The Lottery

by Beth Goobie

Overview

Every student at Saskatoon Collegiate knew that all the most important aspects of school life were controlled by a secret club called Shadow Council.

Each fall, Shadow held a traditional lottery during which a single student's name was drawn. The rest of the student body called the student the lottery winner. But Shadow Council knew better; to them, the winner was the lottery victim. Whatever the label, the fated student became the Council's gofer, delivering messages of doom to selected targets. In response, the student body shunned the lottery winner for the entire year. This year's victim was fifteen-year-old Sally Hanson.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781554697410
Publisher:	Orca Book Publishers
Publication date:	10/01/2002
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
Lexile:	940L (what's this?)
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Beth Goobie grew up in a family in which the appearance of a normal childhood hid many secrets. She moved away to attend university, became a youth residential treatment worker and studied creative writing at the University of Alberta. She is the award-winning author of over twenty novels, including The Pain Eater, The Lottery, the CLA Award-winning Before Wings, and the adult novel The First Principles of Dreaming. Beth makes her home in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Read an Excerpt

The third scroll was dropped onto her binder as she rushed between classes at mid-morning break. The halls were crowded, she hadn't seen anyone of note beside her—the scroll hadn't been there, then suddenly it was...To her left, she spotted an open maintenance closet, full of cleaning solutions and wet mops. Stepping in, she closed the door and fumbled for the light switch. Frantically she tore at the ribbon and the wax seal, not caring if the paper ripped...

As her eyes reluctantly returned to the black message scrawled across the page, the light bulb's electric after-image danced across her retinas, confusing her vision, but the third scroll's contents had already been seared deep into her memory.

Congratulations! You are this year's lottery winner.

Editorial Reviews

Canadian author Goobie (Before Wings) takes Shirley Jackson's classic short story "The Lottery" and transposes it to a YA problem novel; the results are intriguing in spots, but the happy ending lacks the original's impact. While the principal and teachers look the other way, the Shadow Council (aka "S.C.") rules Sally Hanson's high school, targeting other students for exceptionally cruel pranks. Every year, S.C. holds a lottery, and the "winner," delegated as S.C.'s messenger to fresh victims, will be wholly shunned by the student body. The dreaded role falls to Sally, and the attendant trauma and confusion compound Sally's mysterious problems (toward the end of the novel, readers learn that she was in the car with her alcoholic father when he fatally crashed seven years earlier and that she has felt responsible for his death). Playing pivotal parts in this dense drama are Sal's older brother who, along with his best friend, has a dark past history with S.C. (this, too, emerges at the end); a double-amputee fellow clarinetist in the school band; a mysterious classmate who turns out to be autistic; and the chameleon-like S.C. president, who plays first trumpet in the band and asks Sal to help him perform the duet he has composed. Though burdened by heavy-handed symbolism and extraneous detail, the novel raises potentially provocative questions about free choice, self-knowledge and guilt. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Gr 9 Up-Goobie pays homage to two modern American classics by marrying the "winner-as-loser" hook of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery (Dramatic, 1953) with Robert Cormier's secret school cabal of The Chocolate War (Dell, 1993). Sal, 15, is chosen to be shunned by all her classmates at Saskatoon Collegiate. This macabre social scheme functions under the guise of a legitimate school club but is actually orchestrated by the secret Shadow Council to exact personal revenge and demonstrate its power. Goobie's writing can be engaging and convincing, as in the depiction of Sal's temporary "conversion" from innocent victim to willing participant. A major subplot involves Willis, President of Shadow Council and first-chair trumpet player, who secretly befriends third-part clarinetist Sal and practices with her, culminating in a perfectly rendered duet before a stunned and appreciative student body. Unfortunately, a plethora of disparate plot elements keeps the story from flowing credibly. Sal's guilt about the death of her father in a car crash and her relationships with her emotionally absent mother, her caring older brother, a friend whose brother attempts suicide, and another friend who uses a wheelchair since his car accident while high on LSD are elements that never quite gel. Toss in the use of LSD-spiked beer as a weapon of psychological control and unconvincing coincidences, and the important idea that we each play roles as victims and accomplices in countless acts of cruelty gets lost in the muddle.-Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Junior High School, Iowa City, IA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

"One of this year's 'must' purchases...Highly recommended."

CM Magazine