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11th out of 55 books
—
33 voters
Emma Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree
Emma-Jean Lazarus is a lovable oddball who thinks she can use logic to solve the messy everyday problems of her seventh-grade peers. It's easy: she just follows the example of her late father, a brilliant mathematician. Of course, the more Emma-Jean gets involved, the messier her own life gets. Suddenly she's no longer the person standing on the outside of all social inter...more
Hardcover, 208 pages
Published
March 1st 2007
by Dial
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5 Reasons why Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree is a strange book ( strange adj : extraordinary, remarkable, singular)
5. Emma-Jean dressed like Albert Einstein for Halloween.
4. Colleen's pastel pink bedroom makes her feel like she's trapped in an old dog's ear.
3. Poet Mary Oliver, To Kill a Mockingbird and the Pittsburgh Steelers, all mentioned in the same book. Now how often does that happen?
2. The book never tries to label Emma-Jean. She just is who she is.
1. The ending hints to...more
5. Emma-Jean dressed like Albert Einstein for Halloween.
4. Colleen's pastel pink bedroom makes her feel like she's trapped in an old dog's ear.
3. Poet Mary Oliver, To Kill a Mockingbird and the Pittsburgh Steelers, all mentioned in the same book. Now how often does that happen?
2. The book never tries to label Emma-Jean. She just is who she is.
1. The ending hints to...more
May 09, 2008
Lisa Vegan
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
10 & all the way up, especially for anyone who's ever felt like an oddball or been fond of one
This book is utterly delightful, sweet, and very smart. Emma-Jean is an endearingly strange (strange = extraordinary, remarkable, singular) character. Colleen and the other middle school kids are also interesting, and I appreciate how the adult characters are more fleshed out than they are in some kids’ books. Emma-Jean's bird was yet another appealing character.
It's an almost perfect little book. I do have a slight quibble with how neatly certain events got wrapped up at the end, but I just lov...more
It's an almost perfect little book. I do have a slight quibble with how neatly certain events got wrapped up at the end, but I just lov...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
As a juvie fiction novel, this one is a definite gem. It contains simple language and a simple story, but with wonderful details.
The voices of the two main characters ring true. Although their later-life labels may be obsessive compulsive and worrywart, their 7th grade selves are simply endearing. Emma Jean, who is direct and logical, doesn't quite get her overly emotional classmates, but when Colleen asks for help, Emma Jean comes to the rescue.
Though the same dilemmas of a reinvented family...more
The voices of the two main characters ring true. Although their later-life labels may be obsessive compulsive and worrywart, their 7th grade selves are simply endearing. Emma Jean, who is direct and logical, doesn't quite get her overly emotional classmates, but when Colleen asks for help, Emma Jean comes to the rescue.
Though the same dilemmas of a reinvented family...more
Aug 27, 2008
Ani
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
current and former smart kids who don't quite fit in, math-lovers
Recommended to Ani by:
Brookline Booksmith
Shelves:
kids
This book really celebrates the balance between individuality and finding your place among others, between solitude and letting other people into your life. The heroine is a bright young girl who doesn't fit in with her peers, yet doesn't lament this fact or even really let it bother her. She just watches and observes. Her approach to life (rational, logical), leads her to take on different solutions to her peers' problems. Emma-Jean is unique among children's books heroines- even those smart, i...more
Sep 14, 2007
Becky
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
4th grade and up
Shelves:
age-juvenile-fiction,
simple-is-best
I think the simple books are really the best, and the hardest to do well: Rules, Missing May, The First Part Last, The Hundred Dresses, Weetzie Bat. And Emma Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree. 7th grader Emma Jean is a most unusual character who takes everything at face value, and her almost-friend Colleen is a wonderfully recognizable character who worries about everything. When Emma Jean is finally brought out of her shell by Colleen's plight with bully Laura, her desire to anonymously solve all...more
