A Pen Pal for Max [Hardcover]

Gloria Rand (Author), Ted Rand (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 5 and up

A secret note wins Max a friend in a faraway country

Max doesn’t know what to expect when he slips a note into a box of grapes headed to the United States, so he is thrilled when he receives a response from a girl named Maggie. The two quickly become pen pals.

Then one day Max’s village in Chile is hit by a huge earthquake, and his school must be closed because of damages. When the school finally reopens, a surprise is waiting for Max from his faraway friends.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 3–Maximiliano lives with his family on a farm in Chile. His father works in a vineyard that produces grapes for worldwide distribution. One day Max slips a note with his name, address, and a request for a pen pal into a box of the fruit. Amazingly, he receives a reply from 10-year-old Maggie, who lives in the U.S. They develop a correspondence comparing their very different lives. When an earthquake strikes Max's part of the world, Maggie and her friends send supplies to his school. The realistic, energetic watercolor illustrations extend the tale. This is a lovely story, albeit a trifle long, with an important message about friendship.–Pamela K. Bomboy, Chesterfield County Public Schools, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

K-Gr. 3. There is a real story in this upbeat picture book, which begins quietly on a huge Chilean fruit farm, where Max's father works in the vineyard. One day Max rides his pony to the farm's packing house and secretly slips a note into a box of grapes. The note eventually reaches Maggie in the U.S., and the kids write to each other--Max in Spanish (Maggie's teacher translates for her) and Maggie in English (a rich farm owner helps Max understand). Then a huge earthquake hits the farm, Max's school is destroyed, and Maggie's class sends boxes of books and supplies. Until the scary earthquake, the farm scenes are too idyllic, everyone always smiling and kind, but the bright, open artwork captures both the daily happiness and the dramatic upheaval. Best of all is the bilingual theme, which adds a new element to pen pal fun. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR); First Edition edition (September 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805075860
• ISBN-13: 978-0805075861
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 9.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,685,448 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:

4.0 out of 5 stars Farias Away, March 12, 2007

By 

M. Allen Greenbaum (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Pen Pal for Max (Hardcover)

A pleasant enough book about a pen pal friendship between 10-year old Chilean Maximiliano Farias and a girl of like age in the United States. While there's a dramatic midpoint when a quake shakes, rattles, and rolls Max's house and school, the best moments are the quieter ones. Author Gloria Rand captures a youngster's curiosity about faraway places, and having a long distance friend. When Max (who lives on a large fruit farm) hears about the complicated packing and shipping that will take his family's grapes to the United States, he does the next best thing to stowing away on a refrigerated freighter ships--he sneaks a letter into one of the grape boxes.

I'm not sure why he keeps this letter a secret. Does he think it's a foolish wish, or is his yearning so strong that he fears sharing it will somehow destroy it? These are questions that adults and sophisticated youngsters might ask; kids will likely just resonate with Max's desire for a secret wish. He finally hears from the daughter of a produce manager who lives in a "big city." We see Maggie writing letters to Max with a cityscape behind her; it would have been more interesting to know the city in which she lives (as well as where Max lives). This would open the book to geographical exploration.

The book also slightly underestimates the inferential ability of all but its very youngest audience: "Max's mother looked puzzled as she handed him the envelope. 'This letter is from someone in the United States. I can tell by the stamp.'" Well, YEAH. And then there's this line: "Max's mother recognized that the letter was writeen in English, even though she could not read it herself." That's not too surprising either.

The quake provides some welcome excitement; it's a big one, and Maximiliano's family is relieved that everyone is OK. It also enables a very natural-feeling gesture of friendship and compassion: Maggie and her classmates send packages filled with "books, games, paper, pens, and even new clothes," and there's a very courteous note that, refreshingly, doesn't assume that Max is from some poverty-stricken town: "When you have time to write, we'd really like to know how you are and what it was like. In case your stuff got wrecked, we're sending you some new stuff." Any book that comfortably uses "stuff" in its dialogue is on sure footing, and the Rand team (Ted Rand did the beautifully colored and shaded illustrations) deftly bring these two distant kids together.