What Jamie Saw ANNOTATION
Having fled to a family friend's hillside trailer after his mother's boyfriend tried to throw his baby sister against a wall, nine-year-old Jamie finds himself living an existence full of uncertainty and fear.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Having fled to a family friend's hillside trailer after his mother's boyfriend tried to throw his baby sister against a wall, nine-year-old Jamie finds himself living an existence full of uncertainty and fear.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
In a starred review of this "heartwrenching" 1996 Newbery Honor book about escaping domestic violence, PW said, "This work seems to spring directly from Coman's heart into the reader's own." Ages 9-up. (Mar.)
Children's Literature - Marilyn Courtot
Jamie, his baby sister, and his mother (a battered wife) struggle to rebuild and reshape their lives. From the gripping opening until the very last page, readers share the real fear, anger, and anguish that haunt Jamie and his mother. Their ability to face their fears and thus begin to reconstruct their lives brings this short, but powerful story to closure. Newbery Honor book.
School Library Journal
Gr 6-9-With wrenching simplicity and mesmerizing imagery, Coman articulates nine-year-old Jamie's baffled, stream-of-consciousness observations of a violent act that robs him of his security, but not his innocence. Awakened in the middle of the night by some primal sense of alarm, the sleep-disoriented boy watches his stepfather reach into his baby sister's crib and throw her across the room. And then he watches his mother step into the bedroom doorway and catch her flying baby. Patty deposits her pajama-clad children into the safety of her rusty old Buick, collects the bare necessities, and leaves. With the help of her friend Earl, Jamie's teacher, and even her mother-in-law, Patty finds her way back to work and into a support group for battered wives. In a trailer out in the middle of nowhere, she and Jamie tough it out, slowly reinventing their lives. Revealed through the boy's clear, unprejudiced eye, characters, though rough and uneducated, are not stereotyped. It is Jamie who is most delicately and lovingly wrought. His love of magic tricks, illusion, and sleight of hand sustains him through the bad times. Shocking in its simple narration and child's-eye view, What Jamie Saw is a bittersweet miracle in understated language and forthright hopefulness.-Alice Casey Smith, Sayreville War Memorial High School, NJ
School Library Journal
Gr 6-9-Bronson Pinchot provides a chilling performance of Carolyn Coman's Newbery Honor book (Front Street, 1995) about a family living on the edge of poverty and hopelessness. Nine-year-old Jamie saw his mother's boyfriend, Van, throw his baby sister against a bedroom wall. Jamie's mother catches the baby in her arms just before it hits the wall. Pinchot's superbly timed reading quickly gathers momentum as the children are hastily bundled into the car for a nighttime journey to a friend's house on the outskirts of town. There they hide out from Van, while Jamie's mother smokes too much and Jamie practices magic tricks. School presents another problem, because Jamie's teacher is too curious about his absence. Money is scarce and the car is temperamental. All the pieces of Jamie's life add up to a river of fear that threatens to carry him away. The well-written, touching story is revealed through Jamie's child's-eye view. The recording includes a fascinating epilogue in which Coman relates her experiences as a teacher and how she came to know and care for students whose lives were similar to Jamie's. This offering will satisfy those "realistic fiction" homework assignments.-Celeste Steward, Contra Costa County Library, Clayton, CA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
AudioFile
Fear has a tendency to feed upon itself. When Jamie wakes up one night to see Van throw his baby sister across the room, he freezes—he sees and comprehends—but fear freezes him. It is his mother's voice, telling him clearly and specifically what to do, that moves him, but he is like a coiled-up spring, tense, waiting, watching. Bronson Pinchot captures the fear in Jamie with his terse, clipped speech. His pacing and intensity move us inside Jamie—who watches the adults around him, adding his mother's fear to his own frustration over the way his life has changed and his lack of control over his world. Although not a fully voiced performance, this is nevertheless a powerful, accurate portrayal of the world through Jamie's eyes. Unfortunately, the music at the beginning and end of the tape undercuts the stark, jarring prose. W.L.S. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine
Home
