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A review by jennifermreads
The Warden's Daughter by Jerry Spinelli
3.0
Actual rating 3.5 stars
Cammie’s mother’s dying act was to push her daughter to safety before being struck by a car. Now, as she enters her teenage years, Cammie struggles to find a mother-figure to fill this desperate empty space in her life. Will the void be filled with the housekeeper-trustee Eloda who spends her days taking care of Cammie and the warden’s home and her nights in the cells below? Or will the buoyant prisoner Boo-Boo complete Cammie’s life and provide the mothering Cammie so longs for?
The story is told in a flashback format. The prologue gives us a present-day introduction to Cammie but it quickly flashes back to 1959, the summer that Cammie was twelve-going-on-thirteen. Cammie is in a tough spot: no mother, a busy father, impending teenage years (and thus emotions), a best friend that has developed (physically and emotionally) much faster than Cammie, and friends that Cammie suspects like her only because of her notoriety as the girl-who-lives-at-the-prison. She is a complicated character going through a variety of issues that many teen girls face. She is moody, she is struggling. She is identifiable, she is real.
I’m not sure what about this book made me move it from my email in-box to my very large TBR pile. But I’m glad I moved it to the top of the pile when it came into my library. Shockingly, this is the first Jerry Spinelli book I’ve read. I found Cammie a terrific character and I was intrigued with all that she went through in the course of the book. I appreciated the format as it was nice to get not only Cammie’s perspective of things as they happened, but also the insight into Eloda’s thinking with the satisfying epilogue showing Cammie today.
I found all the characters real. Some stereotypical? Well, yes. But that didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the story. This is a surefire reading suggestion for middle grade readers.
Cammie’s mother’s dying act was to push her daughter to safety before being struck by a car. Now, as she enters her teenage years, Cammie struggles to find a mother-figure to fill this desperate empty space in her life. Will the void be filled with the housekeeper-trustee Eloda who spends her days taking care of Cammie and the warden’s home and her nights in the cells below? Or will the buoyant prisoner Boo-Boo complete Cammie’s life and provide the mothering Cammie so longs for?
The story is told in a flashback format. The prologue gives us a present-day introduction to Cammie but it quickly flashes back to 1959, the summer that Cammie was twelve-going-on-thirteen. Cammie is in a tough spot: no mother, a busy father, impending teenage years (and thus emotions), a best friend that has developed (physically and emotionally) much faster than Cammie, and friends that Cammie suspects like her only because of her notoriety as the girl-who-lives-at-the-prison. She is a complicated character going through a variety of issues that many teen girls face. She is moody, she is struggling. She is identifiable, she is real.
I’m not sure what about this book made me move it from my email in-box to my very large TBR pile. But I’m glad I moved it to the top of the pile when it came into my library. Shockingly, this is the first Jerry Spinelli book I’ve read. I found Cammie a terrific character and I was intrigued with all that she went through in the course of the book. I appreciated the format as it was nice to get not only Cammie’s perspective of things as they happened, but also the insight into Eloda’s thinking with the satisfying epilogue showing Cammie today.
I found all the characters real. Some stereotypical? Well, yes. But that didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the story. This is a surefire reading suggestion for middle grade readers.