Cages - Softcover

Kehret, Peg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0671758799 ISBN 13: 9780671758790

Publisher: Aladdin, 1993

Synopsis

When Kit Hathaway makes a mistake, she doesn't fool around.

Upset about losing the lead in the school play and problems with her obnoxious stepfather, Kit impulsively steals a gold bracelet from a fancy department store. And promptly gets caught.

Suddenly her whole life changes. Kit is sure she's blown her chance at a scholarship, and even her relationship with her best friend is strained. Ironically, the only good thing is her sentence: 20 hours of volunteer work at the humane society. Kit feels just like those animals...caged in. But with the help of a special new friend, Kit comes to a startling realization: the key to her cage is right in her own hand.

About this title

About the Author:

PEG KEHRET's popular novels for young people are regularly nominated for state awards. She has received the Young Hoosier Award, the Golden Sower Award, the Iowa Children's Choice Award, the Celebrate Literacy Award, the Sequoyah Award, the Land of Enchantment Award, the Maud Hart Lovelace Award, and the Pacific Northwest Young Reader's Choice Award. She lives with her husband, Carl, and their animal friends in Washington State, where she is a volunteer at the Humane Society and SPCA. Her two grown children and four grandchildren live in Washington, too.

Peg's Minstrel titles include Nightmare Mountain: Sisters, Long Ago; Cages; Terror at the Zoo; Horror at the Haunted House; and the Frightmares series.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 6-9-- In a vulnerable moment of self-pity, 14-year-old Kit Hathaway pockets an expensive gold bracelet in a department store and is arrested for shoplifting. Sentenced by a juvenile-court committee, she is assigned 20 volunteer hours at the humane society. There she falls in love with a spirited little terrier who, tragically, is euthanized before Kit can find a home for her. She also finds it increasingly difficult to keep her shoplifting a secret, especially from her best friend. It is during a final class speech that Kit decides to reveal what she has done. With painful realism, Kehret shows the legal and emotional ramifications of teen shoplifting, but this is much more than a cautionary tale. Corollary themes of parental alcoholism and its incipient child abuse and animal population control are deftly handled. The story slips occasionally toward easy solutions, especially when Kit and her stepfather, avowed adversaries, too easily settle their differences. Nevertheless, Kit's determination to free herself from the cages of alcohol enablement, jealousy, and, ultimately, the secret of her crime make her an appealing protagonist. --Sylvia V. Meisner, Allen Middle School, Greensboro,
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Aladdin
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0671758799
• ISBN 13: 9780671758790
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160