Journey [Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Patricia Maclachlan (Author)

Book Description

Journey is eleven the summer his mother leaves him and his sister, Cat, with their grandparents. He is sad and angry, and spends the summer looking for the clues that will explain why she left.

Journey searches photographs for answers. He looks for family resemblances in Grandma's slbums. Looking for happier times, he tries to put together the torn pieces of the pictures his mother shredded before her departure. And he also searches the photographs his grandfather takes as the older man attempts to provide Journey with a past. In the process, the boy learns to look and finds that, for him, the camera is a means of finding things his naked eye has missed--things like the inevitability of his mother's departure and the love that still binds his family.

In this spare and remarkable novel, Patricia MacLachlan explores abandonment and the extraordinary means by which a family reassembles itself.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Like Sarah, Plain and Tall , for which MacLachlan won the 1986 Newbery Award, this novel concerns a family trying to fill the gaping void left by the loss of a mother. And like that earlier masterpiece, this is a spellbinding tale, lean only in its length. The author's clipped dialogue and meticulously pared-down descriptions convey a deceptive simplicity--there are deep, intricate rumblings beneath the surface calm of MacLachlan's words. When his mother walks out on 11-year-old Journey and his older sister, Cat, the boy refuses to believe she will not return. He listens to the constant clicking of the shutter as his grandfather takes possession of Cat's cast-aside camera, asserting that "sometimes pictures show us what is really there." Journey questions the value of this incessant picture-taking, yet pores through his grandmother's photo album, trying to patch together a fragmented past that is frustratingly out of focus. He hopes that the truth will be found in a box of family photos that his mother left in tiny scraps under her bed. Setting out to piece the pictures back together, Journey finally admits that this dream is as hopeless as his mother's return. It is his grandfather, on whom Journey has taken out much of his anger, who eventually answers the child's most troubling questions. The wise older man assures Journey that he is not to blame for his mama's departure, and shares a truth that is at the heart of the novel: although everything in life--from photographs to families--is not perfect, "things can be good enough." Readers of all ages will find that MacLachlan's emotion-charged novel is far closer to being perfect than to being just "good enough." One turns the last page convinced that Journey's is, indeed, a complete family, and that this is a full and refreshing work. Ages 8-14.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-6-- Mama has packed her suitcase and gone away, but 11-year-old Journey won't accept the fact that she isn't coming back. In the midst of their own pain, his grandparents and older sister, Cat, try to make things easier for him. As the summer progresses, Grandfather's new hobby of taking family photographs and a stray cat, which moves in and has kittens, help Journey to come to terms with his anger and grief, and move beyond them. It comes as no surprise that in MacLachlan's hands this brief tenuous-sounding plot encloses a warm, gently humorous, and multilayered story. Her skillful use of first-person narrative pulls readers into the center of Journey's life and rounds out the other characters marvelously. As Grandfather begins taking photographs to give Journey a sense of family, photos become symbolic of the family itself. MacLachlan offers no easy solutions to one of the worst situations that a child can imagine; instead she writes about it in a way that helps her readers understand more about all families, including their own. --Ruth S. Vose, San Francisco Public Library
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Listening Library (August 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553471872
• ISBN-13: 978-0553471878
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,600,263 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #19 in Books > Books on Cassette > Children's Books > Religious

More About the Author

Patricia MacLachlan was born on the prairie, and to this day carries a small bag of prairie dirt with her wherever she goes to remind her of what she knew first. She is the author of many well-loved novels and picture books, including Sarah, Plain and Tall, winner of the Newbery Medal; its sequels, Skylark and Caleb's Story; and Three Names, illustrated by Mike Wimmer. She lives in western Massachusetts.

In Her Own Words..."One thing I've learned with age and parenting is that life comes in circles. Recently, I was having a bad time writing. I felt disconnected. I had moved to a new home and didn't feel grounded. The house, the land was unfamiliar to me. There was no garden yet. Why had I sold my old comfortable 1793 home? The one with the snakes in the basement, mice everywhere, no closets. I would miss the cold winter air that came in through the electrical sockets."

"I had to go this day to talk to a fourth-grade class, and I banged around the house, complaining. Hard to believe, since I am so mild mannered and pleasant, isn't it? What did I have to say to them? I thought what I always think when I enter a room of children. What do I know?"

