Book-It 'o14! Book #21
The Fifty Books Challenge, year five! ( 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013) This was a library request.
Title: Kit Saves the Day by Valerie Tripp with illustrations by Walter Rane
Details: Copyright 2001, Pleasant Company Productions
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "Kit is ready for an adventure. Actually, she is ready for anything-- as long as it doesn't involve chores, which are all she's been doing lately. When a young hobo named Will stops to work in the Kittredges' garden, he tells Kit about life on the road. Kit imagines Will has the life of freedom and adventure she longs for-- one the move, seeing the world, sleeping under the stars. Kit is determined to learn more about hobo life. But when she does, she gets more than she bargained for!"
Why I Wanted to Read It: Remember my remembrances of the American Girl franchise? And my review of the first book in this series? And then the second? The third? The fourth? Okay, then.
How I Liked It: The book gets ready to end the series with a storyline that's actually fairly jolting, a look into the hobo lifestyle in the Depression era, which including women and children.
Kit encounters a teenage hobo looking for work and, charmed, goes to find him after he leaves to return to the "hobo jungle" with her friend Stirling in tow. In one of the more action-packed sequences in an American Girl book, Kit is goaded by another teenage hobo to try hopping freight cars. Her hobo friend is reluctant, but Kit insists and with his help she and her friend Stirling just barely make it onto a boxcar. They're then stopped by police ("railroad bulls" that are hired to look for hobos) and taken to jail. From there, Kit escapes from jail by feigning illness (after the fact she's a girl is discovered and she's in the process of being herded off to a separate cell) and runs home to get help.
While it may be a little out-there of a story (although you can somewhat picture a relative relating it to you years later, however embellished), it brings to the conclusion that sets up the next story: Kit, having seen the brutal conditions experienced in the hobo jungles, wants to tell the world.
The illustrations have regained their "staged" quality from the first book, but the interesting use of light makes up for most of it along with the "unfinished" look to many of them.
The "Peek into the Past"/"Looking Back" section has a decent amount of information about hobos, something largely cartooned now, including a breakdown of the difference between hobos, tramps, and bums.
Notable: Ruthie, Kit's stated best friend of the series, does not appear at all in this book and no explanation is given for her absence nor is she even mentioned.
Title: Kit Saves the Day by Valerie Tripp with illustrations by Walter Rane
Details: Copyright 2001, Pleasant Company Productions
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "Kit is ready for an adventure. Actually, she is ready for anything-- as long as it doesn't involve chores, which are all she's been doing lately. When a young hobo named Will stops to work in the Kittredges' garden, he tells Kit about life on the road. Kit imagines Will has the life of freedom and adventure she longs for-- one the move, seeing the world, sleeping under the stars. Kit is determined to learn more about hobo life. But when she does, she gets more than she bargained for!"
Why I Wanted to Read It: Remember my remembrances of the American Girl franchise? And my review of the first book in this series? And then the second? The third? The fourth? Okay, then.
How I Liked It: The book gets ready to end the series with a storyline that's actually fairly jolting, a look into the hobo lifestyle in the Depression era, which including women and children.
Kit encounters a teenage hobo looking for work and, charmed, goes to find him after he leaves to return to the "hobo jungle" with her friend Stirling in tow. In one of the more action-packed sequences in an American Girl book, Kit is goaded by another teenage hobo to try hopping freight cars. Her hobo friend is reluctant, but Kit insists and with his help she and her friend Stirling just barely make it onto a boxcar. They're then stopped by police ("railroad bulls" that are hired to look for hobos) and taken to jail. From there, Kit escapes from jail by feigning illness (after the fact she's a girl is discovered and she's in the process of being herded off to a separate cell) and runs home to get help.
While it may be a little out-there of a story (although you can somewhat picture a relative relating it to you years later, however embellished), it brings to the conclusion that sets up the next story: Kit, having seen the brutal conditions experienced in the hobo jungles, wants to tell the world.
The illustrations have regained their "staged" quality from the first book, but the interesting use of light makes up for most of it along with the "unfinished" look to many of them.
The "Peek into the Past"/"Looking Back" section has a decent amount of information about hobos, something largely cartooned now, including a breakdown of the difference between hobos, tramps, and bums.
Notable: Ruthie, Kit's stated best friend of the series, does not appear at all in this book and no explanation is given for her absence nor is she even mentioned.