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Jack Henry #5
Jack Adrift: Fourth Grade Without a Clue
From the Newbery Medal–winning author of Dead End in Norvelt , eight side-splitting stories about a boy who is doing his best to keep his head above water
As the Henry family sets sail for a new life on Cape Hatteras, fourth-grader Jack is struggling to chart a course between his parents' contradictory advice on making friends and influencing people. Just tell people what they want to hear, Dad advises. Just tell the truth, Mom cautions. Jack finds there are no easy answers as he drifts through his crazy school year, falling desperately in love with his young teacher, getting suckered into becoming a bad-behavior spy for the principal, and being forced to make a presentable pet out of a duck with backward feet. Indeed, with an airheaded, air-guitar-playing neighbor the closest thing to a friend, and a judgmental older sister his relentless enemy, it's all he can do to stay afloat.
This colorful and comic new collection of interrelated stories featuring the author's hapless alter ego is the first of five books in the Jack Henry series, praised by Booklist for their "hilarious, exquisitely painful, and utterly on-target depiction" of a boy's life.
This title has Common Core connections.
As the Henry family sets sail for a new life on Cape Hatteras, fourth-grader Jack is struggling to chart a course between his parents' contradictory advice on making friends and influencing people. Just tell people what they want to hear, Dad advises. Just tell the truth, Mom cautions. Jack finds there are no easy answers as he drifts through his crazy school year, falling desperately in love with his young teacher, getting suckered into becoming a bad-behavior spy for the principal, and being forced to make a presentable pet out of a duck with backward feet. Indeed, with an airheaded, air-guitar-playing neighbor the closest thing to a friend, and a judgmental older sister his relentless enemy, it's all he can do to stay afloat.
This colorful and comic new collection of interrelated stories featuring the author's hapless alter ego is the first of five books in the Jack Henry series, praised by Booklist for their "hilarious, exquisitely painful, and utterly on-target depiction" of a boy's life.
This title has Common Core connections.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
8 people are currently reading
76 people want to read
About the author
Jack Gantos
85 books551 followersJack Gantos is an American author of children's books renowned for his portrayal of fictional Joey Pigza, a boy with ADHD, and many other well known characters such as Rotten Ralph, Jack Henry, Jack Gantos (memoirs) and others. Gantos has won a number of awards, including the Newbery, the Newbery Honor, the Scott O'Dell Award, the Printz Honor, and the Sibert Honor from the American Library Association, and he has been a finalist for the National Book Award.
Gantos was born in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania to son of construction superintendent John Gantos and banker Elizabeth (Weaver) Gantos. The seeds for Jack Gantos' writing career were planted in sixth grade, when he read his sister's diary and decided he could write better than she could. Born in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania, and raised in Barbados and South Florida, Mr. Gantos began collecting anecdotes in grade school and later gathered them into stories.
After his senior year in high school (where he lived in a welfare motel) he moved to a Caribbean island (St Croix) and began to train as a builder. He soon realized that construction was not his forté and started saving for college. While in St. Croix he met a drug smuggler and was offered a chance to make 10 000 dollars by sailing to New York with 2,000 pounds of hash. With an English eccentric captain on board they set off to the big city. Once there they hung out at the Chelsea hotel and Gantos carried on dreaming about college. Then, in Jacks own words, "The **** hit the fan" and the F.B.I. burst in on him. He managed to escape and hid out in the very same welfare motel he was living during high school. However, he saw sense and turned himself in. He was sentenced to six years in prison, which he describes in his novel -HOLE IN MY LIFE-. However, after a year and a half in prison he applied to college, was accepted. He was released from prison, entered college, and soon began his writing career.
He received his BFA and his MA both from Emerson College. While in college, Jack began working on picture books with an illustrator friend. In 1976, they published their first book, Rotten Ralph. Mr. Gantos continued writing children's books and began teaching courses in children's book writing. He developed the master's degree program in children's book writing at Emerson College in Boston. In 1995 he resigned his tenured position in order to further his writing career (which turned out to be a great decision).