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Emma-Jean is a funny and realistic narrator. This book has been touted as a "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" for the reader set and I can certainly see the parallels. However Emma-Jean is never painted as autistic although it's quite possible that she's somewhere on the spectrum of diagnosis. Emma-Jean is an avid observer of her classmates, her mother and while she doesn't participate in the relationships around her she tries her best to make things work out the way that she f...more
Emma-Jean is not like most middle school students- she prefers study trees and other flora. She uses logic and rationale to solve problems. When she finds Claudia crying in the girls room- her life slowly begins to change. Emma-Jean believes she can solve Claudia's problem with her best friend Kaitlyn. When she proves to be successful, Emma-Jean believes she can solve other's problems, like finding a wife for her mothers border Vikram or solving Will's science grade issue. Then Claudia's solutio...more
Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree
Lauren Tarshis
Realistic Fiction
208 pages
Finished reading on 5-8-13
Emma-Jean Lazarus is a very nice, respectful and socially awkward girl. She doesn't have many friends. One day, Emma-Jean sees Colleen P. in the girls bathroom, who was crying. Emma-Jean tried to fix Colleen's problem, what she was crying about. Colleen has a problem with Laura G., the most popular girl in their grade. She is really mean to lots of people. Emma-Jean wrote a letter to Laura, whic...more
Lauren Tarshis
Realistic Fiction
208 pages
Finished reading on 5-8-13
Emma-Jean Lazarus is a very nice, respectful and socially awkward girl. She doesn't have many friends. One day, Emma-Jean sees Colleen P. in the girls bathroom, who was crying. Emma-Jean tried to fix Colleen's problem, what she was crying about. Colleen has a problem with Laura G., the most popular girl in their grade. She is really mean to lots of people. Emma-Jean wrote a letter to Laura, whic...more
Ini cerita tentang seorang anak SMP kelas 7 bernama Emma-Jean Lazarus. Karena saya bekerja di sekolah, saya sering memperhatikan tingkah laku anak-anak di sekolah tempat saya bekerja. Kebanyakan mereka (siswa perempuan maupun laki-laki) bermain dengan bergerombol. Ada pula yang bergaya seperti Queen Bee, populer dan selalu dikelilingi pengikutnya yang setia.
Namun di antara gerombolan anak-anak itu, ada pula anak yang penyendiri, tidak terlihat bercakap-cakap dengan teman-temannya, bahkan tampak...more
Namun di antara gerombolan anak-anak itu, ada pula anak yang penyendiri, tidak terlihat bercakap-cakap dengan teman-temannya, bahkan tampak...more
The kids at school think Emma-Jean is weird. Emma Jean thinks the kids at school are weird. The other kids are overly emotional and unpredictable and a lot of the time, what they do just doesn’t make sense to Emma-Jean! Sometimes, the kids are mean to each other on purpose. Sometimes, the kids don’t tell the truth about what they think or what they feel. For a practical mind like Emma-Jean, Middle Schoolers are just plain crazy.
At school Emma-Jean studies the kids from afar. She doesn’t really h...more
At school Emma-Jean studies the kids from afar. She doesn’t really h...more
Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree
Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree was a very enjoyable and heartwarming read. It took place
in the life of quirky but lovable Emma-Jean, who accidentally gets tangled up in the social lives
of the other kids in her school. Emma- Jean eventually reaches a breaking point in the book, when all the messy problems of middle school get too much for Emma-Jean, who, until then, had stayed out of everyone else's lives. During this part of the book, Emma-Jean runs f...more
Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree was a very enjoyable and heartwarming read. It took place
in the life of quirky but lovable Emma-Jean, who accidentally gets tangled up in the social lives
of the other kids in her school. Emma- Jean eventually reaches a breaking point in the book, when all the messy problems of middle school get too much for Emma-Jean, who, until then, had stayed out of everyone else's lives. During this part of the book, Emma-Jean runs f...more
The alternating POV provides a balance that would otherwise not be present if only one or the other girls were the POV characters. Having the two, as many of you have pointed out offers a moderation of extremes. While it is clear that Emma-Jean is the subject and protagonist, with most of the narrative from her POV, I still wonder why add Colleen.
