Customer Reviews

Takeoffs and Landings

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Takeoffs and landings. I guess they're the best parts of going on a plane. Then again, I've been on so many flights that they all just meld together. This is not the case for Lori and Chuck Lawson, two teens stuck in Pickford County, Ohio. Neither has been on a plane, not once --- they've been living with their grandparents and siblings on the family farm ever since their father passed away. Widowed and without a profession or a degree, their mother Joan had to find a job to support her five children. She becomes a motivational speaker, traveling across the country to speak at conferences, and she is rarely home.

Lori is resentful of her mother's trips, always wishing that her mom was there for her, both physically and emotionally. Clumsy Chuck is busy struggling with teases and taunts from peers and constant nagging from his grandfather. The younger children don't remember a time when their mother was home for more than three weeks at a stretch.

When Joan decides to make up for her absences by taking Lori and Chuck with her on a trip across the country, what will happen? Relationships change and secrets are uncovered as Haddix reveals an aspect of the bond between mother and child that not many people understand. Can Joan Lawson ever make it up to her children?

The book is written from three different points of view: Lori's, Chuck's, and Joan's. Although each provides a different spin on the events in the novel, the constant change in speaker demands a lot of concentration. Haddix's idea is clever, but its execution is less so. The ending is predictable; there is no jolting surprise that makes you want to finish the book right at that very moment. On the positive side, however, the novel shows a family who struggles to overcome, which is very inspiring. Reading TAKEOFFS AND LANDINGS will make you feel good, even if you don't like to fly.

--- Reviewed by Lisa Marx

This book was a faboulous book to read..... It showed me what family really could be... great book to do a book report on..

Hmmm. Did I like this book? I'm still pondering that question more than 12 hours after completing it. Haddix put a lot of emotions and information into a relatively short book and though it was very compelling and well written, it just seemed a bit....jammed in there.

Takeoffs and Landings by one of my favorite youth writers, Margaret Peterson Haddix, is a book of intense family emotion. It is told by two siblings in alternating chapters. Chuck is the overweight, geeky older brother that we learn loves art, but is afraid to show that love. Lori is the self-obsessed younger sister that is completely into boys, friends, and parties, and definitely not into Chuck and his weirdness.

Their mother, a motivational speaker and very much resented by Lori, decides to take Chuck and Lori along for one of her 3 city tours in order for them to spend time together and possibly fix their straining relationship. Along the way, huge, emotion ridden fights ensue between Lori and her mom, while Chuck begins to find himself in art museums, hiding, yet learning and loving. By the end of the novel, the broken family almost seems fixed, which is a feat to do in only 201 pages.

Haddix has a magic about her that enables her to create real emotions in her characters that then feel real in her readers. She did that again in this book and I loved it, however I felt it was very rushed and somewhat strange that after all the intensity in hurt and anger that was portrayed only a few pages before, all is well at the end of the book. It needed a good 50-100 more pages to work out those family problems and make that part of the novel feel realistic to me.

Lori is fourteen and her brother Chuck is fifteen. When they were little they were best friends, but that was before their father died in a farm accidnet and everything went wrong. Chuck and Lori already had two younger brothers and when their father died their mother was expecting another baby. The whole family had to move in with the children's grandparents. Farming wasn't a bad life and the kids all love their grandparents, but Lori, especially, feels a lot of resentment toward her mother, who works as a motivational speaker to support the family. She is never home and over the years she has grown distant from her children.

Chuck and Lori have also grown apart. Chuck is clumsy and overweight and not good at school. Lori is quite the opposite, and the two of them haven't really spoken in years.

Now Lori and Chuck's mother has decided to bring the two of them with her while she tours some of the major cities in the country, giving motivational speeches. Lori is baffled by the invitation and at first is openly hostile toward her mother. But as they travel with her more and more, Chuck and Lori begin to see a bit of what her life is really like, and they begin to see what they can do to put their family back together again.

I liked to see how the individual characters grew over the course of this story, and how the family was able to start to heal after so many years of unhappiness and resentment.

I think that the book Takeoffs and Landings by Ms. Peterson shows great writing skills. She has a lot of details in her book which enables readers to visualize what is going on. She tells everything that goes on in the minds of her characters which helps her readers relate with them. Takesoffs and Landings is an outstanding book which is so good that it is hard to put down and stop reading for even a minute. If you haven't read the book you most certainly should.

Imagine yourself being a perfect person with great grades, being pretty, and having lots of friends. Then, once you reach the big city and you know no one, your life turns around. Everyone gives you funny looks, your scared people will make fun of you, and it doesn't matter who you are or what you look like anymore.
Well, that is how it is like for Lori and her brother Chuck in this fiction novel called Takeoffs and Landings by Margaret Peterson Haddix.
In this story, Lori and Chuck don't see their mother that much ever since their father was killed on the farm. While their mom is out working, they live on a farm in a little place called Pickford County in Ohio. Lori and Chuck's mother invited them on a trip, which changes everyone's lives. As they travel to all of the big cities around the country, Lori finds out that she barely knows her mother. Lori thought she was the perfect girl until the trip, Chuck knew he was the kid everyone picked on and their mother was a mom that never saw her kids. While on the trip, the family fights constantly and they all learn things they never knew before.
Takeoffs and Landings shows many reasons why your whole life can change in a moments time. For instance, when Lori sneaked out in the streets of Atlanta on her own, her life changed instantly. She went from being well known and the prettiest girl in a little city to being alone and not so pretty in the big city. She was bumped every where she went, and no one said anything to her. She felt lost and very lonely. Will she find her way back and learn a different way to live life?
If you want to read an interesting book for teenagers that has great problems and conflicts of teen life's and shows a lot of courage and love, then you should read Takeoffs and Landings by Margaret Peterson Haddix.

This book was inspirational. It was a very enjoyable read. It was a privilage to see the development in each character and the relationships they have with each other. Beautifully composed, with a twist that stays true to the rest of the book.

I work in a small town and, although there are major differences between Pickford County and where I am, the small town allusions in the book ring true. Although one reviewer found the writing choppy, in going from one perspective to the next, I didn't feel like that. I found it interesting to see how each of the characters saw the same event in completely different ways.

I especially like the way that Lori is written. Everything comes out nastier than she really meant it to when she says it. It is almost as though teenager-hood is forcing her to be mean and vindictive.

The ending does come a bit abruptly, but I was ready for it. The road trip gets tiring after a while - just like it does in real life - and you just want to get home. Fortunately, each one of the characters has learned something. It isn't an overly happy ending, but it is satisfying.

Takeoffs and Landings was a boring and monotonous novel, with uninteresting (and what seemed to be unimportant) dialogue and scenes. I found myself listlessly reading pages, and not even remembering what it was I had just read. The plot seemed too cliche-with a fat, made fun of brother, and the beautiful, popular sister uniting in their past. There were flashbacks to their history that seemed to have no importance to the present or future. I do not recomend this book for people that like a good or interesting read, or are advanced readers.