He married art dealer Anne A. Lower on November 11, 1989. The couple has one child, Mabel, and they live in Boston, Massachusetts.
www.jackgantos.com
Gantos was born in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania to son of construction superintendent John Gantos and banker Elizabeth (Weaver) Gantos. The seeds for Jack Gantos' writing career were planted in sixth grade, when he read his sister's diary and decided he could write better than she could. Born in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania, and raised in Barbados and South Florida, Mr. Gantos began collecting anecdotes in grade school and later gathered them into stories.
After his senior year in high school (where he lived in a welfare motel) he moved to a Caribbean island (St Croix) and began to train as a builder. He soon realized that construction was not his forté and started saving for college. While in St. Croix he met a drug smuggler and was offered a chance to make 10 000 dollars by sailing to New York with 2,000 pounds of hash. With an English eccentric captain on board they set off to the big city. Once there they hung out at the Chelsea hotel and Gantos carried on dreaming about college. Then, in Jacks own words, "The **** hit the fan" and the F.B.I. burst in on him. He managed to escape and hid out in the very same welfare motel he was living during high school. However, he saw sense and turned himself in. He was sentenced to six years in prison, which he describes in his novel -HOLE IN MY LIFE-. However, after a year and a half in prison he applied to college, was accepted. He was released from prison, entered college, and soon began his writing career.
He received his BFA and his MA both from Emerson College. While in college, Jack began working on picture books with an illustrator friend. In 1976, they published their first book, Rotten Ralph. Mr. Gantos continued writing children's books and began teaching courses in children's book writing. He developed the master's degree program in children's book writing at Emerson College in Boston. In 1995 he resigned his tenured position in order to further his writing career (which turned out to be a great decision).
He married art dealer Anne A. Lower on November 11, 1989. The couple has one child, Mabel, and they live in Boston, Massachusetts.
www.jackgantos.com
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 10, 2021
Jack Adrift is chronologically the first Jack Henry novel, though it is the last of five that Jack Gantos has written. Adrift finds Henry in fourth grade after his father joins the Navy and moves the family to Cape Hatteras. There Henry makes new friends, falls in love, endures tragedy, and learns much about who he is and what he wants to be.
Adrift is haunted by questions that plague not only fourth-graders but adults as well. Is honesty the best policy (always, says Henry’s mom)? Or should you tell people what they want to hear (definitely, says Henry’s dad)?
Should one ponder their problems independently (Henry’s dad)? Or talk them through with others (Henry’s mom)?
What is the value of pride? Is it better to be rich or a fool? Can a duck born with its legs facing backward be saved?
Tough questions.
Like other excellent novelists who choose to explore moral quandaries in novels ostensibly for children -- Beverly Cleary, Walter Dean Myers, Judy Blume, Jason Reynold, Kate DiCamillo -- Gantos isn’t necessarily interested in the answers. What fascinates him is how Henry struggles with the questions and grows as a boy.
Like Blume’s Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Gantos’s novel is episodic. Through eight long (but never dull) chapters, Gantos finds the absurd in real life and presents it in ways that make you smile, chuckle and even bellow.
Such as how Henry’s new principal enlists him as her personal spy and demands he report any rule-breaking committed on campus. When she informs the student body that her spy is watching, Henry overhears his fellow classmates’ displeasure.
“I wonder who the snitch is?” I heard one kid ask another.
“I don’t know,” he replied roughly and pounded his fist into his open hand. “But my dad always says, ‘The only good snitch is a dead snitch.’”
Henry imagines his classmates chasing him into the graveyard that sits adjacent to the school, shoving him into an open grave and burying him alive.
Or take Henry’s comical infatuation with his teacher, Miss Noelle.
I stared up at her dreamily all day long and did everything she asked. And when she needed a volunteer I alertly raised my hand before I even knew what she required. If she had said, “I need a body to dissect,” I would have thrown myself across her desk with a scalpel between my teeth. I dreamed she would carve her initials into my shoulder.
Gantos has said the Jack Henry novels are based in part on diaries he kept in his youth. How much of Adrift is autobiographical seems irrelevant to me. As John Irving once said, a good novelist can always imagine a truer detail than what actually happened.
