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Ellis, Sarah.
THE SEVERAL LIVES OF ORPHAN JACK
Toronto : Douglas & McIntyre, 2003.
IL 3-6, RL 5.2
ISBN 0888995296

(2 booktalks)

Booktalk #1

Ordinaryjack was a master at avoiding punishment.  Life was tough at the Opportunities School for Orphans and Foundlings.  Beatings and strict teachers and never enough food.  But now Ordinaryjack is to be apprenticed to a bookkeeper.  He is elated!  He loves books and words and the tought of keeping books is more than he could have hoped for.  But he soon finds that being a bookkeeper is not what he thinks.  He cannot stand the thought of adding numbers all day, every day for the next seven years.  So he does the only thing he can think of.  He runs away.  He takes his only decent clothes, some food and his precious dictionary and sets off.  Will his new life be better than the old one?  Is there a place in the world for an enterprising boy who has whims, concepts, plans, opinions, notions and fancies to spare?

Booktalk #2

Jack has had a tough life at the Opportunities School for Orphans.  When Jack turns twelve he is apprenticed as a bookkeeper.  Jack is overjoyed at the prospect of taking care of books and leaves the orphanage with high hopes.  He brings with him his prized possession; an old dictionary with the entire "B" section missing.  Unfortunately, Jack soon discovers that "bookkeeping" is really about adding numbers and keeping ledgers.  Jack leaves the bookkeeping life behind and sets out for an adventure on the road.  In the market town of Aberbog, Jack prospers selling whims, fancies, opinions and ideas.  How successful is Jack in this new line of work?  Read The Several Lives of Orphan Jack.   (New Hampshire Great Stone Face Committee, 2004-05)

SUBJECTS:     Orphans -- Fiction.
                        Schools -- Fiction.

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