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Summary
Summary
Kids vs. parents! An epic treehouse sleepover! An awesome group of friends! An exciting new book from National Book Award finalist Lisa Graff.
Winnie's last day of fourth grade ended with a pretty life-changing surprise. That was the day Winnie's parents got divorced, the day they decided that Winnie would live three days a week with each of them and spend Wednesdays by herself in a treehouse smack between their houses, to divide her time perfectly evenly between them. It was the day Winnie's seed of frustration with her parents was planted, a seed that grew and grew until it felt like it was as big as a tree itself.
By the end of fifth grade, Winnie decides that the only way to change things is to barricade herself in her treehouse until her parents come to their senses--and her friends decide to join her. It's kids versus grown-ups, and no one wants to back down first. But with ten kids in one treehouse, all with their own demands, Winnie discovers that things can get pretty complicated pretty fast! Even if they are having the most epic slumber party ever.
In the newest novel by beloved National Book Award finalist Lisa Graff, kids have turned the tables on their parents, and all the rules have been tossed out the window. But does Winnie have what it takes to hold her ground and keep everyone happy?
This story, with a pitch-perfect middle grade voice and zany yet poignant situation, is perfect for fans of Sharon Creech, Louis Sachar, and Jack Gantos.
Featuring Ariana Delawari as Winnie, alongside a full cast of narrators:
Michael Crouch, as Lyle
Robbie Daymond, as Joey
Lauren Fortgang, as Jolee
Felicia Leicht, as Tabitha
Sunil Malhotra, as Aayush
Kathleen McInerney, as Greta
Cassandra Morris, as Squizzy
Tara Sands, as Brogan and Logan
and also featuring an ensemble cast
Praise for Lisa Graff's novels:
Lost in the Sun
* "Graff writes with stunning insight [and] consistently demonstrates why character-driven novels can live from generation to generation."-- Kirkus Reviews , starred review
* "Weighty matters deftly handled with humor and grace will give this book wide appeal."-- School Library Journal , starred review
* "Characterization is thoughtful."-- BCCB , starred review
Absolutely Almost
* "A perfect book to share with struggling readers."-- Booklist , starred review
* "Achingly superb, Albie's story shines."-- Kirkus Reviews , starred review
* "Graff's...gentle story invokes evergreen themes of coming to appreciate one's strengths (and weaknesses), and stands out for its thoughtful, moving portrait of a boy who learns to keep moving forward, taking on the world at his own speed."-- Publishers Weekly , starred review
A Tangle of Knots
"Lisa Graff has created a beautiful world of deliciously interconnected stories that draw you in."-- Entertainment Weekly , A-
* "Subtle and intricate, rich with humor and insight, this quietly magical adventure delights."-- Kirkus Reviews , starred review
Author Notes
Lisa Graff (lisagraff.com) is the critically acclaimed and award-winning author of Far Away , The Great Treehouse War , A Clatter of Jars, Lost in the Sun , Absolutely Almost , A Tangle of Knots , Double Dog Dare , Sophie Simon Solves Them All , Umbrella Summer , The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower , and The Thing About Georgie. Lisa Graff's books have been named to more than seventy state award lists and have been touted as best books of the year by booksellers, teachers, and librarians. A Tangle of Knots was long-listed for the National Book Award in 2013. Lisa Graff lives with her family just outside of Philadelphia. Follow her on Twitter @LisaGraff.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this appealing faux-memoir, 11-year-old Winnie Malladi-Maraj is caught in a tug-of-war between her divorced parents. Unable to find perfect parity as they compete to spend holidays with their daughter, they embark on a ridiculous rash of one-upmanship, celebrating Flag Day, National Slinky Day, and World UFO Day in outlandish, time-consuming ways that leave Winnie more stressed than impressed. She is in danger of failing fifth grade until a project on local history gives her the idea to declare her epic tree house (which includes a loft, mini-fridge, and zip line) to be on sovereign soil so she won't ever have to come down. When her friends join her, the so-called "Tulip Street Ten" makes national news. Graff (A Clatter of Jars) structures her story as a "collective memoir" that Winnie and her friends put together in hopes of winning a writing contest and avoiding flunking; editorial comments from her friends offering editorial commentary are scattered throughout on sticky notes, along with maps, memos, emails, cartoons, and how-to guides, creating a vibrant patchwork of personalities that gives voice to the power of friendship. Ages 8-12. Agent: Stephen Barbara, Inkwell Management. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Sensible fifth grader Winnie Malladi-Maraj has ridiculous parents. In a shared custody situation, her mother and father are both determined to prove themselves the better parent--more conscientious, more involved, more creative. For example, each is determined to outdo the other in celebrations. Windmill Day, Escargot Day, Lumpy Rug Day--the competitive parents curate snacks and activities to the point where Winnie is so overwhelmed and exhausted that she cant even do her homework. To save herself, she moves full-time into the tree house where shed been living by herself on Wednesdays (also part of the custody agreement, to maximize fairness). Having discovered that the tree was once on the property of a now-defunct European consulate, she further declares herself not on American soil and therefore exempt from parental jurisdiction. Nine classmates with their own family gripes join her. Communal kid-life eventually breaks down, but not before the Treehouse Ten have an extremely good romp. Think zip lines, junk food, and kid power. The narrative is highly textured, a mix of Winnies record of the adventure, Post-it Note commentary from the other kids, texts, doodles, directions for craft projects, maps, and emails between adults. Its a good-natured satire of helicopter parenting and a celebration of child ingenuity, but mostly its all about what fun it is to live in a tree. sarah ellis (c) Copyright 2017. