Quaking

by Kathryn Erskine Narrated by Rena Strober

Overview

Goth girl Matt lives her life by simple rules: Stay under the radar, never go by Matilda (only Matt), and don't let anyone get too close. But everything changes when she moves in with a peaceful Quaker family in Pennsylvania. As the country fights a war in the Middle East, Matt fights her own personal war, battling bullies of her past and present and fighting to stand up for her belief in peace. Then violence erupts in town, and Matt finds that she will need to fight even harder to save the family she is starting to love.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Erskine's debut juggles a number of hefty subjects and themes (religious faith, American patriotism, anti- and pro-war attitudes, bad parenting), but with mixed results. Fourteen-year-old Matilda ("Matt") believes that "life is safer alone." She has been unwillingly shuffled around distant family members' homes after being taken away from her abusive father, and is eventually sent to live with a Quaker couple, Jessica and Sam, and their disabled adopted son, Rory. Adjusting to her new life is tough, and sarcastic Matt doesn't make it any easier for her new, overprotective guardians. She's generally belligerent, dismissive of Rory and frequently antagonizes her pro-war World Civics teacher, whom she dubs Mr. Warhead (who "is so patriotic he is practically drooling red, white, and blue"). Amidst this "disaffected youth attempting to adjust to her new school and family" plotline, Erskine adds scenes involving Matt's introduction to Quakerism, a vicious school bully and the town's division over the war in the Middle East, but she doesn't always dig deep enough to flush out the questions that are raised. What happened to Matt's birth parents? Would a blatantly prowar teacher realistically be allowed to proselytize to his students in a public school setting? What does Matt really think about Quaker values? While thought-provoking at times, this story tries to cover a great deal of ground and might have fared better if the author focused on one or two main issues in greater depth. Ages 11-up. (June)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

School Library Journal

Gr 8-10
Fourteen-year-old Matt, a survivor of family violence, has learned to withdraw, to make herself invisible to the Beasts of the world, and to run away from things she can't cope with. This notion is entirely counter to the philosophy of Sam and Jessica Fox, her latest foster parents, whose Quaker belief is to face the fire. Their caring and concern, both for Matt and for Rory, their other foster child, a severely disabled seven-year-old boy, begin to break down her resistance. As Matt is increasingly drawn into the family's life, she worries that Sam's peace activism puts him squarely in the path of a wave of violent vandalism in their community. Her own antiwar opinions about the Iraq conflict have led to trouble with a teacher, and she has drawn the attention of a school bully. The effect of this moving first-person story of a foster child slowly opening herself to family love is lessened by its heavy political message. The issues are interesting, the present-day Pennsylvania setting realistic, and the high school believable, but readers may find the picture of anti-pacifist violence (including a death at a demonstration in Washington) exaggerated.
—Kathleen IsaacsCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Matt (short for Matilda and not Mattie, thank you) is a teenager whose experiences in the foster system have made her ruefully cynical and bitter. When she comes to live with Sam and Jessica, Matt is puzzled by their commitment to peace-both in their personal lives and in their advocacy against the war in the Middle East. Intrigued, she begins to accompany them to First Day Meetings and learns about the Quaker religion. Matt finds unexpected peace in the silence of Meeting, and begins to practice peace by standing up to a comically belligerent, fiercely pro-war social-studies teacher and a run-of-the-mill school-bus bully, both of whom have their own issues. While the message sometimes seems right on the surface, the setting is unusual and the characters play their roles in ways that readers will understand. As one of the first, if not the first anti-war novel for this generation, Erskine's story will surely open some minds to the idea that peace is nothing to be ashamed of. A good discussion starter on several levels. (Fiction. 11-14)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171851484
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	05/22/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

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