The Several Lives of Orphan Jack [Hardcover]

Sarah Ellis (Author), Bruno St-Aubin (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 7 and up

For Jack, life is tough at the Opportunities School for Orphans and Foundlings, avoiding trouble with the wrathful Schoolmaster Bane and Edwin, the school basher. But when he turns twelve, trouble finds him. Apprenticed to a bookkeeper, he believes he has the job of his dreams. He loves the idea of taking care of books. What could be better for a boy whose most treasured possession is a grubby, torn dictionary that he received from the Benevolent Ladies Auxiliary one year for Christmas? But when Jack learns that bookkeeping does not involve keeping books safe, he realizes he cannot stay. Traveling to the market town of Aberbog, the resourceful boy becomes an ideas peddler, selling whims, concepts, plans, opinions, impressions, notions, and fancies, eventually winning the town's heart. Jack must now decide whether to settle down or continue his hardscrabble life on the road. Bruno St. Aubin's illustrations vividly capture the strong personalities drawn by the gifted and acclaimed author Sarah Ellis.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 3-6-Otherjack is an orphan, so named because another resident at the Opportunities School for Orphans and Foundlings has already claimed the moniker. The boy had 12 years of avoiding floggings and had "melted away from trouble." When Otherjack's "opportunity" arises, he leaves school for the real world, in which many adventures await. The lad, who carries around a battered dictionary and whose passion is language, becomes a bookkeeper's apprentice ("Scholars and scoundrels. Volumes and villains. That will be my life," he thinks). Unhappy, he leaves, and after a series of adventures and misadventures, his true calling becomes clear: he is an "ideas peddler," selling whims, hunches, promises, and intuitions. Finally, he has found success at doing what he does best, and prepares for a life on the road. While the story is slight, there is real strength in Ellis's turns of phrase ("She was so full of herself that she hadn't no room for one more thought"), use of imagery, and alliteration, and in showing readers the power of words and ideas to liberate the imagination.
Sharon Korbeck, Waupaca Area Public Library, WI
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Gr. 3-6. Jack lives at the Opportunities School for Orphans, where his most cherished possession is a battered dictionary, with the B section missing. When he learns that he will be apprenticed to a firm of bookkeepers, he's ecstatic; he thinks he'll be protecting books. But when the job turns out to be adding numbers ("sums, sameness, and scorn is the life of a Ledger lad"), he takes off, making a detour at a fair, where everything changes after he spontaneously tells a woman that he sells "whims." Soon the somber townsfolk are not only paying for Jack's whims (by gluing little pieces of metal to the soles of your shoes, you can makes music when you dance) but also his concepts, plans, opinions, notions, and fancies. Ellis has created a small gem here, with messages about following your heart tucked into the sentences, phrases, thoughts, and ideas that she seamlessly weaves together. By ingeniously ending each chapter with Jack's dictionary words describing each new circumstance ("boldness and bundles . . . that's the life of an ex-bookkeeper"), she threads a ribbon through the book that sews together both the joy of language and the vicissitudes of a life of possibilities. St-Aubin's ink-and-wash pictures are not always up to the text, but his jaunty cover art will draw in readers. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 7 and up
  
• Hardcover: 84 pages
• Publisher: Groundwood Books (June 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0888995296
• ISBN-13: 978-0888995292
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,421,167 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)