Deliver Us From Normal (Apple Signature) (Paperback)

by Kate Klise (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal
Grade 6-9–Charles Harrisong is obsessed with the idea that he is strange and can't fit in with the sixth grade in Normal, IL. He feels that he possesses a special talent, the ability to know what people are really saying and thinking, all of which, he is sure, is directed at him and is negative to the extreme. He is especially embarrassed that his family rents rather than owns a home, wears home-sewn clothes, and lacks the material things that the other students feel are prerequisites. He painfully resists when teachers and the counselor try to help. When his older sister's campaign posters for seventh-grade class president are defaced in a particularly ugly way by clique leaders, the parents decide to leave town. They buy an Alabama houseboat over the telephone with the trade of their automobile and practically the last of their savings, a decision that leads to heartbreakingly hard work and even danger. Through Charles's narration, Klise offers a stunningly realistic look at the concatenations that the boy's obsessive thinking weaves. Each member of the family is carefully delineated. The Harrisongs' searching and differing perceptions of God will certainly spark discussion. Some of the siblings are naturally sunny, while others cry frequently. The parents make mistakes and argue, but this family's true love and deep engagement with one another mean that everyone can forgive and pull together. And, yes, sometimes it does take some real trouble to bring about the realization that everyday problems aren't real problems at all. A superb psychological novel.–Cindy Darling Codell, formerly at Clark Middle School, Winchester, KY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
Gr. 5-8. Charles Harrisong, a neurotic 11-year-old, lives in Normal, Illinois, a cruel irony considering that his large, poor, anything-but-normal family is one of the "Most Embarrassing Things in [His] Life." Case in point: His free-spirited sister, Clara, runs for seventh-grade president, convinced that "the awesome power of positive thinking" can trump the stigma of belonging to the ragtag Harrisong tribe. When Clara's campaign posters are defaced by the popular clique, the siblings' horrified parents react boldly, pulling their kids out of school, moving to Alabama's gulf coast, and launching a radical new life aboard a fixer-upper houseboat.^B Klise, who cocreated several other middle-grade novels with her sister, is prone to sophisticated, slightly dyspeptic observations that don't always seem convincing coming from a sixth-grader, and the references to To Kill a Mockingbird (Charles identifies with Boo Radley) will go over the heads of many. Even so, readers as precocious as Charles will sympathize with the social anxieties Klise probes, and feel comforted by her uptight protagonist's gradual relaxation into the "extraordinary ordinariness" of life. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks (October 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0439523230
• ISBN-13: 978-0439523233
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #243,488 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Just for Kids, March 23, 2005

By	Steve Kramer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deliver Us From Normal (Hardcover)

Ok, so I just read Deliver Us From Normal from start to finish without a break. And here is what you need to know more than anything else - this book is NOT just for children. This is a book for everyone who had enough self-awareness when they were a kid to realize that growing up is a struggle.

If you ever felt awkward, alienated, or just plain different when you were young, you will find a kindred spirit in Kate Klise's Charles Harrisong. If you ever got to the point at which you just wanted to pack up and leave for somewhere else, -anywhere as long as it is different from where you woke up today, but never did - you will want to follow along with the Harrisong family on their journey from Normal to something better than normal.

Your kids should definitely read this book - but you should too. Be like the Harrisongs and do embarrassingly wonderful things as a family - like reading together.

P.S. After I finished Deliver Us From Normal, I walked down to my local bookstore, and moved a couple of copies from the children's section to fiction and literature.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Enlightening Tale of Self Discovery and Adolescence, February 2, 2005

By	Gary H. Cassel "Flamingnet.com" (Baltimore, MD, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Deliver Us From Normal (Hardcover)

What is normal, anyway? Kate Klise's book Deliver Us from Normal is an intriguing, adolescent view on what normal is and why it is so important to children and teenagers. Klise uses the perspective of a twelve year old boy who lives with his four other siblings and his parents in Normal, Illinois. The author provides readers with a glimpse into the life of a lower middle class family who, when it's all said and done, realize that not being "normal" really isn't that bad.

Charlie is a twelve year old boy with three sisters and a brother with whom he gets along surprisingly well. Mature for his age, Charlie gets picked on in school and ridiculed because of his family's financial status. Everything embarrasses him: his body, his family, his clothes and his house with its weird, spooky bushes. All his life Charlie has wanted to "BE NORMAL". When his family decides, on the spur of the moment, to leave their rented house and travel to Alabama he realizes his chances at being normal are over. His parents purchase a houseboat, sight unseen, and it turns out to be a real Junker. The whole family works on restoring it, getting it livable in less than a week. They set out to sail anywhere and everywhere and somewhere along the way Charlie realizes that perhaps being normal isn't all its cracked up to be.

Klise tells an enlightening tale of self discovery and adolescence, of the importance of family and confidence. Portraying circumstances that young readers will be able to relate to, she gets her point across that just being yourself is all that matters. As the main character puts it, "...everything was possible. Anything could happen. Because [they] had been delivered from normal."

Recommended for ages 9-12.

[...]

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining and insightful but leaving unanswered questions, April 18, 2005

By	Kidsreads.com (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deliver Us From Normal (Hardcover)

Sixth-grader Charles Harrisong feels like his family is the only abnormal one in the town of Normal, Illinois. He keeps a list of things that humiliate him. This list includes his family's unusual last name, his father's rattletrap truck, their mustard yellow brick house with spooky bushes in front, his Bargain Bonanza brand clothes, his embarrassingly curly hair, and the quirky personality traits of his four other siblings. Each night Charles says the same prayer: "God, please let us be a normal family. Let us get a normal car. Let us live in a normal house and do normal things and not always be so embarrassing and different and loud."

Charles believes he has another abnormality. He possesses a secret gift that allows him to see and hear things ("words, messages, hidden meanings") without his eyes and ears. It is through Charles's keen observations that readers of DELIVER US FROM NORMAL get to discover his humiliating, and often humorous, world.

What Charles doesn't realize is that he is about to lose the normality of his daily routine. After a cruel prank relating to his sister's decision to run for 7th grade class president, the Harrisong family moves away from Normal in the middle of the night. They drive to Alabama, sell everything they own, and buy a dingy houseboat in a desperate attempt to make a new home.

Despite Charles's "secret gift" of uncovering the meaning and motives behind the actions of other characters in the book, DELIVER US FROM NORMAL ends with a number of unanswered questions. Why did the family take such drastic measures in response to a school prank? What will happen to the Harrisong family now that they've found a new home? How will the family make money? Where will the kids go to school?

Limited to Charles's knowledge and viewpoint we will never know. These questions, while disturbing, do not detract from what is otherwise an entertaining and insightful book. DELIVER US FROM NORMAL presents an unusual portrait of a fiercely loving family's struggle with poverty, and the impact that struggle makes in a young person's life.

--- Reviewed by Sarah A. Wood