I wonder where/if Emma-Jean is on the Autistic Spectrum. Her behavior and thoughts indicate that she is not just "strange" but that there might be some...more
I wonder where/if Emma-Jean is on the Autistic Spectrum. Her behavior and thoughts indicate that she is not just "strange" but that there might be some...more
This one was disappointing. I'd read glowing, GLOWING reviews of it from...uh, some kidlit blogger somewhere? And I liked it, and I was interested in it, but the characters didn't feel real to me. I think it was written too much in the headspace of the Emma-Jean and Colleen, the story's two main characters, and their thoughts were just way too defined and refined. Especially for 7th graders, oh my goodness, 7th graders are the least emotionally stable of all graders!
They were supposed to be con...more
They were supposed to be con...more
Grades 6-9
Rebecca Caudill Nominee 2010
Audiobook read by Mamie Gummer
Emma-Jean Lazarus, an unusual seventh grader grieving the loss of her brilliant father, learns about the subtleties of friendship, love, and solving problems. Tarshis accurately captures the various voices and conflicts of middle school. Readers will be able to feel the turmoil of the characters trying gain acceptance with their peers while trying to discover their identity.
Because its exploration of bullying and acceptance, th...more
Rebecca Caudill Nominee 2010
Audiobook read by Mamie Gummer
Emma-Jean Lazarus, an unusual seventh grader grieving the loss of her brilliant father, learns about the subtleties of friendship, love, and solving problems. Tarshis accurately captures the various voices and conflicts of middle school. Readers will be able to feel the turmoil of the characters trying gain acceptance with their peers while trying to discover their identity.
Because its exploration of bullying and acceptance, th...more
Not super impressed by this, but enjoyed it enough to read it in one sitting, so take that as you will. I picked this up because the title struck me as charming. As it turned out, the "Fell Out of a Tree" part, that is supposedly metaphorical of an entire change in perspective, did not (in my opinion) warrant titular recognition. The climax was meh.
Emma-Jean is a middle-school version of Temperance Brenner (from Fox's "Bones"). I liked her emphasis on the rational, and her unique way of speaking...more
Emma-Jean is a middle-school version of Temperance Brenner (from Fox's "Bones"). I liked her emphasis on the rational, and her unique way of speaking...more
May 30, 2009
Ms. Sapkarov
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
5th-7th grade gifted students, outcasts, loners
Recommended to Ms. Sapkarov by:
Marcia Brandt at the Read to me blog
I wanted to like this book more - I thought I would love Emma-Jean, with all her quirkiness and separateness from her peers. But I had a hard time buying it. Perhaps I was thinking too much about the intended audience and less about enjoying the story for what it was. Emma-Jean is a seventh grade girl who is logical in everything she does, not quite understanding the complexities of the social natures of her schoolmates. She studies trees as a hobby when other girls her age are having slumber pa...more
Emma-Jean Lazarus is a strange 7th grade girl. She doesn't understand any of her peers and finds them to have very messy lives. Typically, she stays out of their lives, and doesn't consider any of them as friends. However, one day she finds Colleen, the nicest girl in the school, crying in the bathroom. Emma-Jean, who only sees things in a logical manner, decides that she can solve Colleen's problem. So she does just that. She liked helping Colleen so much that she decides to help others, as wel...more
I spent the beginning of this popular children's book thinking it was irritatingly like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time but when I got over my irrational irritation, I really enjoyed it. Emma-Jean thinks of herself as solely rational, an anthropologist examining the denizens of her junior high school. She undertakes to solve problems for them, with unpredictable results. The character Colleen is a nice foil for Emma-Jean. The flat, descriptive style of the characters feels 70's...more
I liked this book. It wasn't the best book though. I picked this book out for school. I had a deadline to read a certain book. That's why I choose this book. Today I did a book talk on this book. I received a 18 out of 20 as my score.
