What do you think?
Rate this book
Caroline Tate #2
Switcharound
Forced to spend a summer with their father and his "new" family, Caroline, age eleven, and J.P., age thirteen, are given unpleasant responsibilities for which they are determined to get revenge.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
8 people are currently reading
187 people want to read
About the author
Lois Lowry
143 books22.8k followersTaken from Lowry's website:
"I’ve always felt that I was fortunate to have been born the middle child of three. My older sister, Helen, was very much like our mother: gentle, family-oriented, eager to please. Little brother Jon was the only boy and had interests that he shared with Dad; together they were always working on electric trains and erector sets; and later, when Jon was older, they always seemed to have their heads under the raised hood of a car. That left me in-between, and exactly where I wanted most to be: on my own. I was a solitary child who lived in the world of books and my own vivid imagination.
Because my father was a career military officer - an Army dentist - I lived all over the world. I was born in Hawaii, moved from there to New York, spent the years of World War II in my mother’s hometown: Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and from there went to Tokyo when I was eleven. High school was back in New York City, but by the time I went to college (Brown University in Rhode Island), my family was living in Washington, D.C.
I married young. I had just turned nineteen - just finished my sophomore year in college - when I married a Naval officer and continued the odyssey that military life requires. California. Connecticut (a daughter born there). Florida (a son). South Carolina. Finally Cambridge, Massachusetts, when my husband left the service and entered Harvard Law School (another daughter; another son) and then to Maine - by now with four children under the age of five in tow. My children grew up in Maine. So did I. I returned to college at the University of Southern Maine, got my degree, went to graduate school, and finally began to write professionally, the thing I had dreamed of doing since those childhood years when I had endlessly scribbled stories and poems in notebooks.
After my marriage ended in 1977, when I was forty, I settled into the life I have lived ever since. Today I am back in Cambridge, Massachusetts, living and writing in a house dominated by a very shaggy Tibetan Terrier named Bandit. For a change of scenery Martin and I spend time in Maine, where we have an old (it was built in 1768!) farmhouse on top of a hill. In Maine I garden, feed birds, entertain friends, and read...
My books have varied in content and style. Yet it seems that all of them deal, essentially, with the same general theme: the importance of human connections. A Summer to Die, my first book, was a highly fictionalized retelling of the early death of my sister, and of the effect of such a loss on a family. Number the Stars, set in a different culture and era, tells the same story: that of the role that we humans play in the lives of our fellow beings.
The Giver - and Gathering Blue, and the newest in the trilogy: Messenger - take place against the background of very different cultures and times. Though all three are broader in scope than my earlier books, they nonetheless speak to the same concern: the vital need of people to be aware of their interdependence, not only with each other, but with the world and its environment.
My older son was a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force. His death in the cockpit of a warplane tore away a piece of my world. But it left me, too, with a wish to honor him by joining the many others trying to find a way to end conflict on this very fragile earth.
I am a grandmother now. For my own grandchildren - and for all those of their generation - I try, through writing, to convey my passionate awareness that we live intertwined on this planet and that our future depends upon our caring more, and doing more, for one another."
"I’ve always felt that I was fortunate to have been born the middle child of three. My older sister, Helen, was very much like our mother: gentle, family-oriented, eager to please. Little brother Jon was the only boy and had interests that he shared with Dad; together they were always working on electric trains and erector sets; and later, when Jon was older, they always seemed to have their heads under the raised hood of a car. That left me in-between, and exactly where I wanted most to be: on my own. I was a solitary child who lived in the world of books and my own vivid imagination.
Because my father was a career military officer - an Army dentist - I lived all over the world. I was born in Hawaii, moved from there to New York, spent the years of World War II in my mother’s hometown: Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and from there went to Tokyo when I was eleven. High school was back in New York City, but by the time I went to college (Brown University in Rhode Island), my family was living in Washington, D.C.
