Last week I read:
The Tiger Rising
by Kate DiCamillo
copyright 2001
Scholastic, Inc.
Walking through the misty Florida woods one morning, twelve-year-old Rob Horton is stunned to find a tiger - a real-life, very large tiger - pacing back and forth in a cage.
What's more, on the same extraordinary day, he meets Sistine Bailey, a girl who shows her feeling as readily as Rob hides his. As they learn to trust each other and, ultimately, to be friends, Rob and Sistene prove that some things - like memories, and heartache, and tigers - can't be locked up forever.
Rob had a way of not-thinking about things. He imagined himself as a suitcase that was too full, like the one that he had packed when they left Jacksonville after his mom's funeral. He kept his feelings inside his suitcase. His father told him there wasn't no point in crying - crying wouldn't bring his mother back. But his father never even mentioned his mom's name and Rob didn't like that.
Rob and Sistine let the tiger out of his cage, because they didn't think animals should be caged. His father shoots the tiger and Rob couldn't hold his anger in any longer. He beat his father, he kicked his father and he opened his suitcase and angry words sprang out of his mouth.
After that, Rob and his father were able to talk and not be angry any more.
Favorite quote from book: "I ain't going to cry," Rob said, shutting his eyes, but the tears leaked out of him, anyway.
I enjoyed the book, but I must say that I enjoyed her other book, Because of Winn Dixie much better.
Because of Winn Dixie is a short book, but this one is even shorter. It comes in at only 19,369 words.
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Posted by Janet Smart on Creative Writing in the Blackberry Patch.
