Help Me, Jacques Cousteau [Paperback]

Gil Adamson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2010

With her multiple-award-winning, bestselling, and critically acclaimed novel The Outlander, Gil Adamson established herself as one of North America's preeminent fiction writers. But ten years before The Outlander Adamson published another book of fiction with a small press, and writers, readers, and critics immediately sat up and took note. With this new updated edition, Adamson’s fascinating portrait of a young woman’s coming of age is ready for readers once again. Help Me, Jacques Cousteau presents the life and times of Hazel, who is born into an extraordinary family alongside her brother Andrew. Hazel’s experiences, at once odd and completely believable, involve a diverse cast of family members who share only one thing: a penchant for eccentric behavior. In portraying a strange, compelling, dysfunctional family, Adamson demonstrates her powerful prose style, uniquely combining a scientist’s loving attention to detail, a comic’s unerring delivery, and a poet’s sublime ear.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up Hazel and her brother, Andrew, belong to a family of eccentrics. Their dad, North, is constantly rewiring the house and studying the weather. Their mother just up and leaves them one day. One uncle collects only white animals, while another is constantly changing girlfriends. The rest of the family shows up on a whim from time to time, and even the neighbors, whom Hazel enjoys spying on, are a little odd. As Hazel narrates her life beginning from a young age, following the birth of her brother, her adolescence, and her young adulthood, readers get to know the quirky characters who make up her world. With subtle humor and lyrical, at times almost poetic, writing (We hurry along the road in the snow, looking like an assortment of bonbons in frilly wrappings), Adamson weaves a story that will give readers comfort in knowing their families aren't the only ones with their fair share of kookiness. Gina Bowling, South Gibson County High School, Medina, TN
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About the Author

The offspring of a family that has been in Canada for eight generations, Gil Adamson was the first baby born in North York, Ontario in 1961, an accident of birth which might partly explain her wary and perceptive take on the hidden eccentricities of suburban life. On graduation in 1985, she joined Coach House Press as publicist and editorial assistant, and in 1987 became publishing assistant at CBC Radio Guide. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 16 and up
  
• Paperback: 197 pages
• Publisher: House of Anansi Press; Reissue edition (May 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0887847994
• ISBN-13: 978-0887847998
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,212,175 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow! I was Blown away, August 10, 2010

By 

Lucy Adams "If Mama" (Augusta, Georgia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Help Me, Jacques Cousteau (Paperback)

I picked up Help Me, Jacques Cousteau as an impulse buy, mostly because of the title (it reminded me of watching Jacques Cousteau as a kid, my brother and me, glued to the television, hoping a giant squid would swim through the scene). It ended up being an overwhelming surprise in that it is a fantastic read.

This coming of age story about a girl named Hazel, to whom everything happens, but at the same time nothing really happens, is so well-written, the narrative flowing so smoothly and beautifully, that the pages almost turn themselves. And while it is a work of fiction, Hazel's family could be anybody's crazy, off-beat family, even mine. Nothing they do makes a hill of beans of difference that anyone can tell, and yet everything is different because of them.

I fell in love with the characters, especially the grandfather and his dead dog Rufus. My heart broke for Hazel's younger brother, Andrew, who decides to quit talking, and my Scottish blood (the bit that I have) pumped in unison with that of Hazel's mother. I had a hard time putting this book down and began bargaining with myself to get up and do something productive at the end of each chapter so I could justify throwing myself back into these characters' lives again.

It is hard to believe that it took 10 years for this novel to make a ripple in the world of literature. It's a unique story told with a confident voice, and who among us can't relate to it?

I absolutely love this book and I love when impulse buys turn out this way.

Lucy Adams, author of If Mama Don't Laugh, It Ain't Funny