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May 04, 2008

Elizabeth rated it:

I review lots of books. Oodles of caboodles of books. And a lot of the time my thoughts can basically be boiled down to very simple sentences. "Me like book. Book good." or conversely "Me no like book. Book bad." It takes a very special story to knock me out of this frame of mind. When you pick up a copy of The Underneath by Kathi Appelt and you read the words, "A novel like this only comes around every few decades," on the back cover you're forgiven if you scoff a More...

11 comments like (34 people liked it)

Nov 26, 2008

Joe rated it:

There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for awhile, and then abandoned on the side of the road.

This is the breathtaking opening sentence of The Underneath - a sentence that has already been over-quoted and will probably lose its luster once it is revealed as The Great Deceptor. What follows this ingenious sentence, however, is not nearly as captivating.

Kathi Appelt's asinine debut novel is inexplicably receiving buzz as a contender for the Newbe More...

15 comments like (25 people liked it)

Mar 10, 2010

Chris rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

11 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jun 19, 2008

Roxanne Hsu added it

I cannot give this a rating since I cannot decide how I feel about it. On the one hand, I think the author has succeeded brilliantly in creating a world, a mood, a sense of place, a unique tone, a great bunch of palpable characters, a mesmerizing tale. There is this rippling effect, formed with recurrences of phrases, that makes me feel I am in the middle of that mysterious swampy land and that the land itself engulfs me. There is the unflinching treatment of cruelty and evil embodied by Gar More...

5 comments like (8 people liked it)

May 29, 2008

KT rated it:

I never thought I'd get so caught up in a novel about an alligator, a snake, a mangy hound dog, and a couple of cats.

The story has two main narrative strands. The first, set in the present day, involves Ranger, an old hound, past his prime, who has been chained to the side of a ramshackle house for a long time, never allowed to go further than the twenty feet his chain allows him. Ranger's master, Gar Face, is a despicable, mean-spirited loner, cruel and unredeemable. He's chained Ra More...

5 comments like (9 people liked it)

Apr 27, 2008

Monica rated it:

Wow. What a book. What a story. What an amazing piece of writing.

Now I admit it took me a while to read this one. While I definitely enjoyed sad animal stories as a child, now, with the occasional exception, I avoid them. And so, when I received a gorgeously packaged ARC of Kathi Appelt’s The Underneath, I admired it (as it is handsomely illustrated by David Small) , and then read the flap. “An abandoned calico cat, about to have kittens, hears the lonely howl of a chained-up dog….” More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

May 21, 2008

Lynn rated it:

Wow. The Underneath is one of the best children's books I've read in a long time.
How'd she do that?

I'll be posting an interview of Kathi Appelt asking her just that.

Here's the link:

Please take a look at my interview of Kathi Appelt, author of THE UNDERNEATH, on the
Imaginary Blog.

http://lynnhazenimaginaryblog.blogspot.c...

Lynn

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 26, 2008

Caroline rated it:

I'm not really sure how to explain my feelings about this book. While I recognize that the writing is compelling and builds a great deal of suspense, I was just annoyed throughout the book. I'm also not convinced that this will be an attractive book to kids, who are the targeted audience, as far as marketing efforts go. And of course, the book has been nominated for the National Book Award and has all sorts of rumblings for the Newbery. I can only say I hope it doesn't win the Newbery. It would More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 03, 2008

Edie rated it:

It is hard to know where to begin in describing this book as it has some many different pieces, a survival story, a love story, a myth, told from many different perspectives. It is getting rave reviews and the writing is lyrical, the story line original and complex but also appealing. Who can resist a sweet old dog who has been badly treated or two kittens just learning how very cruel the world can be. Then there's the 1,000 year old snake with her memories of love and loss, her desire for r More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 26, 2011

Bonnie rated it:

I gave this award winning book to my daughter a few years ago when she still found reading more of a chore than a joy. I thought, here's a warm fuzzy story about a dog and a cat who become friends; it's an award winner; it must be good; she'll love it. Well, she didn't make it through the first 20 pages before discarding it. I recently picked it up looking for a quick read and couldn't have been more surpised by what I found. I hadn't read more than a few chapters before I recognized it as s More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 09, 2009

Hope rated it:

I confess that I only read the first 25 and (unusual for me) last 7 pages of this book. I read that much and just couldn't read any more. Even if the overall message of the book is one of love and redemption or whatever the professional reviews promise, I just can't tolerate what I'd have to do to get there. (I.e., read the whole thing.)

