A Review by Lauren

Summary:
This book is about a fourteen-year old girl named Megan whose life is changed forever.  Megan was a very athletic girl who loved to play basketball, swim and dance.  A terrible motorcycle accident leaves Megan paralyzed from the waist down.  Megan becomes very bitter and has to learn to cope with the fact of being confined to a wheelchair.  Megan’s new friend Harris changes her life by teaching her to accept that she is in a wheelchair. Megan learns through Harris, that new beginnings are always possible.  Like the title of the book, Megan learns to pick up the pieces and start over.

Suspense: There was not a lot of suspense in this book, except the part where Megan and Harris go the “Hideout”.  It was a hot, sunny day and they decided to row a boat across the lake to a place Megan called the “Hideout”.  They left Megan’s wheelchair behind at her cottage.  They fell asleep at the “Hideout” and when they woke up, the boat was gone.  Megan and Harris thought they were stranded for the night.  They tried to light a fire to grab the attention of the ferry that was scheduled to pass by at 6:30, but the fire died.  I thought they were going to be stranded all night but the second time they lit the fire, black smoke rose to the sky and they were rescued. Rating: 

Character Development: Megan is the main character in the book.  She is a fourteen-year-old girl who becomes paralyzed after a tragic motorcycle accident.  She becomes mad because she can no longer do the things she used to do like play basketball and swim.  She feels sorry for herself because her life has changed forever.  After she meets Harris, she becomes determined to pick up the pieces of her life and start over.  She begins to accept the fact that she is in a wheelchair and learns to cope with it.
Rating: 

Important Lessons: Megan learns an important lesson after her accident.  Although she has changed on the outside, she is still the same old Megan on the inside.  She learns that she can have a new beginning although she is paralyzed.  She learned that she is good at other things besides basketball and swimming.  She learned how to take something bad in her life and turn it into something good.  She also learns how to forgive the boy who was driving the motorcycle at the time of the accident. Rating: 
 
Imagination: The author does an excellent job of describing the summer cottage where Megan and her family spend their holidays.  She describes what Megan is feeling after her accident.  I could feel for myself every emotion that Megan was going through.  I felt how frustrated she was with being confined to a wheelchair.  I also felt how determined she was when she was training for the race. Rating: 

Difficulty: This book was not difficult to read.  The vocabulary was at the right level for Grade 5 readers.  The story was easy to follow. The message the book was trying to give was easy to understand.   The novel did not take a long time to read because it wasn’t too difficult. Rating: 

Overall Recommendation: I would recommend this book to other Grade 5 students because the story was interesting and it taught an important lesson. Rating: 

Author Report:

Patricia Calvert was born in Great Falls, Montana, in the United States. Even though she has always wanted to be a writer she did not start writing until her two daughters were grown up and married. After her family had grown, Patricia and her husband moved to Chatfield Minnesota. While living in Minnesota, she went to Winona State University where she studied English Literature. She graduated with Honors. Patricia still lives in Minnesota today.

Patricia is the author of a number of books including The Snow Bird, The Stone Pony, Stranger You and I, Yesterday’s Daughter, When Morning Comes, The Hour of the Wolf, Hodder MacColl, and Picking up the Pieces. Many of Patricia’s books have been nominated for awards in children’s literature.