Common Sense Note
Even without much action, this beautifully thoughtful book is enthralling to many young adults. Powerful, complex tale of guilt and redemption. Inspires in kids a desire to create their own whirligigs, and to explore the country. Brent teaches himself to recognize the constellations.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
Paul Fleischman has long been a solid children's author, but this is a tour-de-force unlike anything else he has written. Breathtakingly powerful and vividly memorable, it is also multilayered..
As Brent travels alone and struggles to come to terms with what he has done, his personality, priorities, direction, and indeed nearly everything about him is irrevocably changed, mostly for the better. The appalling consequences of his self-centeredness, and the rippling impact of his actions on even the tiniest aspects of his life and personality causes readers to look at their own lives in a new way.
While the reasons for the journey are horrific, Fleischman makes every aspect of the trip--the bus rides, meeting strangers, camping, making the whirligigs--fascinating and appealing. And as he works on his project Brent also undergoes an artistic awakening which holds intriguing promise for the future.
The format can be a bit confusing; the chapters showing the effects of the whirligigs don't follow the same order as Brent's creation of them, so the reader is often unsure which whirligig is involved. But eventually it doesn't seem to matter; the point, as it is throughout the book, is the unexpected consequences of our actions, on others and on ourselves.
This is the kind of book that latches onto readers and doesn't let go, causing them to reevaluate their own lives. More than a few readers have been driven to seek out books on the making of whirligigs, which the author makes fascinating and lovely.
From the Book:
You have absolute power over your own life.
He saw that the car was drifting to the left. He felt his hands jerk, but kept them on his thighs.
You have the power to end your life. Now.
Very slowly, he closed his eyes.
Plot Summary:
Brent begins his second life the night he kills a girl.
Desperately chasing junior-class popularity, Brent gets drunk at a party and is humiliated in front of all his classmates. Driving home in a fog he decides to commit suicide by driving into oncoming traffic. But the ensuing accident kills a girl in the other car instead.
As a form of restitution, the girl's mother asks that Brent travel to the four corners of the United States--Maine, Washington, California, and Florida--to build and set up whirligigs that display her daughter's face. So Brent sets off to travel the country with a bus pass and a bag of tools.
In alternating chapters, Fleischman tells of Brent's odyssey of guilt and self-discovery, and of the surprising effects his creations have on others, often years later.
Related Books:
Books With Similar Themes
The Island by Gary Paulsen
Making Up Megaboy by Virginia Walter
Swallowing Stones by Joyce McDonald
The Killer's Cousin by Nancy Werlin
I Know What You Did Last Summer by Lois Duncan
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
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Sexual ContentBrent pursues a girl and is humiliated. |
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ViolenceBrent deliberately causes a car crash, in an attempted suicide. |
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LanguageOnce, mild. |
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Social BehaviorPursuing popularity. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoUnderage drinking and driving. |
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