The Goat
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
When Kid accompanies her parents to New York City, she discovers a goat living on the roof of her Manhattan apartment building— but she soon realizes a goat on the roof may be the least strange thing about her new home, whose residents are both fascinating and unforgettable.
When Kid accompanies her parents to New York City for a six-month stint of dog-sitting and home-schooling, she sees what looks like a tiny white cloud on the top of their apartment building.
Rumor says there’s a goat living on the roof, but how can that be?
As Kid soon discovers, a goat on the roof may be the least strange thing about her new home, whose residents are both fascinating unforgettable.
In the penthouse lives Joff Vanderlinden, the famous skateboarding fantasy writer, who happens to be blind. On the ninth floor are Doris and Jonathan, a retired couple trying to adapt to a new lifestyle after Jonathan’s stroke. Kenneth P. Gill, on the tenth, loves opera and tends to burble on nervously about his two hamsters — or are they guinea pigs? Then there’s Kid’s own high-maintenance mother, Lisa, who is rehearsing for an Off Broadway play and is sure it will be the world’s biggest flop.
Then Kid meets Will, whose parents died in the Twin Towers. And when she learns that the goat will bring good luck to whoever sees it, suddenly it becomes very important to know whether the goat on the roof is real.
Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.6
Compare and contrast the point of view from which different stories are narrated, including the difference between first- and third-person narrations.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.6
Describe how a narrator's or speaker's point of view influences how events are described.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.9
Compare and contrast stories in the same genre (e.g., mysteries and adventure stories) on their approaches to similar themes and topics.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When Toronto native Kid arrives in New York City with her parents to spend several months looking after a cousin's dog, she expects to see new and unusual things, but the rumor of a goat living atop their building seems farfetched, even for Manhattan. But a goat is indeed there, and adult author Fleming (Gay Dwarves of America) uses humorous third-person narration to chronicle the animal's circumstances and the story of how it arrived on the building, switching attention among multiple characters, both human and animal. Several of them have obstacles to overcome including the goat's hunger, Kid's social phobia, her friend Will's fear of windows, and an older neighbor's frustration at the physical aftereffects of a stroke which are dealt with as they search for the goat. Kid's adjustment to New York City, her time in museums, and the warm and unusual neighbors make for a lively yet tender story. Will's parents died during 9/11, a revelation handled with sensitivity, and the novel's underlying theme of people coming together on a shared quest makes for a heartwarming and very New York tale. Ages 9 11.
