| "THE MYSTERIOUS EDGE OF THE HEROIC WORLD"
Author: E.L. Konigsburg
Interest Level: Middle Grades (4-8)
ATOS Reading Level: 5.7
AR Points: 8.0
Publisher Recommended Age: 10-14
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Aladdin
Book Type: Trade Paperback
Pages: 244
Book Description:
Amedeo Kaplan seems just like any other new kid who has moved into the town of St. Malo, Florida, a navy town where new faces are the norm. But Amedeo has a secret, a dream: More than anything in the world, he wants to discover something -- a place, a process, even a fossil -- some treasure that no one realizes is there until he finds it. And he would also like to discover a true friend to share these things with.
William Wilcox seems like an unlikely candidate for friendship: an aloof boy who is all edges and who owns silence the way other people own words.When Amedeo and William find themselves working together on a house sale for Amedeo's eccentric neighbor, Mrs. Zender, Amedeo has an inkling that both his wishes may come true. For Mrs. Zender's mansion is crammed with memorabilia of her long life, and there is a story to go with every piece.
Soon the boys find themselves caught up in one particular story -- a story that links a sketch, a young boy's life, an old man's reminiscence, and a painful secret dating back to the outrages of Nazi Germany. It's a story that will take them to the edge of what they know about heroism and the mystery of the human heart.
Reader's Guide: Check out the Reader's Guide under "Technical Specs".
Book Reviews:
School Library Journal: "Konigsburg...has created a cast of idiosyncratic people and skillfully embedded them in an appealing tale of friendship, loyalty, and mystery." Grades 5-8.
Book Awards:
- Bank Street, "Best Books of the Year"
- Chicago Public Library, "Best of the Best"
About the Author:
Elaine Lobl Konigsburg (born February 10, 1930) is an American author and illustrator of children's books and young adult fiction. She is the only author to win the Newbery Medal and a Newbery Honor in the same year (1968), with her second and first books respectively: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth. Konigsburg won a second Newbery Medal in 1997 for The View from Saturday, 29 years later, the longest span between any two Newberys awarded to one author.
Born Elaine Lobl February 10, 1930, in New York, Konigsburg grew up in small towns in Pennsylvania, the second of three daughters. As valedictorian, she graduated high school in Farrell, Pennsylvania, and worked briefly as a bookkeeper in a wholesale meat plant to earn money for college. There she met the brother of one of the owners who would later become her husband, David Konigsburg.
Konigsburg enrolled in Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, and earned a degree in chemistry. After graduating, she married David Konigsburg, a graduate student in psychology. She entered graduate school in chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, but after her husband attained his doctorate, they moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where Konigsburg worked as a science teacher at a school for girls.
There she began to think about a new direction for her talents and also became the mother of three children. This new direction would begin after the family moved to Port Chester, New York, and she started art lessons and then began writing. Her first novel Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth was inspired by her daughter's experiences moving to a new home. |
