Dead End in Norvelt

Dead End in Norvelt is an autobiographical novel by the American author Jack Gantos, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2011. It features a boy named Jack Gantos and is based partly on the author's childhood in Norvelt, Pennsylvania. According to one reviewer, the "real hero" is "his home town and its values", a "defiantly political" message.^[2]

The American Library Association awarded Gantos and Dead End the 2012 Newbery Medal, honoring the book as the year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children".^[3][4] It also won the annual Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction.^[5] In Britain, where it was published by the Transworld Publishers imprint Corgi Books, it was one of eight books on the longlist for the annual Guardian Children's Fiction Prize.^[6]

Newbery judges called the book "achingly funny"^[4] and one British reviewer called it "rib-splitting".^[7]

Plot

Dead End takes place during the summer after the American schoolboy Jack Gantos fires his father's war trophy, a Japanese sniper rifle. As punishment he must stay in the house except as sent by his mother to help their elderly neighbor Miss Volker write obituaries for the town newspaper. Among other things, that work uncovers a murder mystery.^[2][4]

Jack "learns snippets of American history that he has never been taught in school", some indirectly and some by Miss Volker's pointed explanations.^[2][6] He also runs into the Hells Angels and builds a plane with his father. Eleanor Roosevelt was very important to the story because she made the town survive. Miss Volker made a promise to her to outlive the originals that were introduced to the town.

Themes

In the book Dead End In Norvelt, people use power to control others. The Newbery Medal judges, who are American children's librarians, cited the importance of history and reading.^[4] The Guardian Prize judges, who are British children's novelists, cited "self-sufficiency, community, and neighbourliness".^[6]

Children's writer Josh Lacey, one British reviewer of Dead End, called it "defiantly political"; one of its messages is "don't forget the narratives of American life that have been neglected or deliberately buried by the dominant culture." "[T]he real hero of the novel isn't Jack himself, but his home town and its values. Norvelt was a New Deal town built by the US government to house poor families and named after Eleanor Roosevelt, described by Miss Volker as 'the greatest American woman who has ever lived'."^[2]

Level

Another Irish reviewer suggested that "every Elder will be able to relate to Jack's character" and recommended the book for readers age 9 to 13.^[7] The Guardian Prize judges recommended it for ages 12 and up.^[6]

See also

Jack Gantos . web

References

External links

• "Jack Gantos, Chris Raschka win Newbery, Caldecott Medals" — ALA Press Release, January 23, 2012
• jackgantos.com "Melding the entirely true and the wildly fictional, Dead End in Norvelt is the story of an incredible two months for a boy named Jack Gantos."