Are you independent? Has there been a tragic loss in your family lately? Do you try to be nice to everyone around you? Well if so you and Emma-Jean Lazarus have a lot in common. The plot in this book is that Emma's dad died about two years ago. She and mom live...more
Emma-Jean Lazarus is a very bright 7th grader who doesn't have any friends her age, but is not the victim of any bullying or unwanted attention. She is just a perplexed observer of the messy and illogical social lives of her peers, until she finds Colleen crying in the bathroom at school and decides to use her problem-solving abilities to help her. Since the results are successful, Emma-Jean is encouraged to try to solve more problems, like finding a suitable wife for her mother's tenant, Vikram...more
Emma-Jean is a seventh grader whose logical, scientific nature keeps her from completely understanding her classmates. Nevertheless, she notices when her peers are having trouble, and she does what she thinks is best to help them out--sometimes with unfortunate consequences. Alternating chapters are told from the perspective of Colleen, a kind, sensitive girl who doesn't quite know what to make of Emma-Jean, but always wants to do the right thing.
This is a good book for middle school girls wrap...more
This is a good book for middle school girls wrap...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
A quick, fun read. The tone of the prose changes completely depending on the point of view, the characters feel solid and real, even when we only have glimpses of them, and I ended up with a craving for curry. I certainly see a lot of myself in Emma-Jean...
The characters are 7th graders and it deals with the complexities of the middle-school landscape, but it's clean and appropriate for younger ages as well.
The characters are 7th graders and it deals with the complexities of the middle-school landscape, but it's clean and appropriate for younger ages as well.
7th grader Emma Jean Lazarus is an odd duck. She's very smart, and tends to scientifically observe other students rather than joining in their conversations and activities. When she finds Colleen crying in the bathroom, Emma Jean decides to work out a logical way to help her, and she ends up forging a letter to alter the course of events. While it seems successful, Emma Jean doesn't plan for the new problems her solution has created! She also decides to try solving some other problems, including...more
I love Emma-Jean Lazarus! These books made me laugh out loud and absolutely fall in love with Emma-Jean. Even though she is socially distant from her peers, her character manages to leap off the page to tug on the reader's heartstrings. The social problems of Tarshis's novels are the small, average, every day tragedies of junior high. Who is popular, why are they popular, what boys like what girls, do I have egg salad breath?!
Emma-Jean's story is especially interesting because she shares the nar...more
Emma-Jean's story is especially interesting because she shares the nar...more
I thought this was a very sweet story about a girl coping with the loss of her father. Perhaps the book portrays the stereotype that intelligent people are not socially adept. Emma-Jean is very smart, and up until Colleen asks for her help with a problem, she had managed not to get involved with her peers. Emma-Jean chooses to become involved with Colleen, just to help her solve her problem. Before Emma Jean knows it, she has developed a circle of friends.
While the book is well written and enjo...more
While the book is well written and enjo...more
"Emma-Jean Lazarus has accepted that she is indeed strange. In fact, she believes that she is dictionary definition number 4 of strange ... ""extraordinary, remarkable, singular."" Not only is Emma-Jean strange, she is also very smart. She is the smartest girl in school. In fact she is so smart, that she just does not ""get"" the other middle school kids. The confuse and astound her and she pretty much doesn't really care too about them. But then, Emma-Jean stubbles upon a classmate, Colleen, cr...more
Emma-Jean is probably the weirdest 7th-grader ever. She wears pressed khakis every day, helps the janitor by throwing away others' trash and talks in complete, grammatically correct sentences without ever using contractions. She also is not comfortable interacting with kids her own age, although she is comfortable talking to adults (like her favorite teacher and the graduate student who has rented the top floor of her mother's house). Her ordered world is disrupted on the day she finds one of he...more
What do you call a 7th grade girl who is extremely logical and rational, and isn’t quite able to relate to her peers at school? That girl would be Emma-Jean; a bright, reserved, “completely comfortable with who she is” type of girl that observes rather than interacts with the kids in her life. That is until she becomes involved with Colleen and devises a plan to help her out of her troubles. This is an engaging book that deals with some of the common problems found in the halls of middle schools...more
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“Sometimes we must all fall out of a tree.”
—
6 people liked it
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