with the tone of the story. The narrator's most stalwart friends, Tom White Cloud, a bookstore owner of Native American descent, and Miss Joyce "Penny" Whistle, the narrator's science teacher on whom both Tom and the narrator have a crush, come to his aid late in the story when it appears everyone has lost sight of the real importance of what has appeared in the narrator's backyard. The "moral" of the story is laid on pretty thick by the book's end, but that hardly detracts from the overall pleasure THE GREAT WHALE OF KANSAS delivers. --- (...)
Comment | |
(Report this)
Back To Top
|
The Great Whale of Kansas
Available from Amazon
Price: $15.00
Updated on 6-18-2008.
|
NOTICE: All prices, availability, and specifications
are subject to verification by their respective retailers.
| We offer The Great Whale of Kansas and other related Kansas History Books here at Rbookshop.com. To view more books about Kansas History please use the previous and next buttons near the top of this page.
|
|
Search for books at
