Your Move, J.P.! [Hardcover]

Lois Lowry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 1990 | Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up

Lowry's third novel about J.P. and his sister has J.P. in love and doing all sorts of weird things, such as wearing deodorant and even telling a lie to impress Angela.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

J.P. Tate, age 12, is in love for the first time. But not with just anybody: he's in love with the exquisitely beautiful Angela Patricia Galsworthy, who has just moved to America from London. J.P. is so infatuated that he will go to any lengths to impress Angela: he tells her, in fact, that he has a very rare, fatal disease called triple framosis. The boy's seemingly inconsequential lie takes on major proportions when he learns that Angela's father is a specialist in genetic disorders and is interested in J.P.'s case. When he suddenly realizes that Angela is just another girl, it is too late to untangle himself gracefully from his web of lies. In both Switcharound and The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline , J.P.'s antics are funny and refreshing. But while certain incidents in Lowry's latest tale of J.P. are highly entertaining, this story lacks some of the spark and originality of her earlier works. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-7-- The dilemma confronting J. P. Tate is of immense import: how to win the affection of his seventh - grade classmate , Angela Galsworthy, newly arrived from London. J. P.'s machinations as he grapples with the ever-growing problems created by his infatuation form the basic outline of the plot. The events and attitudes expressed would seem more appropriate for the older J. P. who appeared in the two previous offerings about the Tate family, The 100th Thing About Caroline (1983) and Switcharound (1985, both Houghton). Here, he is only 12, but he seems older than in those two books. However, the amusing banter between his 10-year-old sister, Caroline, and J. P.; the believable characters; and the realistic school setting provide pleasant, light reading for Lowry fans. Readers will empathize with J. P.'s discomfort as he is trapped by small white lies that become complicated deceptions. They will cheer him as he retains his chess champion status against tremendous odds. They will nod with satisfaction as he realizes that Angela, her pearly teeth and spun-gold hair notwithstanding, doesn't hold a candle to his old friend Hope, who comes through for him in a pinch. Even though J. P. has forsaken his ingenious electrical creations and his computer wizardry for the role of lovesick swain, his wry sense of humor, cleverness, and creativity are enough in evidence to satisfy readers of this series. --Martha Rosen, Edgewood School, Scarsdale, NY
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children; F edition (April 30, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395536391
• ISBN-13: 978-0395536391
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #582,938 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lois Lowry is known for her versatility and invention as a writer. She was born in Hawaii and grew up in New York, Pennsylvania, and Japan. After several years at Brown University, she turned to her family and to writing. She is the author of more than thirty books for young adults, including the popular Anastasia Krupnik series. She has received countless honors, among them the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, the California Young Reader.s Medal, and the Mark Twain Award. She received Newbery Medals for two of her novels, NUMBER THE STARS and THE GIVER. Her first novel, A SUMMER TO DIE, was awarded the International Reading Association.s Children.s Book Award. Ms. Lowry now divides her time between Cambridge and an 1840s farmhouse in Maine. To learn more about Lois Lowry, see her website at www.loislowry.com

author interview
A CONVERSATION WITH LOIS LOWRY ABOUT THE GIVER

Q. When did you know you wanted to become a writer?

A. I cannot remember ever not wanting to be a writer.

Q. What inspired you to write The Giver?

A. Kids always ask what inspired me to write a particular book or how did I get an idea for a particular book, and often it's very easy to answer that because books like the Anastasia books come from a specific thing; some little event triggers an idea. But a book like The Giver is a much more complicated book, and therefore it comes from much more complicated places--and many of them are probably things that I don't even recognize myself anymore, if I ever did. So it's not an easy question to answer.

I will say that the whole concept of memory is one that interests me a great deal. I'm not sure why that is, but I've always been fascinated by the thought of what memory is and what it does and how it works and what we learn from it. And so I think probably that interest of my own and that particular subject was the origin, one of many, of The Giver.