I mean, the illustrations are charming. The shamanic themes are intriguing. The writing is beautiful and powerful and therefore very effective More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Aug 01, 2009

Betsy rated it:

Fabulous Young Adult book. I will later post an excerpt about "memory being like a soft blanket..."

"Memory is a slippery thing. When something terrible happens to you, like the loss of someone you love, like the loss of a mother or a father, or perhaps a twin sister or an old hound, memory can turn into a soft blanket that hides you from the loss." Kathi Appelt

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2009

Firekeeper rated it:

"The Underneath" is a beautiful book. The story is set in a more or less modern-day world, in a forest along the Sabine River between Texas and Arkansas. Suspense and intrigue are built with the aid of a legend, an event from a thousand years past which seems to have little relevance to the actual story, at least at first.

This is not a dialogue-driven book--the lines of dialogue may not even total to ten--and the only other such book I've read is "Raptor Red", wit More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 20, 2009

Julie rated it:

A novel for children, young people and yes, an old gal like me. I found this story to be almost poetic in its telling. It certainly is full of the cliches of poetry: music of nature, the sound of great symphonies heard in the wind of trees, the kettle-drum rage of a storm and the purity of death coming to take one away from the pain of living when it is necessary... in the shape of a glowing hummingbird.
Its short chapters seem to me to be purposfully written that way to carry us along More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 03, 2009

Patti rated it:

Where to begin with this powerful story of pain, suffering, betrayal, love and redemption? The most obvious place is underneath the porch of the tilting house where Ranger lives with the calico cat and then cares for her two kittens, Sabine and Puck. But that’s not where the story begins or takes the reader; it goes way back to a time when shape shifting animals take on human forms for love and ancient people still hear the voices of the trees. This powerful telling made me stop after just a few More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 25, 2008

Carter rated it:

This is the best book. I loved it so much. I thought it was going to be cutesy b/c of the cover, but it wasn't at all. Because of its references to the past, it felt epic in the story. And Gar Face has got to be one of the most evil characters ever portrayed in literature. Everyone must go out and get a copy of this book. Read it to yourself. Read it to someone else. Go.

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 26, 2011

Cathy rated it:

This Newbery honor book has some of the most lush, descriptive, poetic, gorgeous, rich, and alive writing I have read. While it is a book for older children, it feels like one of those books my high school English teacher made me analyze to find deep symbolism and hidden meaning. I'm just glad I don't have to write a paper about it. I cannot believe I loved a book with cats and dogs and snakes and alligators as main characters, I'm not really into "animal" books. I had no idea what More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 11, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

I've been waiting for someone else I know to finish this so that I can have someone to talk to about it. It's one of "those" books. In the Texas/Louisiana swampy woods, A pregnant, abandoned cat, finds an abused dog locked up underneath a porch and befriends it. Meanwhile, the man who owns the dog is obsessed with killing a a giant alligator that lives deep within the swamp. And then there is the mysterious animal that waits in the bottom of the swamp, haunted by its own past...cre More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 01, 2009

Yune rated it:

"There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for a while, and then abandoned on the side of the road."

Be prepared for this sort of gloom throughout.

There are some powerful moments; there are times when the writing grated on my nerves, although I had the sense that perhaps an oral telling would have made the repeated phrases more palatable. Chapters are the two-page type that flip around wildly (in some cases, between either end of a thousa More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 30, 2011

Amanda rated it:

There is no place more dangerous than the house of Gar Face, and yet that is where an abandoned, pregnant cat ends up. Fortunately, there is Ranger, an injured, tied-up hound. The hound dog, the cat, and the two kittens form a family, and they do their best to avoid Gar Face. At the same time, Gar Face is searching for an enormous alligator, and Grandmother Moccasin anticipates her escape from the bowl that has held her for hundreds of years. The three storylines eventually come together in a wa More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 14, 2008

Wendy rated it:

It's good, if you're in the mood to be patient with poeticness. Contrary to what this seems like from the cover, you don't have to be an animal lover. Actually, if you are an animal lover, it might be too much for you--or if you're someone who gets very emotional about books.