What is clear reading Adrift is that Gantos’s imagination is a powerful beam, one he has used honestly and insightfully to illuminate questions that face us not only during childhood but throughout our lives. And he’s done so with great humor and with very fine, sharp writing.
You can’t ask for more than that.
Adrift is haunted by questions that plague not only fourth-graders but adults as well. Is honesty the best policy (always, says Henry’s mom)? Or should you tell people what they want to hear (definitely, says Henry’s dad)?
Should one ponder their problems independently (Henry’s dad)? Or talk them through with others (Henry’s mom)?
What is the value of pride? Is it better to be rich or a fool? Can a duck born with its legs facing backward be saved?
Tough questions.
Like other excellent novelists who choose to explore moral quandaries in novels ostensibly for children -- Beverly Cleary, Walter Dean Myers, Judy Blume, Jason Reynold, Kate DiCamillo -- Gantos isn’t necessarily interested in the answers. What fascinates him is how Henry struggles with the questions and grows as a boy.
Like Blume’s Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Gantos’s novel is episodic. Through eight long (but never dull) chapters, Gantos finds the absurd in real life and presents it in ways that make you smile, chuckle and even bellow.
Such as how Henry’s new principal enlists him as her personal spy and demands he report any rule-breaking committed on campus. When she informs the student body that her spy is watching, Henry overhears his fellow classmates’ displeasure.
“I wonder who the snitch is?” I heard one kid ask another.
“I don’t know,” he replied roughly and pounded his fist into his open hand. “But my dad always says, ‘The only good snitch is a dead snitch.’”
Henry imagines his classmates chasing him into the graveyard that sits adjacent to the school, shoving him into an open grave and burying him alive.
Or take Henry’s comical infatuation with his teacher, Miss Noelle.
I stared up at her dreamily all day long and did everything she asked. And when she needed a volunteer I alertly raised my hand before I even knew what she required. If she had said, “I need a body to dissect,” I would have thrown myself across her desk with a scalpel between my teeth. I dreamed she would carve her initials into my shoulder.
Gantos has said the Jack Henry novels are based in part on diaries he kept in his youth. How much of Adrift is autobiographical seems irrelevant to me. As John Irving once said, a good novelist can always imagine a truer detail than what actually happened.
What is clear reading Adrift is that Gantos’s imagination is a powerful beam, one he has used honestly and insightfully to illuminate questions that face us not only during childhood but throughout our lives. And he’s done so with great humor and with very fine, sharp writing.
You can’t ask for more than that.
May 19, 2019
A quick read about a boy in 4th grade. I really enjoy Jack Gantos’ books.
December 27, 2015
Jack Adrift is the first in the Jack Gantos' five-part Jack Henry Adventures. Based on a journal the author started in elementary school, the books are at times funny, at times relatable, and at times heartbreakingly sad. While the account of Jack's fourth grade year ends on something of a high note, one cannot forget the reality of his day-to-day existence laid bare just a few pages earlier:
While obviously written for kids, I think in many ways this tale would be useful for adults to read so as to remember the often entirely-contradictory messages their fourth-grade selves received from their parents, how kids try to take on their parents' problems, and how children often have this ineffable ability to make an otherwise crappy situation an adventure.
My room was the one place I wanted to be. It was easy to sit by myself and feel all alone in the world. Like Dad sleeping out in the car, it was easier to just not talk about things that bothered me. It was easier to try to forget my past than to sort it out. It made me sad to think that, like Dad, I was already wanting a part of myself to disappear. I reached across my bed to my nightstand where I had saved one model, PT-109. I pulled it close to me, as if I were keeping it in a safe harbor. I didn't want to let it go. It was a little bit of hope that my year had been worth remembering.
While obviously written for kids, I think in many ways this tale would be useful for adults to read so as to remember the often entirely-contradictory messages their fourth-grade selves received from their parents, how kids try to take on their parents' problems, and how children often have this ineffable ability to make an otherwise crappy situation an adventure.