Q. How did you decide what Jonas should take on his journey?

A. Why does Jonas take what he does on his journey? He doesn't have much time when he sets out. He originally plans to make the trip farther along in time, and he plans to prepare for it better. But then, because of circumstances, he has to set out in a very hasty fashion. So what he chooses is out of necessity. He takes food because he needs to survive. He takes the bicycle because he needs to hurry and the bike is faster than legs. And he takes the baby because he is going out to create a future. And babies always represent the future in the same way children represent the future to adults. And so Jonas takes the baby so the baby's life will be saved, but he takes the baby also in order to begin again with a new life.

Q. When you wrote the ending, were you afraid some readers would want more details or did you want to leave the ending open to individual interpretation?

A. Many kids want a more specific ending to The Giver. Some write, or ask me when they see me, to spell it out exactly. And I don't do that. And the reason is because The Giver is many things to many different people. People bring to it their own complicated beliefs and hopes and dreams and fears and all of that. So I don't want to put my own feelings into it, my own beliefs, and ruin that for people who create their own endings in their minds.

Q. Is it an optimistic ending? Does Jonas survive?

A. I will say that I find it an optimistic ending. How could it not be an optimistic ending, a happy ending, when that house is there with its lights on and music is playing? So I'm always kind of surprised and disappointed when some people tell me that they think the boy and the baby just die. I don't think they die. What form their new life takes is something I like people to figure out for themselves. And each person will give it a different ending. I think they're out there somewhere and I think that their life has changed and their life is happy, and I would like to think that's true for the people they left behind as well.

Q. In what way is your book Gathering Blue a companion to The Giver?

A. Gathering Blue postulates a world of the future, as The Giver does. I simply created a different kind of world, one that had regressed instead of leaping forward technologically as the world of The Giver has. It was fascinating to explore the savagery of such a world. I began to feel that maybe it coexisted with Jonas's world . . . and that therefore Jonas could be a part of it in a tangential way. So there is a reference to a boy with light eyes at the end of Gathering Blue. He can be Jonas or not, as you wish.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A CHESS GAME OF IMPRESSIVE LIES, September 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Your Move, J.P. (Paperback)

Twelve-year-old JP Tate is instantly love-struck by a new girl in his math class--blond, British, Angela who represents his ideal of physical and social perfection. This is a cute read which will appeal to middleschool kids who wonder what it is like when you suddenly notice the opposite sex. Lowry's humor is delightful fluff; I enjoyed the Alphabetizing of Physical Ailments (inspired by Ralph, the park bum), which our youthful protagonist expands into Character Flaws. Many of the situations, conversations and examples of adolescent logic are hilarious.

Warning--the theme is serious: don't get yourself entangled in a web of lies and deceit--especially just to impress someone. True friends are those who accept you as you are and go all out to help you when you need it most. The story is school-oriented, with classroom dynamics, unusual homework assignments and special events at a small, private school. But really: walking golf bags? a chess game with the opponents wearing a ski mask and goggles to spook each other? This pleasant, single-mother family is reprised in THE ONE HUNDREDTH THING ABOUT CAROLINE, which stars JP's bright younger sister. Even adults can swallow this one and come up grinning!

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty dumb., December 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Your Move, J.P. (Paperback)

I usually like Lowry books but this one was pathetic. Too slapstick, and would some author some day write a teenage book without boy-meets-girl?

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Your Move J.P., May 3, 2001

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Your Move, J.P. (Paperback)

J.P. is a 12 year old boy that was never ever going to fall in love with a girl! Until Angela Patricia Golswerthy, the new girl in J.P.'s Math class with the British accent and golden blonde hair, turn's J.P.'s world upside down. He walks into walls, trips over his own feet, and starts to use deodorant! J.P. gets caught up in telling one little lie to impress Angela, and that little lie spins out of control for J.P. J.P. loves chess and building mechanical stuff from junk. He's very smart and kind of a nerd. Angela is the pretty new girl in school and very popular. And she tells a little lie of her own! It is a great story for both boys and girls. I like this book a lot. It was a funny story and I hope you give it a try.