Items related to Out of Step
When his widowed father remarries, Jeremy not only has to adjust to a new stepmother, but also he must cope with a stepsister, Allison, a superb athlete who appears to be taking all of his father's attention from him.
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About the Author:
The thought of becoming a writer never occurred to MJ Auch as a child. Her only literary efforts in those days were the plays which she and her girlfriend, Noreen, wrote for their marionettes. They produced these extravaganzas in Noreen’s garage and organized the neighborhood boys into a sales force to sell tickets and refreshments.
Summer visits to both of MJ’s grandmothers led to her fascination with chickens. One grandmother had a small backyard flock and the other grandmother and two bachelor uncles had a large farm that supplied eggs to half of Long Island. MJ learned that a flock of chickens had almost the same range of personalities that could be found in a classroom, from the quiet, shy chicken to the big bully.
MJ loved books and read constantly. She wrote stories, drawn in comic book style with speech balloons for the dialog. Her interest in drawing continued through high school, and she went on to become an art major at Skidmore College. After graduation, MJ headed for New York City to seek fame and fortune, but after a year of designing prints for men's pajamas, she decided she wanted to do something more meaningful with her life. She enrolled in the Occupational Therapy program at Columbia University, which led to some wonderful years of working in a children's hospital near Hartford, Connecticut.
On a brief stop home to visit her parents before transferring to a new job in Denver, she met Herm Auch, a graphic artist and editorial cartoonist for the Rochester newspaper. It was love at first sight, and MJ never made it to Denver. They were married in 1967 and within a few years had produced a daughter, Katrin and a son, Ian. They moved from the city to a small farm, complete with chickens, ducks, and geese. Armed with a huge collection of Mother Earth News and absolutely no practical experience, they tackled farm life with gusto, gaining much comedy material for books MJ’s future books.
As the children grew older, MJ began to look for work in her original field of art. Like Jenna's mother in Mom Is Dating Weird Wayne, she had a brief stint as a “zit zapper” at a school picture factory. Then she started illustrating for Pennywhistle Press, a national children's newspaper, and this sparked her interest in illustrating children’s books.
In the summer of 1984, MJ took a week-long children's writing conference on Cape Cod. She tried to write a picture book manuscript to take to the conference, but instead found herself writing a middle-grade novel. When her instructor, Natalie Babbitt, told of starting out as an artist and finding she could paint better pictures with words, something clicked. MJ finally knew that she wanted to a writer.
She started sending manuscripts to publishers, writing four full-length novels before she sold the first one. Then she sold a second book to another publisher that sam
From School Library Journal:
Summer visits to both of MJ’s grandmothers led to her fascination with chickens. One grandmother had a small backyard flock and the other grandmother and two bachelor uncles had a large farm that supplied eggs to half of Long Island. MJ learned that a flock of chickens had almost the same range of personalities that could be found in a classroom, from the quiet, shy chicken to the big bully.
MJ loved books and read constantly. She wrote stories, drawn in comic book style with speech balloons for the dialog. Her interest in drawing continued through high school, and she went on to become an art major at Skidmore College. After graduation, MJ headed for New York City to seek fame and fortune, but after a year of designing prints for men's pajamas, she decided she wanted to do something more meaningful with her life. She enrolled in the Occupational Therapy program at Columbia University, which led to some wonderful years of working in a children's hospital near Hartford, Connecticut.
On a brief stop home to visit her parents before transferring to a new job in Denver, she met Herm Auch, a graphic artist and editorial cartoonist for the Rochester newspaper. It was love at first sight, and MJ never made it to Denver. They were married in 1967 and within a few years had produced a daughter, Katrin and a son, Ian. They moved from the city to a small farm, complete with chickens, ducks, and geese. Armed with a huge collection of Mother Earth News and absolutely no practical experience, they tackled farm life with gusto, gaining much comedy material for books MJ’s future books.
As the children grew older, MJ began to look for work in her original field of art. Like Jenna's mother in Mom Is Dating Weird Wayne, she had a brief stint as a “zit zapper” at a school picture factory. Then she started illustrating for Pennywhistle Press, a national children's newspaper, and this sparked her interest in illustrating children’s books.
In the summer of 1984, MJ took a week-long children's writing conference on Cape Cod. She tried to write a picture book manuscript to take to the conference, but instead found herself writing a middle-grade novel. When her instructor, Natalie Babbitt, told of starting out as an artist and finding she could paint better pictures with words, something clicked. MJ finally knew that she wanted to a writer.
She started sending manuscripts to publishers, writing four full-length novels before she sold the first one. Then she sold a second book to another publisher that sam
Grade 4-8-- Twelve-year-old Jeremy's life suddenly lurches ``out of step'' when his father remarries and he acquires a ``super-athlete'' stepsister, Allie. The story, set in Ontario, New York, opens with Jeremy imagining Allie drowning at Niagara Falls. His vivid imagination and talents as a writer are ignored by his father, who dotes on the girl. Hatred builds between the stepsiblings, who are the same age but very different people. There are some funny scenes, but the book also successfully explores Jeremy's feelings and grief over the death of his mother three years earlier. The climax comes when his father buys Allie a brand-new racing bike so that she can enter a triathalon. Jeremy decides to enter the race to beat her, but fails miserably. Finally, he and his father talk about their feelings and the changes in their family. This confrontation in the last chapter is a little abrupt. Talking things over may resolve some things--but maybe it won't, and readers will never know. Auch does a good job of exploring emotions and feelings that many children will identify with, but the minor characters lack depth. Allie is an unsympathetic character who seems perfect in Jeremy's father's eyes, and there is too little information about her background to understand her bossy, overconfident, super-competitive actions. In spite of its drawbacks, this is humorous, realistic, and poignant--and it's fast-paced enough to keep children turning the pages to keep in step with the story.
-Janet M. Bair, Trumbull Library, CT
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
-Janet M. Bair, Trumbull Library, CT
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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- PublisherHoliday House
- Publication date1992
- ISBN 10 0823409856
- ISBN 13 9780823409853
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages32
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Out of Step
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Holiday House
(1992)
ISBN 10: 0823409856
ISBN 13: 9780823409853
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