This Journal Belongs to Ratchet
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- €5.99
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- €5.99
Publisher Description
"A book that is full of surprises...Triumphant enough to make readers cheer; touching enough to make them cry." —Kirkus, STARRED Review
If only getting a new life were as easy as getting a new notebook.
But it’s not.
It’s the first day of school for all the kids in the neighborhood. But not for me. I’m homeschooled. That means nothing new. No new book bag, no new clothes, and no new friends.
The best I’ve got is this notebook. I’m supposed to use it for my writing assignments, but my dad never checks. Here’s what I’m really going to use it for:
Ratchet’s Top Secret Plan
Turn my old, recycled, freakish, friendless life into something shiny and new.
This Florida State Book Award gold medal winner is a heartfelt story about an unconventional girl’s quest to make a friend, save a park, and find her own definition of normal.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Eleven-year-old Ratchet records her observations, complaints ("Everything in my life is old and recycled"), worries, and goals ("To be a girl who fits in hopefully one with a friend") in a series of writing exercises for her language arts "class" (she's homeschooled by her single father) in Cavanaugh's debut novel. But fitting in is difficult for a girl nicknamed after a mechanic's tool, who doesn't have a mother, doesn't attend a "real" school, and spends her days helping her "crazy environmentalist" father fix cars. Worse, her father's outspoken political views have won him the wrong kind of publicity around town, and his battle to save Moss Tree Park from becoming a strip mall looks like a lost cause. Cavanaugh uses bold, often humorous first-person narration to capture the essence of an unconventional heroine struggling to figure out who she is supposed to be. Ratchet's journal written on lined paper and filled with a medley of lists, poems, stories, essays, and doodles offers an enticing blend of strong social views, family secrets, and deeply felt emotions. Ages 9 up.