November 2, 2012
Jack Gantos must have been quite a character growing up if this book is an indicator! Laugh-out-loud funny events from his childhood brought me back to wilder times of growing up. Kids today don't seem to go through the same kinds of adventures that young Jack did. I wonder how young readers will respond to this account of a typical boyhood decades ago. I envisioned many people in my past as I read about Jack's fourth grade journey into manhood.
This book is a great companion to Jon Scieszka's Knucklehead! I can imagine a neighborhood full of Scieszka boys and Jack Gantos! It would be wild, crazy fun...assuming it would still be standing!
This book is a great companion to Jon Scieszka's Knucklehead! I can imagine a neighborhood full of Scieszka boys and Jack Gantos! It would be wild, crazy fun...assuming it would still be standing!
June 10, 2013
Gantos is a great storyteller and this book doesn't disappoint. Ever since seeing Gantos in person I can't help but hear his voice and imagine his gesturing when I read his books which add to the entertainment. I really appreciate the voice, idiosyncrasies and humor he gives his characters. The storyline surrounding the Jack Henry's love crush on his teacher is pretty funny. Towards the end the book picks up steam and Henry's pet duck saga made me laugh out loud. This would be a great read for boys and kids like Henry who are a little bit misfit trying to find their own way.
July 1, 2011
For our trip out west : )
We liked this book much better than the other Gantos book we read (from the Joey Pigza series). This one was not nearly so gritty. The parents do argue, but the issues that come up can lead to good discussions. The main idea is whether it is best to say what people want to hear or tell the truth and our young hero Jack, comes to the right conclusions even though his dad doesn't always.
We liked this book much better than the other Gantos book we read (from the Joey Pigza series). This one was not nearly so gritty. The parents do argue, but the issues that come up can lead to good discussions. The main idea is whether it is best to say what people want to hear or tell the truth and our young hero Jack, comes to the right conclusions even though his dad doesn't always.
May 13, 2012
My Jack Gantos' love-fest continues. In this installment of the Jack Henry series, Jack's dad has enlisted in the Navy SeaBees and they head off to live on Cape Hatteras, NC. A crush on his young teacher, Miss Noelle provides a common thread through the related short stories. Funny stuff: from his love/hate relationship with sister Betsy to rehabilitating a duck whose feet are on backward. He has quite a fourth grade year!
April 26, 2013
I think that this is a book that boys in particular would enjoy reading. The book shares the adventures and misadventures of Jack in fourth grade. There are several good laughs in the book, and maybe even a few stomach turning "gross-outs." This book is a prequel to the four other books in the Jack Henry series. Since this is a fairly thick chapter book, I would suggest this series for mid-third grade to fourth grade classrooms.
September 1, 2014
Sensitive and humorous, Jack tries to sort through life from two different perspectives, one of a father who is well intentioned, but not the best source of reality, and his mother who is more pragmatic and truthful.
As usual, Jack finds himself in situations that quickly spiral out of control In fourth grade he falls in love with his teacher, is bullied by the principal and finds friends as quirky as he is.
As usual, Jack finds himself in situations that quickly spiral out of control In fourth grade he falls in love with his teacher, is bullied by the principal and finds friends as quirky as he is.
February 10, 2016
Jack Adrift tells the story of young Jacka nd his family as they head to a new beginning in North Carolina. Jack's dad has taken a job with the Navy and his family has to move. Jack finds himself in love with his new teacher. This funny book is a great read for 4th, 5th and 6th graders. It would make a great read for any student who has had to change schools and begin all over again in a new state.
August 19, 2014
Jack has just moved to a navy base for a temporary amount of time, and is having trouble fitting in at school, once he felt a little comfortable his friend died and then nothing goes right after that.
Overall I did not like this book but at least it was short.
I would not recommend this book to anyone.
Overall I did not like this book but at least it was short.
I would not recommend this book to anyone.
June 5, 2015
I thought the book was very good and very well written because it is about the average life of a child and it has references to it.I would recommend this book to adults because the references in this book are old and it sometime has complicated words in it.
May 22, 2011
Amazing
Read
June 21, 2012the book was funny and good
February 14, 2011
I think that this was a really good book.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews