Scott O’Dell Award Winning Book

Gantos, Jack. 2011. Dead End In Norvelt. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux. ISBN 9780374379933

Plot Summary:

Grounded for an entire summer after blowing a hole through a drive-in movie screen and mowing down his mother’s corn, young Jack must keep busy helping Miss Volker write obituaries for the original town members in Norvelt. While helping Miss Volker, Jack must learn how to manage nosebleeds, melted-off hands, driving lessons, an old man on a tricycle, and even Hells Angels. As Jack works to help with the obituaries, he discovers a wealth of information on the history of his small town in Pennsylvania and its founder Eleanor Roosevelt.

Critical Analysis:

Dead End In Norvelt’s main character, Jack Gantos is a 12 year-old boy growing up in the 1960’s. The book has some auto-biographical qualities through the experiences of the main character.  Because of the connection between the author and the main character, young Jack, it’s an accurate portrayal of the interests and actions of a 12 year-old in the 1960’s. Gantos efficiently portrays the personalities of the key characters in the book. The character’s personalities are realistic to the time, such as Jack’s mother who stays at home and works to prepare meals for the family and elderly community members. You can almost picture her with her hair neatly pinned and wearing an apron every waking minute.

The plot is unique and humorous.  While the events throughout the story are surprising and entertaining the plot is centrally focused on the town of Norvelt, PA, originally established as a project by Eleanor Roosevelt, and how this small town is slowly wearing out. Some of the details, such as Miss Volker doing procedures on Jack’s nose capillaries may distract a bit from the historical details that follow, but overall those details  lighten the mood of the plot and bring in a lot of humor that are sure to draw the attention of young readers.  Besides the town itself being historical and the drive-in movie down the road, the setting feels more like an old town than a historical one. Overall the characters and the plot stay more true to the times.

Jack Gantos fills his writing with classic “one-liners.” Witty comments such as Jack stating “I love to sniff the insides of books” and “cheezus crust” will make you laugh out loud at times. Poetic statements, such as “When the sun goes down, each day turns its back on the present and step into the past” fill the pages as well. It is clear Gantos has an affinity for history because he easily works in historical information into young Jack’s day to day life. Young Jack encounters history not only through the obituaries, but also in the “This Day in History” section of the paper and in the history books he loves to read. The era is reflected through the types of discussion the characters have and the activities they partake in. Dad discussing atomic bomb shelters and what the children do for fun (no video games…imagine that!) are realistic to discussions and activities of the 1960’s.

Awards & Reviews:

John Newberry Medal

Scott O’Dell Award

“A bit of autobiography works its way into all of Gantos’s work, but he one-ups himself in this wildly entertaining meld of truth and fiction by naming the main character . . . Jackie Gantos.” — STARRED/ Publishers Weekly

“A fast-paced and witty read.” —School Library Journal

“An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named ‘Jack Gantos.’ The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment ‘would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames’ whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly … [A] characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones.” --STARRED/ Kirkus Reviews

Connections:

*Identify similes in the book and write original similes about your town or school.

*Research a historical figure mentioned in the obituaries such as King Richard II, Cortes, or Eleanor Roosevelt.