| "THE VIEW FROM SATURDAY"
Author: E.L. Konigsburg
Interest Level: Middle Grades (4-8)
ATOS Reading Level: 5.9
AR Points: 7.0
Publisher Recommended Age: 8-12
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Aladdin
Book Type: Trade Paperback
Pages: 163
Book Description:
How had Mrs. Olinski chosen her sixth-grade Academic Bowl team? She had a number of answers. But were any of them true? How had she really chosen Noah and Nadia and Ethan and Julian? And why did they make such a good team?
It was a surprise to a lot of people when Mrs. Olinski's team won the sixth-grade Academic Bowl contest at Epiphany Middle School. It was an even bigger surprise when they beat the seventh grade and the eighth grade, too. And when they went on to even greater victories, everyone began to ask: How did it happen?
It happened at least partly because Noah had been the best man (quite by accident) at the wedding of Ethan's grandmother and Nadia's grandfather. It happened because Nadia discovered that she could not let a lot of baby turtles die. It happened when Ethan could not let Julian face disaster alone. And it happened because Julian valued something important in himself and saw in the other three something he also valued.
Mrs. Olinski, returning to teaching after having been injured in an automobile accident, found that her Academic Bowl team became her answer to finding confidence and success. What she did not know, at least at first, was that her team knew more than she did the answer to why they had been chosen.
This is a tale about a team, a class, a school, a series of contests and, set in the midst of this, four jewel-like short stories -- one for each of the team members -- that ask questions and demonstrate surprising answers.
Book Group Guide:
Book Reviews:
School Library Journal (Starred Review): "No bells and whistles are needed to bring this winner to life, just a skilled reading. " Grades 4-6.
Publishers Weekly (Starred Review): "Glowing with humor and dusted with magic."
Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review): "Admirable acts, challenging ideas, and grace notes positively festoon this superb tale."
Book Awards:
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. |
