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Library | Collection | Collection | Call Number | Status |
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Searching... Avenal Branch Library (Kings Co.) | Searching... Unknown | Child - Fiction | J SCHMIDT | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Beale Memorial Library (Kern Co.) | Searching... Unknown | Children's Fiction | J FIC SCH | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Corcoran Branch Library (Kings Co.) | Searching... Unknown | Child - Fiction | J SCHMIDT | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Hanford Branch Library (Kings Co.) | Searching... Unknown | Child - Fiction | J SCHMIDT | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Huron Branch Library (Coalinga-Huron) | Searching... Unknown | Juvenile Fiction | JF SCH | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Kingsburg Branch Library (Fresno Co.) | Searching... Unknown | Children's Fiction Area | SCHMIDT GA What | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Lemoore Branch Library (Kings Co.) | Searching... Unknown | Child - Fiction | J SCHMIDT | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
The Valorim are about to fall to a dark lord when they send a necklace containing their planet across the cosmos, hurtling past a trillion stars . . . all the way into the lunchbox of Tommy Pepper, sixth grader, of Plymouth, Mass.
nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Mourning his late mother, Tommy doesn't notice much about the chain he found, but soon he is drawing the twin suns and humming the music of a hanorah. As Tommy absorbs the art and language of the Valorim, their enemies target him. When a creature begins ransacking Plymouth in search of the chain, Tommy learns he must protect his family from villains far worse than he's ever imagined.
Author Notes
Gary D. Schmidt is the best-selling author of many books for young readers, including the Newbery Honor and Printz Honor book Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy and the Newbery Honor book The Wednesday Wars . He is a professor of English at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In his new novel, Schmidt (Okay for Now) shifts from historical fiction into out-and-out fantasy. Sixth-grader Tommy Pepper lives in Plymouth, Mass., where his mother's recent death has shell-shocked his small family. Meanwhile, in a far-off galaxy, an epic battle between good and evil has reached its apex. To save the most important aspect of his culture, Young Waeglim forges the "last of the Art of the Valorim" into a chain and hurls it into space, where it streaks past comets and stars before landing in Tommy's lunchbox. He puts it around his neck, and special powers ensue. Tommy's chapters are vintage Schmidt, with improbably named characters, authentic (and funny) classroom dynamics, and his familiar stylistic tics of referring to characters by both first and last names and frequently repeating key phrases. The alternate story is written in a heroic but dense prose style that verges on parody ("And on the eighth day, between the rising of Hnaef and the rising of Hengest, the Lord Mondus forged an arm ring from the orluo of Yolim and Taeglim..."). The strands come together in a rousing battle scene, but it may take a determined reader to get to it. Ages 10-14. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Schmidt brings high heroic fantasy and contemporary realism together in this novel of a bereaved family. In Plymouth, Massachusetts, Tommy grieves for his mother, who died eight months ago. And on a distant planet in "Weoruld Ethelim," Young Waeglim invests all the Art of the destroyed Valorim -- his culture -- into a chain necklace, sending it into the universe to keep it safe from evil Lord Mondus. When the chain falls through worlds and lands in Tommys lunchbox, it brings Tommy vivid memories of the Valorim -- and gives him superhuman abilities, including the power to create paintings that move and to conjure alien creatures from sand. But Lord Mondus wants the chain himself, and Tommy is caught up in a fight that mingles humdrum real estate chicanery with cosmic greed; the school bully with an epic warrior; and human consolation with celestial triumph. Schmidt gives us two parallel stories, one told in the formal, archaic style of epic Tolkienesque fantasy, with Old English and biblical resonances; the other in down-to-earth contemporary language. Gradually, the two styles merge, underscoring that inner change is itself the stuff of classic heroism. The life and power of Art is central to this artful interplanetary story in which a boy misses his mother "like he would miss the planet." deirdre f. baker (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
On Tommy's twelfth birthday a beautiful silver-and-green chain mysteriously appears in his lunchbox. What he doesn't know is that the chain has unusual powers and was sent to Earth from a distant world, home to the Valorim civilization. Nor does he know that evil forces are determined to recover it. The action moves back and forth between worlds with Schmidt affecting a different style for each. The one used for our world is artful, accessible, and moving; the one for Valorim, less so. The problem with the latter is that it is inflated, filled with neologisms, and offers an uneasy mix of Malory and Tolkien ( The air was unfere, rucca with the odor of O'Mondim filth, and Young Waeglim wept, and he did not hide his tears, for such tears cannot be hidden ). And while the Valorim characters are types, not individuals, this happily cannot be said of Tommy, his family, and friends, who are uniformly well realized and engaging. Despite its flaws, the book is absorbing and imaginative and will be welcomed by fans of high fantasy. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Schmidt, already a best-seller and award winner, should pick up even more fans with this crowd-pleasing fantasy.--Cart, Michael Copyright 2010 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-8-There's a pretty good story at the center of this novel. Twelve-year-old Tommy Pepper, his little sister, and their father are struggling through the grief of his mother's sudden death. Tommy and his mother parted on bad terms that terrible day, and he feels that her anger precipitated her car accident on an icy road. Patty has not spoken since. The family is also resisting the attempts of an unscrupulous developer to oust them from their beloved house in Plymouth, Massachusetts, so she can build waterfront condominiums. That's plenty of fodder for an absorbing plot. But Schmidt has wrapped Tommy's story inside an unsuccessful sci-fi fantasy. On a distant planet, evil, duplicitous beings have nearly conquered the good guys. In desperation, one of the heroic types makes a Chain out of the Art of his civilization and launches it into space, and it falls into Tommy's lunch box. All well and good, except that readers have no idea what the planet looks like or what normal life consists of there. The language in this part of the book is ponderous; for example, "Not a one of the Valorim did not weep for what would be lost together." Readers need to plow through pages of impenetrable prose before they meet Tommy. And every time they get swept into his story, it's brought to a halt. Schmidt is an accomplished, talented author who excels at creating characters dealing with tricky moral dilemmas. He has taken a risk in attempting to write in a new genre, but it's a risk that did not pan out this time.-Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Library, NY (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
On a distant planet, the besieged Valorim send a necklace containing their planet to Earth in a last-ditch effort to save their civilization. Tommy Pepper, a sixth-grader living in Plymouth, Mass., finds the necklace, wears it and is gradually changed by it. He doesn't acquire the otherworldly powers of a Superman, as the story's premise might suggest, but he does begin to utter unusual words and imagine a strange world with two suns. He begins to remember his recently deceased mother in fond detail that eases his loss. His uncanny drawings and paintings actually have movement and new kinetic powers help him silence bully Cheryl Lynn Lumpkin on the school bus. He even creates a living creature out of sand, reminiscent of the Golem of Jewish lore or David Almond's Clay (2006). Meanwhile, there's a behind-the-scenes intergalactic battle going on for the necklace, which fans of the movie Men in Black may find pleasantly familiar. Italicized scenes from the planet of the Valorim alternate with Tommy's narrative in Plymouth, though readers will be challenged by Schmidt's obvious delight in creating an Anglo-Saxon planet, which has a corresponding Old English vocabulary requiring a seven-page glossary. Spielberg, get ready for this boldly imagined outer-space offering. (Science fiction. 10-14)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.