The Cottonmouth Club - Hardcover

Marcum, Lance

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374315620 ISBN 13: 9780374315627

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 2005

Synopsis

Summertime and the livin' ain't easy

School's finally out, and eleven-year-old Mitch Valentine is ready to get started on his extensive list of things to do with his best friend - until his mom ruins everything with a surprise announcement. The family is going to take a long trip halfway across the country, to stay with her family down South. Mitch's reluctant summer visit to sweltering farm country tests him in all sorts of ways, starting with his sense of humor. Pitkin, Louisiana, turns out to be a place filled with challenges and dangers, from rope burns to raging bulls.

In this vivid and funny first novel, Mitch discovers that it's his own bad decisions that can make for the biggest challenges and dangers of all.

About this title

About the Author:

Lance Marcum is a sixth-grade teacher and lives in Fair Oaks, California. The Cottonmouth Club is his first novel.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 5-8–As this coming-of-age novel set in 1960s California opens, 11-year-old Mitch is gearing up for a summer of monster movies and sleepovers with his best friend. He is dismayed to learn that his family will be spending two months in rural Louisiana instead. Upon arrival, he is unimpressed with the small town and his overall-clad relatives. Over the next two months, he deals with a first crush, a raging bull, a charismatic troublemaker, and third-degree burns. By his 12th birthday, Mitch has learned to respect his country cousins and himself, and has made a successful transition to adolescence. For the first two thirds of this novel, the narrator's voice is inconsistent and stilted, and the plot meanders down several paths before settling on a main road. The author tries to weave in as many period pop-culture references as possible, and many of these details seem distracting and out of place. In the last six chapters, as the pace picks up and the characters begin to come to life, the book really redeems itself. Unfortunately, the target audience will probably have given up long before then.–Rachael Vilmar, Atlanta Fulton Public Library, GA
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About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0374315620
• ISBN 13: 9780374315627
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336