Tolan, Stephanie. Surviving the Applewhites. NY: HarperCollins, 2002. 216 pages. (Fiction)
While reading Surviving the Applewhites, you will find the main characters are Jake Semple and the Applewhite family: Cordelia, E.D., Destiny, Hal, Lucille, Randolf, Zedediah, and Sybil. This story takes place in North Carolina at Wit Point, a home-school academy. Jake Semple has no other place to go to school except for Juvenile Hall and, of course, Wits Point because he has been kicked out of every other school by doing bad tricks like burning the school down. Everyone has to get along with Jake and teach him what he needs to learn. During school, Jake learns to work with other people and that he really doesn’t have to act badly. With the help of a play, The Sound of Music, the Applewhites end up performing, Jake Semple finds another side of himself, a good side.
This would be a book I would definitely recommend to someone my age. I don’t know if younger kids would really know what everything meant in this book. I thought about this book, and it came to me that it has a moral or a lesson to learn from. When someone acts badly, something might have gone wrong in their family, and they aren’t getting the love they need. Also, everyone usually has a good side to them even though sometimes you have to work at it to get it out.
Reviewed by: IrishDancer64
