The Great Dimpole Oak - Softcover

Lisle, Janet Taylor

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0698118057 ISBN 13: 9780698118058

Publisher: Puffin Books, 1999

Synopsis

For centuries, people buried treasures around and carved their name into the special Great Dimpole Oak, thus when it is decided to have an event in honor of the tree, people came from far and wide to share in the celebration. Reprint.

About this title

About the Author:

Janet Taylor Lisle is the author of the Newbery Honor book Afternoon of the Elves (Puffin). She lives in Montclair, New Jersey. Stephan Gammel lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 5-8 An ancient oak stands in a farmer's field outside of a small town. The farmer tells scary stories about it, and the town's children listen and play on on and around it. Mrs. Trawley, the town busybody, becomes obsessed with its traditions and plans a Great Dimpole Oak Day. Far away, a swami has a vision about the oak and begins a journey with his followers to find it. All of these forces, plus two local boys who have challenged a bully to a confrontation, converge around the oak on a ``perfectly beautiful Saturday,'' an occasion which has all the trappings of disaster and which, instead, emerges as a celebration of sorts. Through it all, the oak stands, impervious, more acted upon than acting, of course, serving as a reflection of the ideas and dreams of the mortals who gather around it. Lisle creates a minor fable here, successfully evoking an eerie sense of timelessness and mystery, especially in her opening chapter. The oak is her main character, and it, and the farmer who cares for it, seem most alive. It is her people who are wooden, as she settles for archetypes instead of characterizations. In fact, her descriptions of the swami, whose adventures are not well integrated into the narrative, slip dangerously from archetype to stereotype. The book's strength is Lisle's sardonic whimsy. Its principle weakness is that the distancing of the characters leaves readers as impervious as the oak. Gammell's surreal full-page black-and-white drawings of the oak add to the atmosphere of the story, lending it an air of mystery, but in the end, make little difference to the book. They're like the beginnings and endings of the chapters: all portentous promise with little contextual delivery. Christine Behrmann, New York Public Library
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Puffin Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0698118057
• ISBN 13: 9780698118058
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144
• Illustrator: Gammell Stephen