Usually, when I read a book, I have a pretty secure feeling that even though terrible things might happen to the characters, it's all going to turn out all right in the end.

But when the worst happen More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jun 27, 2008

Bruce rated it:

What happens when a hound dog, Ranger, and a calico cat expecting kittens meet? What happens to the kittens, Sabine and Puck? What happens when a ten thousand-year-old snake, Grandmother Moccassin, loses her beautiful daughter, Night Song, to a man, once a hawk, who loves her? To the daughter and those she loves? What happens to a little boy who is hurt time and again by his father until his disfigured faces earns him the name Gar Face? And what roles does the Alligator King -- a hundred feet l More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 26, 2008

babyhippoface rated it:

I finished this book about 4 hours ago, and I'm still a bit bumfuzzled about how to respond to The Underneath. I need to be able to choose three-and-a-half stars.

I had read so much lofty praise that perhaps my expectations were too high. Don't get me wrong. I liked the book. I think I reacted to much of it as was expected: I loved the calico cat, Puck and Sabine, and the first line killed me (and I don't even like cats); I loathed Gar Face and Grandmother Moccasin, the Alligator Kin More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 14, 2008

Becky rated it:

Appelt, Kathi. 2008. The Underneath.

The Underneath is a novel that I would have avoided (at all costs) as a kid. I was a wimp. Big-time. Seeing the dog and two kittens on the cover? That would have made me suspicious or wary from the get go. Reading that it is for folks who love, "Sounder, Shiloh, and The Yearling" would have sealed the deal. I wouldn't have gone near this one. No way. No how.

As an adult, however, how can I help but fall in love with The Underne More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 30, 2008

Lynn rated it:

Lots of hype on this book and, since I hate books in which animals suffer, I was skeptical. OK - I admit it, this book had me from the first page. I read through it as fast as I could turn the pages. As I think about it, there are things that normally would have irritated me in a book: lots of repetition, cats killed, dogs abused and a rather hyperbolic voice. Everything worked however. The voice was poignant and the story drew me in and kept me wanting to turn the pages. I enjoyed the m More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Nov 15, 2008

Melody rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

6 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 14, 2008

Adrienne rated it:

It reminded me of Holes in the way multiple plot lines came together in ways I didn't expect, and the narrative voice reminded me a bit of Despereaux. Each chapter is a bit like a prose poem--short, focused, lyrical. It was also kind of traumatic, but I kind of connected to that, and I really like the way she showed how Gar Face became the person he is and how Grandmother became the being she is without excusing their behavior. Overall, I love the way she handled the notion that things that happ More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 07, 2011

LaDawn rated it:

Ugh! This is a kids' book? Really? It was very hard to follow (I listened to it), with about 4 different story lines. Some of it was just really weird. Some of it was just awful, as in animal and child abuse awful.
Having said that, I actually turned it off about 3 chapters into it, but my 8 year old daughter said she liked it and wanted to hear it. So, I turned it back on. Once we were farther into the book and had figured out all the different story lines, (with a lot of discussion with More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 16, 2008

Ginger rated it:

I finished this book over 24 hours ago and I'm still feeling somewhat speechless. This novel is written in a storyteller tradition, weaving together intricate plot lines like the weavings of ancient Native Americans. The tale concerns an abandoned calico cat who joins a bloodhound in the "underneath"--the area under the porch--the only safe area from the house's inhabitant, a cruel man called Gar Face. The cat gives birth to two kittens in the underneath and the animals become a fam More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 16, 2008

Susan P rated it:

Someone on the listservs RAVED about this book as having Newbery potential and being one of his favorites of the year, so I thought I'd check it out. After having read it, and not loving it, I also think b/c of the style of writing that it's certainly a potential Newbery winner. A stray cat and an abused dog become friends and live beneath the abusive owner of the dog's house - in the underneath. All sorts of terrible, dark things happen to the poor animals, and in between their story is a ki More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)