I married young. I had just turned nineteen - just finished my sophomore year in college - when I married a Naval officer and continued the odyssey that military life requires. California. Connecticut (a daughter born there). Florida (a son). South Carolina. Finally Cambridge, Massachusetts, when my husband left the service and entered Harvard Law School (another daughter; another son) and then to Maine - by now with four children under the age of five in tow. My children grew up in Maine. So did I. I returned to college at the University of Southern Maine, got my degree, went to graduate school, and finally began to write professionally, the thing I had dreamed of doing since those childhood years when I had endlessly scribbled stories and poems in notebooks.
After my marriage ended in 1977, when I was forty, I settled into the life I have lived ever since. Today I am back in Cambridge, Massachusetts, living and writing in a house dominated by a very shaggy Tibetan Terrier named Bandit. For a change of scenery Martin and I spend time in Maine, where we have an old (it was built in 1768!) farmhouse on top of a hill. In Maine I garden, feed birds, entertain friends, and read...
My books have varied in content and style. Yet it seems that all of them deal, essentially, with the same general theme: the importance of human connections. A Summer to Die, my first book, was a highly fictionalized retelling of the early death of my sister, and of the effect of such a loss on a family. Number the Stars, set in a different culture and era, tells the same story: that of the role that we humans play in the lives of our fellow beings.
The Giver - and Gathering Blue, and the newest in the trilogy: Messenger - take place against the background of very different cultures and times. Though all three are broader in scope than my earlier books, they nonetheless speak to the same concern: the vital need of people to be aware of their interdependence, not only with each other, but with the world and its environment.
My older son was a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force. His death in the cockpit of a warplane tore away a piece of my world. But it left me, too, with a wish to honor him by joining the many others trying to find a way to end conflict on this very fragile earth.
I am a grandmother now. For my own grandchildren - and for all those of their generation - I try, through writing, to convey my passionate awareness that we live intertwined on this planet and that our future depends upon our caring more, and doing more, for one another."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
June 6, 2018
Switcharound is a good, in the beging is kind of boring but the story pick up when Calorine and his brother JP went to life with their dad during the summer. Calorine and Jp lifes changed alot, calorine became more responsable becuase she had to roll the mother paper. She had to babysitt their twin brothers. Jp learned new things, he had to train his little brother, even that he didn´t know how to play. Even that they both didn´t like their father that much, they help him to solve some problems. At the end, they all help eachother and the brothers love living with their father and want to come back to visit him every summer.
July 9, 2024
I've read this so many times I can't remember how many times...
First of all, I love babies, and don't care a thing for baseball...
I the babies a decently cute, and having to coach a team of six-year-olds... I would D.I.E...
Yep, here are my character ratings...: (out of 5)
J.P.: 4.2
Caroline: 4.2 1/2
Ivy+Holly: both are 3
Herbert: 2
Lillian: 2 1/2
and..........
Poochie (David): 3.1 (Only because he's left-handed and wears glasses now... {I wear glasses and am left-handed too soooo}...)
I think that's it; I think it's a really great book and have yet to read the others (lol)!!
First of all, I love babies, and don't care a thing for baseball...
I the babies a decently cute, and having to coach a team of six-year-olds... I would D.I.E...
Yep, here are my character ratings...: (out of 5)
J.P.: 4.2
Caroline: 4.2 1/2
Ivy+Holly: both are 3
Herbert: 2
Lillian: 2 1/2
and..........
Poochie (David): 3.1 (Only because he's left-handed and wears glasses now... {I wear glasses and am left-handed too soooo}...)
I think that's it; I think it's a really great book and have yet to read the others (lol)!!
June 2, 2018
A quick read with some fun twists (and thank goodness for those, because I was convinced halfway through that this book was headed down the same road as Matilda in terms of children seeking revenge on parents - glad to be wrong!). However, the ending with the baseball game was too much for me. I'm willing to suspend a lot of disbelief, but this pushed well past my tolerance level in order to provide a super feel-good ending.
February 27, 2017
This review of The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline, Switcharound and Your Move, J.P.!, also appears on my blog, .
Ever since I finished the Anastasia Krupnik and Sam Krupnik series in 2014, I have been meaning to read more of Lois Lowry's older realistic fiction titles. When I discovered OpenLibrary.org during January's Bout of Books read-a-thon, I searched for some of her books just to see what was available, and found that all three books in her series about the Tate family were there. I wound up reading all three over the course of just a couple of days.
