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nancy@nancykeane.com
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Franklin,
Kristine L.
GRAPE THIEF
Cambridge : Candlewick Press,
2003.
IL 5-8, RL 5.0
ISBN 0763613258
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Click on the book to read Amazon reviews
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This
book is an adventure full of suspense, drama, and lots of horseplay, almost
a Tom Sawyer of a book set in the 1920’s. Roslyn, Washington is a coal-mining
town where many immigrants have come to work the mines. Slava Petrovich,
known to his friends as Cuss, is headed for the same future. But he loves
school and has a talent for languages: he can swear in fourteen languages,
thus, his nickname. Cuss lives with his sister, brothers and widowed mother.
There is no money to spare. Every year a train from California loaded with
grapes stops overnight in the town, and the town’s boys try to steal some
of the grapes, just for fun. Cuss and his friends Perks and Skinny set
out to be part of the fun, but everything goes wrong: his older brothers
are implicated in the murder of a local mobster and have to leave Roslyn
fast. This changes Cuss’s life completely: he wants to stay in school but
realizes he must now become the breadwinner, leave school and get a job
to support his mother and the younger children. What will he do? What CAN
he do? Dive into this story and enjoy the fun! (Jean B. Bellavance
for Pennsylvania
Young Reader's Choice Awards, 2004-2005) |
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SUBJECTS:
City and town life -- Washington (State) -- Fiction.
Washington (State) -- Fiction.
Croatian Americans -- Fiction.
Historical fiction. |
© 
Permission is granted for the
noncommercial duplication and use of this resource, provided it is substantially
unchanged from its present form and appropriate credit is given.
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