"I plunged down the hillside and into town, where a group of fourth-grade children waited for me in the library, freshly scrubbed, expectant. Should I be surprised that what usually happens did so? We began to talk about place, our living landscapes. And I showed them my little bag of prairie dirt from where I was born. Quite simply, we never got off the subject of place. Should I have been so surprised that these young children were so concerned with place, or with the lack of it, their displacement? Five children were foster children, disconnected from their homes. One little boy's house had burned down, everything gone. 'Photographs, too,' he said sadly. Another told me that he was moving the next day to place he'd never been. I turned and saw the librarian, tears coming down her face."

"'You know,' I said. 'Maybe I should take this bag of prairie dirt and toss it into my new yard. I'll never live on the prairie again. I live here now. The two places could mix together that way!' 'No!' cried a boy from the back. 'Maybe the prairie dirt will blow away!' And then a little girl raised her hand. 'I think you should put that prairie dirt in a glass bowl in your window so that when you write you can see it all the time. So you can always see what you knew first.'"

"When I left the library, I went home to write. What You Know First owes much to the children of the Jackson Street School: the ones who love place and will never leave it, the ones who lost everything and have to begin again. I hope for them life comes in circles, too."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thrilling !!, December 5, 2001

By 

Cheh Carmen (Cheh Carmen,Malaysia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Journey (Paperback)

Journey comes from a disfunctional family.His mum left him and his older sister,Cat with his grandparents.His father left when he was not even born.Journey misses his mum and longs for her to come back.I feel pity for him as his parents dumped him when he was a boy.When I read this book,I was so angry with his mother that I could have beaten her up in real life.His grandfather takes many photos of them and the surroundings.So,when they are grownup,they can have something to remind themselves about the past.Journey's mum tore up all their photos of the past.What an irresponsible mum! I wish I could pound her to pieces like what she did to the photos.I must consider myself the most luckiest girl in the whole world.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Short but sweet, March 18, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Journey (Paperback)

Journey, by Patricia MacLachlan, is one of those books that can only be described as short but sweet. This 83 paged novel is jam-packed with deep meaning. Though, I thought it ended too quickly and the meaning was somewhat lost.
My opinion is that this book was a bit dull. There was no big surprises and the book was quite predictable. However, this novel is still worth reading. The characters are well developed and you can really connect with them.
By now you're probably wondering, what is this meaning? This book is about a young boy trying to deal with his mother's leaving. Journey's mother walked out on him and his sister, leaving them no address or phone number. His father had left them before Journey was old enough to remember. Journey is confused at first about why his mother left. His family all know the reason she left but keep it hidden from Journey. He discovers the astounding truth about his mother and finds a contentment in the end.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars RECLAIMING HIS FAMILY HERITAGE, June 19, 2007

By 

Plume45 "kitka12345" (Westchester, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Journey (Paperback)

Eleven-year-old Journey feels betrayed by his absent parents--especially by the recent, breezy departure of his immature mother . Raised without a father he and his older sister, Cat, rely on their understanding grandparents to provide a true home and stable family life. When letters containing (guilt) money arrive irregularly, Journey secretly cherishes a dream that someday he will use his share to locate Mama. He is too young or too stubborn to accept reality: that she has a soul for wanderlust--for she always was itching to be on the road.

One day his long-suffering grandfather discovers an old camera
and quickly becomes a regular household nuisance--snapping photos of
unsuspecting family members at their daily routine. When a stray cat
surprisingly takes up residence in their house, then proceeds to make a nest in a box of old photos, Journey becomes haunted by the questions
raised by the torn-up images. The past which he never knew has been brought to light but in frustrating tatters.

Who robbed him of his babyhood? He studies the mysterious identity of baby's unattached hand and another fragment of a man's shirt front, until he develops a grudging respect for the photographer's art.
Devastated by the degree of wanton cruelty and callous indifference of his long-departed mother Journey suddenly recognizes her selfish lifestyle for what it is--and for what it never will be. Will he ever come to terms with Liddie's desertion of her own children? How will this tortured boy recover his stolen family heritage or find peace in his parentless home? Can grandparents ever replace the biological role models which a child has a right to expect? This is an introspective book which is both short and intense--an emotional journey in Time, rather than in Space, as a boy wrestles with the world as it is, not as it Should be.