The first book, The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline, introduces the Tate siblings: eleven-year-old Caroline, and her older brother, J.P. After snooping in the trash can near the mailboxes, Caroline becomes convinced that a neighbor on the top floor of her apartment building is a murderer. When she learns that this same man has begun dating her single mother, Caroline and her best friend Stacey begin to make plans to unmask his true identity before Caroline and J.P. become his next victims.
In Switcharound, the second book, Caroline and J.P. are sent to stay with their father who, after divorcing from their mother, has started a whole new family which now includes a six-year-old son named Poochie and identical twin baby girls. Their dad has no real idea of what to do with Caroline and J.P., so he and his wife put them to work. J.P. must coach Poochie's baseball team, while Caroline is responsible for babysitting the twins. As both kids struggle in their assigned tasks, it becomes clear that they are each better suited to doing the other's job, and they help each other out, all while first planning revenge on their father and then trying to undo their revenge plans when they realize how much trouble they will cause.
Finally, in Your Move, J.P.!, J.P. develops a crush on Angela, a new British girl in school, and makes up a lie to impress her. As he gets deeper and deeper into his lie - which is that he has a rare disease that will one day kill him - he also begins to realize Angela's flaws. In the meantime, J.P. prepares for a major chess tournament and spends time each day visiting with a homeless man in the park, who has challenged him to name an affliction for each letter of the alphabet.
This series is similar in some ways to the Anastasia and Sam books. Both Caroline and J.P. are exceptional children with academic interests (Caroline is a budding paleontologist who hangs around the Natural History Museum, and J.P. is a chess whiz) who still sometimes make foolish mistakes. Though the two siblings don't always see eye-to-eye they do have a warm relationship, and they seem amused by each other just as often as they are annoyed by each other. The writing is also quite good in both series. Lowry has a real knack for bringing these smart and quirky characters to life, and for giving them believable and endearing flaws.
The differences between the series lies mainly in the structure of the Krupnik and Tate families. While Anastasia and Sam have parents who are very much in love and living together, the Tates are divorced and Caroline and J.P. must deal with the complications of a step-mother, half-siblings, and a mother who goes on dates. Lowry doesn't paint this situation in an overly depressing light, but the differences in family make-up do give the Tate books a different point of view.
Overall, I enjoyed all three of these books, but Switcharound was my favorite. The events of The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline were amusing, but far-fetched, while Your Move, J.P.! was more of a typical middle grade story about a first crush than anything else. Switcharound has the most emotional depth of the three, and it tells a story that is very specific to the complexities of this one particular family. Mr. Tate doesn't always treat his kids fairly during their visit, but the injustice of their being forced to work only adds to the story's appeal. There is real uncertainty about whether things will turn out okay or not, and that makes for a very compelling read.
These books were all published between 1983 and 1990, so they are definitely a bit dated, but I wouldn't say they are totally irrelevant. The character development alone makes them worth the time of a contemporary reader, and they are available as ebooks, even though it doesn't look like any print editions are available right now. Kids who are already accustomed to reading older books will have no problem jumping right into these, and even those who typically read twenty-first century middle grade paperbacks might find these a refreshing change of pace. I certainly did.
Ever since I finished the Anastasia Krupnik and Sam Krupnik series in 2014, I have been meaning to read more of Lois Lowry's older realistic fiction titles. When I discovered OpenLibrary.org during January's Bout of Books read-a-thon, I searched for some of her books just to see what was available, and found that all three books in her series about the Tate family were there. I wound up reading all three over the course of just a couple of days.
The first book, The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline, introduces the Tate siblings: eleven-year-old Caroline, and her older brother, J.P. After snooping in the trash can near the mailboxes, Caroline becomes convinced that a neighbor on the top floor of her apartment building is a murderer. When she learns that this same man has begun dating her single mother, Caroline and her best friend Stacey begin to make plans to unmask his true identity before Caroline and J.P. become his next victims.
