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The Tiger Rising

Amazon.com Price:  $4.69 (as of 25/04/2019 08:46 PST- Details)

Description

A National Book Award finalist by Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo.

Walking through the misty Florida woods one morning, twelve-year-old Rob Horton is stunned to encounter a tiger—a real-life, very large tiger—pacing backward and forward in a cage. What’s more, on the same ordinary day, he meets Sistine Bailey, a girl who shows her feelings as readily as Rob hides his. As they learn how to consider every other, and in the long run, to be friends, Rob and Sistine prove that some things—like memories, and heartache, and tigers—can’t be locked up perpetually. Featuring a new cover illustration by Stephen Walton.
Kate DiCamillo’s first novel Because of Winn-Dixie won a Newbery Honor in 2000 for the no-nonsense charm and wisdom of its down-home young heroine, Opal. Also set in Florida, The Tiger Rising is more of a short story in scope, the tale of 12-year-old Rob Horton who finds a caged tiger in the woods in the back of the Kentucky Star Motel where he lives with his dad. The tiger is so incongruous in this setting, Rob views the apparition as some sort of magic trick. Indeed, the tiger triggers all sorts of magic in Rob’s life–for one thing, it takes his mind off his recently deceased mother and the itchy red blisters on his legs that the wise motel housekeeper, Willie May, says is a manifestation of the sadness that Rob keeps “down low.”

Something else for Rob to take into consideration is Sistine (as in the chapel), a new city girl with fierce black eyes who challenges him to be honest with her and himself. Spurred by the tiger, events collide to break Rob out of his silent introspection, to form a new friendship with Sistine, a new understanding with his father, and most important, to lighten his heart. This novel is about cages–the consequences of escape in addition to imprisonment. The story and symbolism are clear as a bell, and the emotions ring true. (Ages 9 and older) –Karin Snelson


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