My One Hundred Adventures [Hardcover]

Polly Horvath (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 9, 2008 | Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up | Series: My One Hundred Adventures

THE WINNER OF a National Book Award, a Newbery Honor, and countless other awards has written her richest, most spirited book yet, filled with characters that readers will love, and never forget.

Jane is 12 years old, and she is ready for adventures, to move beyond the world of her siblings and single mother and their house by the sea, and step into the “know-not what.” And, over the summer, adventures do seem to find Jane, whether it’s a thrilling ride in a hot-air balloon, the appearances of a slew of possible fathers, or a weird new friendship with a preacher and psychic wannabe. Most important, there’s Jane’s discovery of what lies at the heart of all great adventures: that it’s not what happens to you that matters, but what you learn about yourself.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Grade 4–7—This is Horvath's most luminescent, beautifully written novel yet. Jane Fielding lives what seems to be an idyllic life with her poet mother and three younger siblings in a house on the beach in coastal Massachusetts, where they gather mussels, pick berries to eat, and lay in the warm tidal pools. But at 12, Jane no longer wants every summer to be exactly the same. She prays for adventures, 100 of them, and gets 14, each of which gives her insights into understanding herself. She delivers Bibles from a hijacked hot-air balloon, is tricked into babysitting for the five messy Gourd children, is fleeced by a fortune-teller, and meets several men who could be her father. Horvath's latest offering certainly has some eccentric, unforgettable characters and some dark humor and irony. Yet the author has significantly mellowed in this quieter work, which will have wider kid-appeal. Indeed, it is Jane's honest, clear voice—that of a young girl on the natural cusp of separating from her family—that drives the story and engages readers. The author is a gifted writer, a word alchemist. She has an eye for exposing the miraculous in the mundane. The book is filled with pithy observations and memorable passages that invite immediate rereading and admiration. This is Horvath at the top of her game, and that's saying something.—Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Jane, 12, longs for adventures, maybe a hundred of them. Not too much happens at the beach where she lives with her younger siblings and  her mother, a poet with a fondness for putting up jam. As the summer slips by, adventures do find Jane—but they come with people attached. Her newfound relationship with preacher Nellie leads to a trip in a hot-air balloon and a foray into the world of healings and psychic revelations. Mrs. Parks’ thrombosis (or is it bursitis?) and a desire to get to California result in an all-night automobile ride that ends because Mrs. Parks’ bottom gets sore. And throughout the summer there’s a procession of possible fathers: the free spirit, the poet, the Santa look-alike, the man in a suit who gets tossed in the ocean by a whale. With writing as foamy as waves, as gritty as sand, or as deep as the sea, this book may startle readers with the freedom given the heroine—independence that allows her to experience, think about, and come to some hard-won conclusions about life. Sometimes Jane’s duped, sometimes she’s played; but if hope fades, it returns, and adventure still beckons. Unconventionality is Horvath’s stock in trade, but here the high quirkiness quotient rests easily against Jane’s inner story with its honest, childlike core. Grades 4-6. --Ilene Cooper

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Schwartz & Wade (September 9, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375845828
• ISBN-13: 978-0375845826
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #894,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Artsy adults would have you believe children would like this!, December 28, 2008

By 

BkWyrm (Norman, OK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My One Hundred Adventures (Hardcover)

I have been a librarian for many, many years, and I can assure you that not one of my students would like this book! It is the kind of book that cerebral intellectuals would have you believe is "wonderful." Yes, there are a few interesting descriptions, and Jane's voice does have some honesty, but the situations she runs into seem very contrived, and her voice is more like an adult recalling a childhood summer than a child's thoughts in "real time." The "quirky" characters are shallow, self-absorbed, and often mean-spirited. Jane lapses into bouts of poetic reverie in between wondering if the next male vagrant she sees is her daddy or the father of one of her siblings.(Jane is not sure whether her sister and two brothers have the same father or different ones.)Jane cannot help her mother with her younger siblings, because Jane is black-mailed into babysitting a hoard of greasy children, while the children's mother takes on a waitressing job. Jane has to take them to the beach and wander through the neighborhood, because it is summertime and the children's father, the school's janitor, is drunk and violent back at their trailer home. Jane's mother, a poet who once won a Pulitzer (right!), never asks where Jane is all day, and no one apparently gets sunburned. Their female pastor ropes Jane into helping hand out free Bibles on Sundays, but the pastor is too wrapped up in herself and drags Jane to a roadside fortune teller, and later a "channeler," trying to validate whether she has the power to heal and is destined for "great" things. All of this is told with somber sincerity, as Jane ponders LIFE. This book is like a movie that doesn't know whether it is a comedy or a drama, and the elements jar with one another. A few adults may think this is high art, but for kids, it will be a snoozer-rama!

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Completely Delightful, September 17, 2008

By 

Monica Edinger - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My One Hundred Adventures (Hardcover)

What a lovely book. I became a Polly Horvath fan years ago with The Trolls and Everything on a Waffle. This new book has a similar Horvathian episodic style, exquisite prose, and her unique dry understated wit. Set in a Massachusetts coastal town, 12 year-old Jane lives with her poet mother and younger siblings on the beach. In true Horvath fashion, eccentric characters populate the novel as do eccentric experiences -- delivering Bibles by balloon, babysitting issues, and other intimate adventures. There are a number of connecting threads (family, fathers, friendship, and more) moving through the story, all nicely and satisfyingly resolved for our heroine Jane by the end.

Horvath always has a dry, deadpan humorous style that I've always loved. For example, in this book, Jane's poet-mother is evidently doing what she can to find and put food on the table and there is mention of a large bag of rice. Toward the end of the book Jane, her mother, and a friend are mourning the death of another character:

We don't feel much like having a barbecue now. We sit around and eat a little rice.

(And again a few paragraphs later when someone stops by to discuss the funeral.)

"Of course we will be there. We will all be there," says my mother and then offers Mrs. Merriweather a little rice, but she cannot stay. She has other arrangements to make.

A book that lingers long after you are done with it. Completely charming.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Mystical, Lyrical Gem, September 17, 2008

By 

Ami Hassler "www.bookami.com" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My One Hundred Adventures (Hardcover)

My One Hundred Adventures is a cross between Jim Lynch's The Highest Tide and Joan Bauer's Hope Was Here. Surprises await in every chapter, making the reader want to quickly turn to the next page. By the same token, Horvath is so in-tune with her 12-year-old protagonist and the daily music of her summer days in a small Massachusetts beach town, that I found I also wanted to stop and read passages over and over again.

Jane is ready for adventure. She has spent all her years with her three younger siblings and her single mom in a wonderfully cozy house by the sea, but she is aching for something more. She's ready to leap into the "know-not-what" this summer. And leap she does with a first time solo ride in a hot-air balloon, a trip to the fair with her possible father, an almost road trip to California with an elderly neighbor, and a new friendship with Nellie, preacher and hopeful healer. Just by summoning a little positive energy and opening her front door, Jane's dreams for 100 adventures begin to come true.

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