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nancy@nancykeane.com
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Jennings,
Richard W.
THE GREAT WHALE OF KANSAS
Boston : Houghton Mifflin,
2001.
IL 3-6, RL 5.8
ISBN 0618102280 |
| A precocious
eleven year old boy in Melville, Kansas, (the geographic center of the
country), stares down into the hole he has just dug at what appears to
be a fossil of a prehistoric fish. He really just wanted a hole for
his reflecting pond; the kit was a birthday gift from his parents.
Being intrigued, he digs deeper only to discover that another larger aquatic
beast has eaten the smaller one. Convinced it is a whale, (a whale
in Kansas?) he finds his "find" the subject of controversy and a battle
for ownership.
Surrounded by a cast of supportive
and non supportive adult characters, and one duck who is a great listener,
the boy perseveres in his desire to claim the great whale, the book ends
with a court room scene and a Native American burial ceremony. The
Great Whale of Kansas is a quirky, thought provoking commentary on
the meaning of fame and authority. (New
Hampshire Great Stone Face Committee) |
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SUBJECTS:
Fossils -- Fiction.
Prehistoric animals -- Fiction.
Whales -- Fiction.
Kansas -- 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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