Skip to main content

JAKE AND LILY by Jerry Spinelli


copyright date: May 2012
primarily marketed for: intermediate readers (8 and up)

This is another book for younger readers.  So, although the time you spend actually reading Jake and Lily by Jerry Spinelli won’t be long, the time this story spends traveling around in your heart will be immeasurable.

Spinelli is a master at getting straight to the heart of what keeps people from accepting one another: differences.  Through the story of young twins Jake and Lily, he tells a story of tolerance, acceptance, and ultimately friendship. 

Jake and Lily have a very special relationship.  They are able to connect with one another through dreams and across distances.  In fact, as they write their stories for us in alternating chapters, they don’t even need to read to know what they other has written. 

Conflict settles into their lives when growing up threatens to come between them.  As Jake begins to spend more time with a group of boys led by the roughest boy in the neighborhood, his connection with Lily seems to fade. 

Lily is forced to look elsewhere to fill the void left by losing her brother’s friendship.  While Jake is succumbing to the guidance of a bully who leads the boys in a hunt for Goobers, Lily finds guidance in her wise, earthy grandfather, Poppy. 

In true Spinelli-style, both children figure out what it means to be themselves.  It is a story for younger readers, but if contains Spinelli’s poetic voice of wisdom in lines crafted like these:

[Jake]
“He hates me.  Ernest Lindop of Meeker Street hates me.  I’ve never been hated before.  It’s like sunburn on my heart.”

[Lily]
“What do you do while you’re waiting for your life to happen?”

Reading Jake and Lily felt like eating dessert first.  It was a pure treat for my soul.

Reading Threads:
Loser by Jerry Spinelli
Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
Wringer by Jerry Spinelli
Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
Wonder by R. J.Palacio
Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper
The Thing About Georgie by Lisa Graff
Rules by Cynthia Lord
Labels:

Comments

  1. Linda BJuly 11, 2012 at 8:10 AM

    Terrific-I have heard that Spinelli has a new one-Thanks Christy!

    ReplyDelete
  2. SheilaJuly 28, 2012 at 10:17 PM

    Thanks for the great review of this new one by a favorite author. Have you read his short story collection called (I think) The Library Card?

    ReplyDelete
  3. SheilaAugust 17, 2012 at 11:04 AM

    Hi, Christy,

    Just thought I'd say hello again and mention another gifted author for older middle-grade kids, Kevin Henkes. He's so well known for his picture books, but I love his novels, too.

    Tasha is busy with school-related preparations and I'm sure you are, too. It's a hectic time of year.

    If you ever would like to have an author visit through Skype, I'm available. I've done it about ten times, and it's a great way to connect with student readers -- if the technology cooperates!

    Take care,
    Sheila

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TAKE WHAT YOU CAN CARRY by Kevin C. Pyle

copyright date: March 2012 primarily marketed for: young adults (12 and up) Despite the fact that the teacher in me sees so many lesson possibilities in Kevin C. Pyle’s graphic novel Take What You Can Carry , you should read it simply for the grace of its stories.   The artwork is as striking as the stories it tells.   Using artwork in two different colors and styles, Pyle tells the stories of two teenage boys living years and miles apart.   And yet, he communicates the universality in their experiences.   One boy is a Japanese American forced to move into an internment camp during WWII.   His family struggles to maintain their dignity and sense of peace under unbearable conditions. The other is a rebellious boy with an attitude whose reckless behavior causes him to wind up in trouble with the law.   To make amends, he finds himself completing community service hours in the most unlikely place.   I found my...
1 comment
Read more

ONE FOR THE MURPHYS by Lynda Mullaly Hunt

copyright date: May 2012 primarily marketed for: intermediate readers (5 th grade and up) I sort of expected One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt to be one of those overly sappy books with unrealistic, sickeningly sweet characters.  However, although the storyline might make it sound sappy, the characters are realistic and dynamic.  After a traumatic incident that lands both she and her mother in the hospital, Carley Connors is taken away and placed in foster care with the Murphy family.  The only life Carley has known is one of put-downs, food scraps, and shopping for clothes in Salvation Army drop boxes.  Until she meets the Murphys.  The Murphys are too good to be true: Julia, the mom, happily makes home-cooked meals for her three boys and firefighting, sports-loving husband.  In fact, Julia isn’t even rattled by Carley’s rough around the edges attitude.  At first, Carley despises the Murphys and the way they make he...
4 comments
Read more

ALL THESE THINGS I’VE DONE by Gabrielle Zevin

copyright date: September 2011 primarily marketed for: young adults (8 th grade and up) I wish I would’ve known this was the beginning of a series before I started this book.   Then again, I might never have picked it up if I thought I might be committing to multiple books… At any rate, this is not a story I will be sad to return to this fall when the sequel is released.   Anya’s story takes place in New York City, in the future.   Around the time you will be old enough to be grandparents. This is a sort of post-apocalyptic, dystopian kind of book in a mild way.   Basically, the United States has self-destructed, and yet life seems to go surprisingly similar to the way we live nowadays.   Except that water and paper are costly and hard to come by.   Chocolate is prohibited.   Caffeine is an illegal drug.   Which is all to say that the setting alone is intriguing. Add to that setting, the fact that Anya is the oldest daughter of the ...
3 comments
Read more