Skip to main content

The Warden's Daughter

Image
By

The Warden's Daughter
By Jerry Spinelli
Random House, 2017. Fiction.

Cammie O'Reilly's life has always been a little bit different. Most kids have backyards, she has the Women's Yard. Most kids have treehouses, she has The Tower. Most kids have mothers, she doesn't - yet. Her own mother was killed in an accident saving her life when she was just a baby, leaving her alone with her father, the prison warden. The summer Cammie turns thirteen, she decides to find herself a new mother to do all the motherly things she misses out on, and she picks Eloda Pupko - the prison trustee who acts as her housekeeper. As the summer goes by, Eloda resists the role of mother that Cammie tries to thrust on her, as Cammie's anger at her different life bubbles deeper and deeper.

The Warden's Daughter is a great historical fiction novel filled with really interesting (if not always likable) characters. Set in the same same fictional town as Manaic Magee, this book shows Jerry Spinelli at his best - which is very good. At times, Cammie can be a real pain and many readers will have trouble identifying with her actions, but this makes her character development more satisfying. This book is filled with very real emotion and tangible frustration in the midst of stretches of truly beautiful language. This book will likely strike a chord with more advanced middle graders.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Factory

By
The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...
Post a Comment
Read more

If You Like...KPop Demon Hunters

By
KPop Demon Hunters has been one of the most talked-about movies of the summer. If you loved this movie as much as I did, you don't want the magic (or the music) to stop. Try reading these books that touch on some of the same topics and themes as the animated hit! Brick Dust and Bones By M. R. Fournet New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2023. Fiction. 247 pages. Orphaned Marius works in the family business--as their cemetery's ghost caretaker. However, Marius also moonlights as a monster hunter in order to earn the costly Mystic currency he needs to bring his mother back from the dead. As the window to bring his mother back begins to close, Marius's exploits get more and more dangerous, and he may have set his sights on a monster too big to handle on his own. Like Mira, Marius longs for familial connection, and his work as a monster hunter will satisfy the thrill of demon hunting for fans the movie. Where's Halmoni? By Julie J. Kim Seattle, WA: Little Bigfoot, 2017. Comics. W...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Finding Lost

By
Finding Lost By Holly Goldberg Sloan New York: Rocky Pond Books, 2025. Fiction. 208 pages. Middle schooler Cordy, along with her mom and little brother, Geno, are still learning how to adjust to their life after “The Accident,” a tragic boating accident that cost their father’s life. When Cordy is walking home from school one day, she finds a little stray dog who the family nicknames Lost, and as he joins their family, he helps them rediscover all of the beauty that life has to offer. Holly Goldberg Sloane delivers a heart-warming and poignant novel about loss, family, and perseverance. This was a well-written novel that could appeal to a wide range of readers. Any middle schooler will be able to relate to Cordy’s experience of dealing with change, and those who have experienced a similar loss will be sure to find solace in this beautiful story.
Post a Comment
Read more