As Ever, Gordy

by Mary Downing Hahn

Overview

Gordy couldn't be more unhappy about moving back to his hometown of College Hill, where everybody knows his family's troubled history. In North Carolina, Gordy's life had finally seemed to be on the right track. But in College Hill, Gordy and his sister, June, move into a cramped apartment with their brother Stu and his new family. The principal at Gordy's school immediately has it in for him, his old pals encourage him to cause trouble, and his one-time nemesis, Elizabeth, hates him more than ever. It seems to Gordy as though the whole world is against him. Will he slip back into his old trouble-making ways for good, or will he be able to keep growing into the successful person he was striving to become?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547549552
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/21/2011
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	504,160
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	680L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Mary Downing Hahn’s many acclaimed novels include such beloved ghost stories as Wait Till Helen Comes, Deep and Dark and Dangerous, and Took. A former librarian, she has received more than fifty child-voted state awards for her work. She lives in Columbia, Maryland, with a cat named Nixi.

Read an Excerpt

Born to be bad?

Mueller cleared his throat and went on talking
as if I hadn’t said a thing. “On the other hand,
Donald dropped out of school the day he turned
sixteen. Believe me, I wasn’t a bit sorry to lose
him.” He paused and gave me another long hard
look. “I wonder which of your brothers you take
after, Gordon.”
 It was just the way I’d known it would be—
everybody remembered my father and my brothers.
They all expected me to turn out every bit as
bad as they had. The only question was, whose
path would I follow? Would I become the town
drunk? Would I drop out of school and blow
up gas stations? Would I desert if another war
started?
 When I didn’t say anything, Mueller frowned.
“I plan to keep an eye on you, Gordon. Any sign
of misbehavior and I’ll come down on you hard.
Is that clear?”
 “Yes, sir,” I muttered. His message was clear.
It was my first day at Hyattsdale High, and the
principal already hated me.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Hahn expertly shows how the expectations of others influence Gordy's behavior, as he struggles to step away from his bad old self; in the end he takes that step, though not without a realistic amount of backsliding….While Gordy's anger is the dominant feeling here, flashes of humor and deftly inserted historical details of the postWW II era lighten the load."—Kirkus Reviews

Editorial Reviews

"Hahn expertly shows how the expectations of others influence Gordy's behavior, as he struggles to step away from his bad old self; in the end he takes that step, though not without a realistic amount of backsliding….While Gordy's anger is the dominant feeling here, flashes of humor and deftly inserted historical details of the postWW II era lighten the load."—Kirkus Reviews —

From the Publisher

Gr 5-8-This sequel to Stepping on the Cracks (1991) and Following My Own Footsteps (1996, both Clarion) continues Gordy Smith's story. After the death of their grandmother in North Carolina, with whom they had been living since their abusive, alcoholic father was arrested, 13-year-old Gordy and his younger sister return to College Hill, MD, to stay with their married older brother Stu. Under his grandmother's firm but loving hand, Gordy had begun to turn his life around. Unfortunately, everyone in College Hill remembers him as a bully. As his anger over his grandmother's death and his new living conditions surfaces, he falls back into his old ways--underachieving in school and playing mischievous pranks. He also finds himself the object of teasing by classmates Margaret and Elizabeth. Perhaps because Gordy is so caught up in his personal problems, it takes much of the book for him to realize that he is attracted to Elizabeth. In the end, they begin a positive relationship. Although Hahn attempts to flesh out the book's post-World War II setting, it is barely evident. Slang words such as "chump" and "dames" and period details such as Frank Sinatra and Hank Williams do not re-create the time for today's children. Readers who already know these characters will be interested in what happens to them, but those meeting Gordy for the first time may not find the book as compelling.-Ellen Fader, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR

School Library Journal

An eighth grader finds that his tough-guy persona doesn't fit as well as it used to in Hahn's third book about the fragmented Smith family (Stepping On The Cracks, 1991; Following My Own Footsteps, 1996). After his grandmother's sudden death, Gordy has to move back to the hated Maryland town in which he grew up. Discovering that the intervening two years have done little to dim his family's white-trash reputation, and that his ne'er-do-well friends, Doug and Toad, haven't changed, Gordy slips back into his old troublemaking ways. The role begins to chafe, however, when he develops a yen for old rival LizþLizzy the LizardþCrawford, and learns that his abusive father and reform-school- graduate older brother aren't the best role models when it comes to human relations. Hahn expertly shows how the expectations of others influence Gordy's behavior, as he struggles to step away from his bad old self; in the end he takes that step, though not without a realistic amount of backsliding. To Gordy's surprise and pleasure, Elizabeth is willing to meet him half way. While Gordy's anger is the dominant feeling here, flashes of humor and deftly inserted historical details of the postþWW II era lighten the load. (Fiction. 10-13)

Kirkus Reviews