In Switcharound, the second book, Caroline and J.P. are sent to stay with their father who, after divorcing from their mother, has started a whole new family which now includes a six-year-old son named Poochie and identical twin baby girls. Their dad has no real idea of what to do with Caroline and J.P., so he and his wife put them to work. J.P. must coach Poochie's baseball team, while Caroline is responsible for babysitting the twins. As both kids struggle in their assigned tasks, it becomes clear that they are each better suited to doing the other's job, and they help each other out, all while first planning revenge on their father and then trying to undo their revenge plans when they realize how much trouble they will cause.
Finally, in Your Move, J.P.!, J.P. develops a crush on Angela, a new British girl in school, and makes up a lie to impress her. As he gets deeper and deeper into his lie - which is that he has a rare disease that will one day kill him - he also begins to realize Angela's flaws. In the meantime, J.P. prepares for a major chess tournament and spends time each day visiting with a homeless man in the park, who has challenged him to name an affliction for each letter of the alphabet.
This series is similar in some ways to the Anastasia and Sam books. Both Caroline and J.P. are exceptional children with academic interests (Caroline is a budding paleontologist who hangs around the Natural History Museum, and J.P. is a chess whiz) who still sometimes make foolish mistakes. Though the two siblings don't always see eye-to-eye they do have a warm relationship, and they seem amused by each other just as often as they are annoyed by each other. The writing is also quite good in both series. Lowry has a real knack for bringing these smart and quirky characters to life, and for giving them believable and endearing flaws.
The differences between the series lies mainly in the structure of the Krupnik and Tate families. While Anastasia and Sam have parents who are very much in love and living together, the Tates are divorced and Caroline and J.P. must deal with the complications of a step-mother, half-siblings, and a mother who goes on dates. Lowry doesn't paint this situation in an overly depressing light, but the differences in family make-up do give the Tate books a different point of view.
Overall, I enjoyed all three of these books, but Switcharound was my favorite. The events of The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline were amusing, but far-fetched, while Your Move, J.P.! was more of a typical middle grade story about a first crush than anything else. Switcharound has the most emotional depth of the three, and it tells a story that is very specific to the complexities of this one particular family. Mr. Tate doesn't always treat his kids fairly during their visit, but the injustice of their being forced to work only adds to the story's appeal. There is real uncertainty about whether things will turn out okay or not, and that makes for a very compelling read.
These books were all published between 1983 and 1990, so they are definitely a bit dated, but I wouldn't say they are totally irrelevant. The character development alone makes them worth the time of a contemporary reader, and they are available as ebooks, even though it doesn't look like any print editions are available right now. Kids who are already accustomed to reading older books will have no problem jumping right into these, and even those who typically read twenty-first century middle grade paperbacks might find these a refreshing change of pace. I certainly did.
March 27, 2019
Beat it New York, Des Moines is in the building!
December 30, 2019
This is a cute book, but it hasn’t aged well. It was published in 1985 but her allusions are to things from the 50s, so the youth of today won’t understand them.
January 19, 2025
I was convinced the switch would be for the son to babysit while the daughter coached baseball. It would have made total sense and been a nice way to defy old fashioned gender roles.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 28, 2024
3.2
A solid story with a reasonable number of characters.
Sibs have to spend the summer with their father ... of course, they had their own plans for the summer.
moves quickly
As a child, I would have liked it ... especially since there are babies -- twins, no less!
A solid story with a reasonable number of characters.
Sibs have to spend the summer with their father ... of course, they had their own plans for the summer.
moves quickly
As a child, I would have liked it ... especially since there are babies -- twins, no less!
October 24, 2014
I remember reading this as a kid and loving it. The two main characters , J.P. and Caroline's, parents are divorced, but their Dad has remarried and their stepmother has recently given birth to twins...Holly and Ivy (I will always remember those names...). They also have a young son who is about 6 or 7. For the summer, J.P. is given responsibility for the boy and his baseball development while Caroline's responsibility is to take care of the twins. Neither kid is particularly happy about this, preferring to spend the time with their dad. And so, each of them enact a subtle revenge, sabotaging their own efforts. This really is a story about family and learning to accept responsibility. And it's good and a fun read too!
August 26, 2024
Reread Aug 2024:
-The baseball game at the end was so much funnier than I remembered!
