Reviews for Canaries and Criminals

The average rating for Canaries and Criminals based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-06-12 00:00:00 Lori Hagele Just one month ago, my daughters and I "traveled" to North Dakota and discovered Jake's Orphan, a story that revolved around a farming family who "took in" a boy from the orphan train. Unfortunately for Worth, a middle grades novel set in Nebraska, we had the recent comparison in our minds of. . . a story that revolved around a farming family who "took in" a boy from the orphan train. Even so. . . if we hadn't had the comparison to make, this story would have fallen short for us. I'm sorry, but if you have a 144 page book, and for 136 pages of the book "Ma" and "Pa" treat the orphan like a flea-infested stray dog, refusing to look him in the eyes, giving him residence in a lean-to that is no better than a garden shed, and making him eat all of his meals out on a tree stump, you can't wrap up this mess in a tidy 8 pages. In 8 pages, you can't make this boy seemed "beloved" and an accepted member of a family, after he's been treated worse than an unwanted dog in all previous pages. And, even though I applaud this author for donating a portion of the proceeds from this book to the North American Council on Adoptable Children (www.nacac.org), I must contribute that I find this story an awkward representation of a successful adoption story. I am a proud mother of both biological and adopted children, and the parents in this story, the Peales, are absolutely appalling to me. They don't have any knack with their original, biological child, and they certainly don't have any leftover love for a newly arrived, traumatized orphan. I was ashamed of them as human beings, to be honest, and I'm not sure the author knew quite, quite what she was doing, in representing them as so cruel and unfeeling and then giving them a quick change of heart, in the last remaining pages. Also, what's wrong with pronouns? We need them, we love them, they work for us in stories. This novel needed pronouns, and, frankly, outside of poetry, no writer is so clever that they can write riveting prose without them.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-02-18 00:00:00 Jeff Edelstein This book is about a boy named Nathaniel, who is trying to survive and find happiness after his leg is brutally injured in the storm. His family runs a farm and all the crops were destroyed due to the storm. The family also lack in business and have to take a lot of loans to pay for the crops. Things have changed ever since this incident has taken place. His dad hasn't had any conversation with him and his mom is always depressed and mad about the death of her daughter Missy, years ago. Nathaniel is finding it very hard to live this way and wants to change his style of living. But, to make things worse, his dad brings home a boy named John Worth, (from the Orphan Train) to do Nathaniel's chores. Nathaniel feels like he's worthless and that he is no use to the family. He is truly sad since is not being able to help on the farm and is actually jealous of John since he has caught the attention of his father. After some great tragedies in John's life, he is finding it hard to fit in the family. just know that everything works out in the end! But, something helps brings the family together (you're gonna have to find out!) to create a special bond that I think is very touching! For me, this story was a little hard to follow at the start,(and there were parts that were boring) and I was on the verge of abandoning it. I felt the need to read more to understand it better and sure enough ,as I kept reading, the story got more intense and I started enjoying it. The plot of this story was good and I particularly liked how the main character dealt with his problems. I also liked all the emotions that the characters displayed. My favorite part was, "Lumbering around like a newborn colt, I spun to get up and hug Ma. She hugged me right back, letting out a laughing sigh. "Don't you worry, Nathaniel. I'm not going anywhere." And for the first time, I hoped John Worth didn't have to go anywhere either." This shows that Nathaniel had empathy John because of the hard times he has been through and doesn't want him to go. Overall, I think this was a great book and I really recommend it!