| My One Hundred Adventures | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 4 reviews)
Sales Rank: 14933
Category: Book
Author: Polly Horvath
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade
Studio: Schwartz & Wade
Manufacturer: Schwartz & Wade
Label: Schwartz & Wade
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.7 x 1.2
ISBN: 0375845828
EAN: 9780375845826
ASIN: 0375845828
Publication Date: September 9, 2008
Release Date: September 9, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
THE WINNER OF a National Book Award, a Newbery Honor, and countless other awards has written her richest, most spirited book yet, filled with characters that readers will love, and never forget.
Jane is 12 years old, and she is ready for adventures, to move beyond the world of her siblings and single mother and their house by the sea, and step into the ?know-not what.? And, over the summer, adventures do seem to find Jane, whether it?s a thrilling ride in a hot-air balloon, the appearances of a slew of possible fathers, or a weird new friendship with a preacher and psychic wannabe. Most important, there?s Jane?s discovery of what lies at the heart of all great adventures: that it?s not what happens to you that matters, but what you learn about yourself.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Artsy adults would have you believe children would like this! December 28, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I have been a librarian for many, many years, and I can assure you that not one of my students would like this book! It is the kind of book that cerebral intellectuals would have you believe is "wonderful." Yes, there are a few interesting descriptions, and Jane's voice does have some honesty, but the situations she runs into seem very contrived, and her voice is more like an adult recalling a childhood summer than a child's thoughts in "real time." The "quirky" characters are shallow, self-absorbed, and often mean-spirited. Jane lapses into bouts of poetic reverie in between wondering if the next male vagrant she sees is her daddy or the father of one of her siblings.(Jane is not sure whether her sister and two brothers have the same father or different ones.)Jane cannot help her mother with her younger siblings, because Jane is black-mailed into babysitting a hoard of greasy children, while the children's mother takes on a waitressing job. Jane has to take them to the beach and wander through the neighborhood, because it is summertime and the children's father, the school's janitor, is drunk and violent back at their trailer home. Jane's mother, a poet who once won a Pulitzer (right!), never asks where Jane is all day, and no one apparently gets sunburned. Their female pastor ropes Jane into helping hand out free Bibles on Sundays, but the pastor is too wrapped up in herself and drags Jane to a roadside fortune teller, and later a "channeler," trying to validate whether she has the power to heal and is destined for "great" things. All of this is told with somber sincerity, as Jane ponders LIFE. This book is like a movie that doesn't know whether it is a comedy or a drama, and the elements jar with one another. A few adults may think this is high art, but for kids, it will be a snoozer-rama!
 Adventure is Where You Find It December 9, 2008
Jane lives in a house by the sea with her mother and three younger siblings all year long, despite the fact that most people leave after the summer ends. She loves their house, and loves the life they have, but still she has grown restless. What she craves is adventure, and the summer of her twelfth year, adventure is what she gets. This is a fun book that is easy to read, comfortable, and engages the imagination. There are no themes that are too adult for young readers, so kids can enjoy going along for the ride and parents can be comfortable letting them. I recommend this book.
Reviewed by Kim Schults
Completely Delightful September 17, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
What a lovely book. I became a Polly Horvath fan years ago with The Trolls and Everything on a Waffle. This new book has a similar Horvathian episodic style, exquisite prose, and her unique dry understated wit. Set in a Massachusetts coastal town, 12 year-old Jane lives with her poet mother and younger siblings on the beach. In true Horvath fashion, eccentric characters populate the novel as do eccentric experiences -- delivering Bibles by balloon, babysitting issues, and other intimate adventures. There are a number of connecting threads (family, fathers, friendship, and more) moving through the story, all nicely and satisfyingly resolved for our heroine Jane by the end.
Horvath always has a dry, deadpan humorous style that I've always loved. For example, in this book, Jane's poet-mother is evidently doing what she can to find and put food on the table and there is mention of a large bag of rice. Toward the end of the book Jane, her mother, and a friend are mourning the death of another character:
We don't feel much like having a barbecue now. We sit around and eat a little rice.
(And again a few paragraphs later when someone stops by to discuss the funeral.)
"Of course we will be there. We will all be there," says my mother and then offers Mrs. Merriweather a little rice, but she cannot stay. She has other arrangements to make.
A book that lingers long after you are done with it. Completely charming.
A Mystical, Lyrical Gem September 17, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
My One Hundred Adventures is a cross between Jim Lynch's The Highest Tide and Joan Bauer's Hope Was Here. Surprises await in every chapter, making the reader want to quickly turn to the next page. By the same token, Horvath is so in-tune with her 12-year-old protagonist and the daily music of her summer days in a small Massachusetts beach town, that I found I also wanted to stop and read passages over and over again.
Jane is ready for adventure. She has spent all her years with her three younger siblings and her single mom in a wonderfully cozy house by the sea, but she is aching for something more. She's ready to leap into the "know-not-what" this summer. And leap she does with a first time solo ride in a hot-air balloon, a trip to the fair with her possible father, an almost road trip to California with an elderly neighbor, and a new friendship with Nellie, preacher and hopeful healer. Just by summoning a little positive energy and opening her front door, Jane's dreams for 100 adventures begin to come true.
For additional comments about this novel and other reviews, please visit my site.
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