From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up - Nineteen-year-old cabbie Ed Kennedy has little in life to be proud of: his dad died of alcoholism, and he and his mom have few prospects for success. He has little to do except share a run-down apartment with his faithful yet smelly dog, drive his taxi, and play cards and drink with his amiable yet similarly washed-up friends. Then, after he stops a bank robbery, Ed begins receiving anonymous messages marked in code on playing cards in the mail, and almost immediately his life begins to swerve off its beaten-down path. Usually the messages instruct him to be at a certain address at a certain time. So with nothing to lose, Ed embarks on a series of missions as random as a toss of dice: sometimes daredevil, sometimes heartwarmingly safe. He rescues a woman from nightly rape by her husband. He brings a congregation to an abandoned parish. The ease with which he achieves results vacillates between facile and dangerous, and Ed's search for meaning drives him to complete every task. But the true driving force behind the novel itself is readers' knowledge that behind every turn looms the unknown presence - either good or evil - of the person or persons sending the messages. Zusak's characters, styling, and conversations are believably unpretentious, well conceived, and appropriately raw. Together, these key elements fuse into an enigmatically dark, almost film-noir atmosphere where unknowingly lost Ed Kennedy stumbles onto a mystery - or series of mysteries - that could very well make or break his life. - Hillias J. Martin, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
*taken from amazon.com*
Book Specs:
Reading level: Young Adult
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers (May 9, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0375836675
ISBN-13: 978-0375836671
The above review casts this as a novel appropriate for 9th grade. I am not entirely sure I am okay with that, I would probably only teach this particular novel in 11th or 12th grade, partially due to the few opening chapters which introduce some language and a few interspersed sexual references. My personal feelings on this book are quite amiable. I enjoyed the book from beginning to end and found myself breezing through the almost 400 pages, just so that I could discover the answer to the mystery. A gripping tale that keeps you turning pages until at last, you find yourself at the back cover.
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