When The Sum Of The Parts Makes A Whole

I'll admit it. When I first started reading The View From Saturday, I was not impressed. The first character was an average preteen boy that was annoyed because he had to send a thank you note to his grandparents for his stay in their retirement community. I wasn't sure if I was more bored with the mother for having asked such a ridiculous request, or the boy for not bothering to thank his grandparents on his own. Then the boy "flashed back" to his stay and told an amusing story of a retirement wedding with all the "normal" goings wrong. Very entertaining.

The book continued in this way with three other students. Each of them had been chosen by their teacher to be a member of their class's team, some what like Jeopardy or the old It's Academic. The teacher chosen each of the students slowly and deliberately, but when asked, she could never come up with a acceptable answer.

It's not until the children are invited to tea, (yes I said tea,) by the new child resident of the soon to be Bed & Breakfast, that's when the story starts to come together. Their unlikely friendship seems to manifest itself among tea in china cups and cucumber finger sandwiches. No more are they the loud and rackus preteens that everyone sees in the "real world", but polite and courteous individuals that take the time to listen to each other, creating a secret bond that most teenagers never find.

After finishing the book, I read the "liner notes" about how the book was written. Now the beginning and middle made more sense. Originally this book started out as four short stories but they didn't have a suitable ending. So when the story of an educational bowl started flowing out of the authors pen, she felt she already knew the participants, and she did, in these short stories. So she melted the four stories together with the new one and came away with a thought provoking Newbery Award winner.