The Ransom of Red Chief

by Paul Shipton (Retold by), O. Henry

Bill and Sam arrive in the small American town of Summit with only two hundred dollars, but they need more and Sam has an idea for making a lot of money. When things start to go very wrong, both men soon regret their visit - and their idea.

48 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2008

About the author

Paul Shipton (born 1963) is an award-winning children's author.

He was born in Manchester and attended Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and Manchester University. After completing two Masters' degrees (in Classics and Philosophy), he taught English in Istanbul for a year. After returning to the UK, he taught English as a foreign language for several years, and it was around this time that he published his first book, Zargon Zoo (1991).

Four years later, he published Bug Muldoon and the Garden of Fear, and relocated with his family to Wisconsin, United States, where he works as a freelance writer and editor. He also writes books for younger readers under the pen name Paul Cooper. He and his wife and two daughters now divide their time between Cambridge, England, and Madison, Wisconsin.

Reviews

[Donald · Rating 3 out of 5]

This all started for me when I read Christopher Moore’s page-turner “Noir” . It mentions this story, by O. Henry, as it relates to a plot point in the book. I read the short story by O. Henry and liked it very much! This version is a comic book like interpretation of that short story, and it is not as good. It gets the overall general point of the story, that is, a kidnapping gone wrong, actually, a kidnapping sort of in reverse! But this version doesn't quite capture the humor of O. Henry's original, which is quite a chuckle. Still, I'm grateful to Moore for setting me along this path, and I'm glad I read it!

[Linh Tran · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good English book for an early English learner

What a story! What does it tell us?! We should be happy what we have got?

Thanks Annas for the book

[Brianna Jensen]

In this graphic novel, you can't only read the words! You will miss part of the story. As someone who is used to efficient reading and jumping from word bubble to word bubble, I did a double-take and had to slow down when I realized that right away on page 1 I missed part of the story because I skipped looking at the pictures and just went to the text. That is the interesting thing about this book and graphic novels--it takes closer attention and more careful analysis of both picture and text bubble to fully get the picture of the story.

Synopsis: Two characters, Bill and Sam, arrive in a small American town about 100 years ago. They only have two hundred dollars and need more. Sam has an idea for how to make more money, but when things go wrong, both men will soon start to regret their idea and their visit to the town of Summit.

This book is labeled as Grades 6-8 reading level, but I would argue that level to be lower. The text is easy to comprehend and the text-picture ratio is low-high.

Possible mentor writing traits: Presentation, because of the graphics and pictures that make this novel fun to read.

Possible concepts to incorporate into classroom: Irony, morality, problem-solving. The book also includes some pre-reading activities, during-reading activities, and post-reading activities at the back to be used in the classroom.