-Somehow, as a kid, I never realized that the events in this book took place over only a week.
-A slight restoration of the decency of the Tate kids' dad in here, but oof. As an adult, I have a lot of thoughts about his 2nd life taking so much precedence, his lack of communication with his still-young older kids and their mother, his insufficient child support payments, and last-minute adherence to the custody agreement. Not to mention a very startling-to-me hand gesture he makes after taking Caroline into his confidence. Hi, she's 11 and hasn't seen you in 3 years. You can't burden her with your adult failures! The '80s were different.
-The baseball game at the end was so much funnier than I remembered!
-Somehow, as a kid, I never realized that the events in this book took place over only a week.
-A slight restoration of the decency of the Tate kids' dad in here, but oof. As an adult, I have a lot of thoughts about his 2nd life taking so much precedence, his lack of communication with his still-young older kids and their mother, his insufficient child support payments, and last-minute adherence to the custody agreement. Not to mention a very startling-to-me hand gesture he makes after taking Caroline into his confidence. Hi, she's 11 and hasn't seen you in 3 years. You can't burden her with your adult failures! The '80s were different.
January 25, 2008
I still remember thinking how mortifying it would be to switch identical twins up! Of course in all my years of teaching experience I have learned that, just like the mother says in the end, there is always a way to tell them apart. Amazing how we as mother always know! The doctor once asked me how I even had noticed that Alexis's thumbs didn't bend. As I thought about it I decided it is simply because I know everything about my dear little ones! (On that not, Domenic's right thumb didn't bend either! Any bets on when it will happen to Skyler???)
May 29, 2008
Caroline and J.P. are forced to spend the summer with their father and his new wife and kids, basically providing free babysitting. Caroline is in charge of the identical twin toddlers, J.P. (a genius and bookworm) is supposed to coach their half-brother's peewee baseball team. Both kids decide to get revenge, J.P. by making the team lose, Caroline by switching the twins. . . .
December 4, 2014
A fun and quick sequel to The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline. Caroline and JP have to spend their summer in Des Moines with their dad and his wife and kids. Caroline does not ever plan on having children and does not want to babysit, but it turns out she's a good baseball coach.
39/60 tbr box.
39/60 tbr box.
Read
February 21, 2014This is not a typical Lowry book. Much lighter. Relevant topics with a lot of humor. My struggling readers really connected with the characters and were engaged in the story. It is always a great thing when kids ask to take the book with them so that they can keep reading.
November 10, 2014
Chapter book that includes lots of examples of things switching around, so a good book to use when teaching theme. Other topics might include . . .divorce/step families, sibling rivalry, revenge, and honesty.
December 20, 2015
This was a pretty cute book. The storyline was a little unrealistic but J.P. and Caroline's relationship was cute and the whole book was just so enjoyable that I didn't really care. It's obviously written for children but I still really liked it.
Read
September 4, 2007Lowry, Lois
January 9, 2008
The awesome thing about this book is that it's about a girl from the Upper West Side who gets stranded in Iowa. Also, it challenges gender norms. Sounds like a Grinnellian book, huh?
August 9, 2008
I really enjoyed this book in that, sometimes we get caught up in what we think a person should do instead of what that person wants to do.
January 29, 2009
This is an ok book. Its one for more like 3rd graders, so if you're looking for a 200 page book, it's not here.
March 6, 2010
Not one of lois's best work
July 21, 2010
Light, fun, summer novel.
A little horrified that they had an 11-year old babysit twin babies, but I eventually got over it.
A little horrified that they had an 11-year old babysit twin babies, but I eventually got over it.
July 29, 2012
i thought this was a good book. i read it for a book club thing and i thought it was awesome. i do recommend it. it teaches some memorable lessons and has some humor.
September 2, 2014
Fun, quick, simple. I read it for my book club on summer books, and I enjoyed it, but it would not be my first Lowry book to recommend another.
July 13, 2015
Really remembered this from my childhood. Got it for daughter, we both read it (seperately) in one night. A diabolical plot, real kid problems. Love early Lois Lowry.
Read
February 14, 2008just because ur dad lives far away doesnt mean hes that far.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews