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The Tiger Rising, by Kate DiCamillo
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Every so often, I am compelled to pick up a book that I might otherwise pass by. Maybe it is in a genre I normally do not read, or by an author, I had tried once before and decided to pass on, or even in an age range that I jumped past decades ago. This last group of books is the most compelling to cross over into. Books written for children, pre-teens, and teens often harbor good stories for adults whose time might be limited.
That is how I came to discover the compelling story of Rob Horton and Sistine Bailey, titled The Tiger Rising, by Kate DiCamillo. If you have read any other works by this author, you might be familiar with her Newbery Honor Book, Because of Winn-Dixie. Both of these titles epitomize why an adult like myself might be compelled to search out the childrens book shelves every now and then, as writing as good as these stories deserve to be read by more than just the ages the books were intended for.
When we open the first page of The Tiger Rising, we meet Rob Horton, standing beneath a flashing motel sign, a yellow neon star hanging over a blue neon shape of Kentucky. He lives at the motel with his father. In addition, if it was not odd enough that he lives at a motel, the Kentucky Star is a motel in Florida. His mother has died, and his father is doing the best he can to take care of him, working odd jobs around the motel to help keep a roof over their heads.
As he stands beneath the sign waiting for the school bus to come, pick him up, and take him to the last place he wants to go to, school, he is thinking about what he discovered behind the motel, in the woods, a tiger, and not any tiger, but an honest to goodness, live tiger in a cage. At least that is what he thinks he found. He is starting to doubt it, not so sure he can rely on his own memory. Not especially when it comes to something as amazing as a real, live tiger in the woods behind the crappy motel he lives at.
The good thing is that because he is thinking about the tiger, he is not thinking about some other things. The itchy, blistered, rash that has been on his legs since his mother died, his mother herself, and that he had to get on the bus to go to school.
As soon as he is on the bus, we learn why he would want to forget this last thing. Waiting on the bus for Rob is a group of kids that epitomize the term bully, and a bus driver who thinks that looking the other way is the best way to deal with the situation. Soon though, the attention is diverted from Rob, temporarily at least, when the bus makes an unscheduled stop and on walks the likes of Sistine Bailey. All dressed up in her party clothes, Sistine is as out of place on the bus as Rob is, just in a different way.
Once they arrive at school, Rob does get some good news, good to him at least. Parents of his classmates have been complaining about the rash on his legs, complaining to the point that he is called down to the principals office where he is informed that they think it would be best if he stayed home a few days until the rash clears up. The thing is, Rob knows the rash is not going to clear up, and he does try to tell them that, but no one will listen. Therefore, Rob takes the note home to his Dad, who decides that if the school does not want him, and if Rob does not want to be there, then staying home for a few days might be a good thing all around.
Then the new girl, Sistine, decides to take him his homework, and he inexplicably decides to confide in her about what he came across in the woods behind the Kentucky Star motel. What happens next is sure to keep you turning the pages to find out.
4:53 PM
Comments:
This sounds great! We recently to listened to another of Kate DiCamillo's audiobooks, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, and our entire family (including me and my husband) were enthralled with it to the very end. I'll have to get a copy of The Tiger Rising for my sons. Thanks for writing - I'm enjoying your reviews -
Sue
# posted by
Sue Jackson : 1:24 PM
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