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Since Winnie's parents' divorce, they have organized her weeks in an unusual way. She lives with each one for three days, which they turn into competitively elaborate, frantically fun-filled celebrations of pseudo holidays, leaving little time for homework or meaningful conversation. But where does Winnie live on Wednesdays? In an elaborate tree house (Plumbing? Check. Electricity? Check) supported by a sturdy, historic tree between the parents' two backyards. She treasures those days alone, her only time for doodling, relaxing, and school assignments. When she learns that she's failing fifth grade, Winnie retreats to her leafy loft, and soon she and nine classmates, the Treehouse Ten, refuse to come down until their demands are met. Represented as Winnie's last chance to raise her grades, the main narrative is a history project articulately written from her point of view and interspersed with extras such as comments, comics, and craft ideas from the other kids. Their idiosyncrasies and relationships provide subplots as well as humor. Combining over-the-top storytelling with down-home wisdom, this appealing chapter book is easy to booktalk and fun to read.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2017 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-Winnie's mom and dad are getting divorced. They are extremely competitive, both in their careers and their parenting styles, and splitting time with Winnie is no exception. They insist that their custody agreement be divided right down the middle, with each parent getting the exact same amount of time. Winnie will spend three days at her dad's house and three days at her mom's. That leaves Wednesdays, and since Winnie's parents can't split their daughter in half, they decide to build an amazing tree house between their properties. On Wednesdays, Winnie will live there alone. As her parents' competitiveness ramps up, Winnie finds that her Wednesdays are sacred. They're her only break from the custody craziness. When her time there is threatened, Winnie goes on the offensive and stages a tree house standoff. She's not coming out until her parents see her way of thinking, and nine of her closest friends join her with demands of their own. It's kids vs. parents in epic fashion, and Graff's not-quite-fantasy world is every kid's dream. All of the frustrations young people feel with their parents during a divorce are hilariously hyperbolized in a way that will make children feel vindicated and less alone. The epistolary format allows readers to get to know all of the characters through creative footnotes, sticky notes, newspaper articles, emails, and tiny drawings. VERDICT Graff's whimsical, original work is a breath of fresh air. A strong addition to any middle grade collection.-Mandy Laferriere, Fowler Middle School, Frisco, TX © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Hyperbole reigns supreme!Indian-American Winnie's been suffering mightily since her parents' divorce. Neither one will give an inch, so Winnie's days are precisely divided between the warring, very peculiar adults, with the leftover day, Wednesday, spent in her magnificent treehouse. In trying to outdo each other by overcelebrating every conceivable holiday, Winnie's parents consume all of their daughter's time. She's now in grave danger of failing fifth grade. In desperation, she retreats to her treehouse, refusing to come down. Her nine school friends, depicted on the cover as being of varying races, unexpectedly join her there, each with a (trivial) gripe with parents, their strike resulting in instant fame. Due to a legal technicality, the kids can stay, but that doesn't keep the powerless adults from torturing them with loud music and bright spotlights. The third-person tale is presented from Winnie's perspective, interspersed with recipes, instructions for crafts, and, primarily, her friends' Post-it comments. By the 14th day, Winnie's sleep-deprived friends are splintering apart just like her parents did. With guidance from an insightful uncle she finds her voice and helps them all go home, fulfilling not their demands but what each one really needed. Her wayward parents remain unreachable thoughuntil she realizes that she has to apply her determined persistence and dynamic, assertive voice with them too. Over-the-top but ultimately wise. (Fiction. 9-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
The Last Day of Fourth Grade a year before what happened happened There are a lot of things you should probably know to understand why a bunch of kids decided to climb up a treehouse and not come down. But to really understand it, you'd have to go way back in time, and peek through the living room window of a girl named Winifred Malladi-Maraj, on her last day of fourth grade. Since time travel isn't possible, you'll just have to picture things. So picture this: After walking home from school, Winnie stepped through the front door, with her backpack over her shoulder. Winnie's parents were sitting on the living room couch, with their hands in their laps. They were watching the front door, like they'd been waiting for their daughter for a long time. Winnie pulled off her backpack and dropped it in the doorway. Buttons, who is the world's greatest cat, wove his way between Winnie's legs, like he knew she was about to need snuggling. "Mom?" Winnie said, squinting her eyes at her parents on the couch. "Dad?" She could tell right away that something weird was going on. It's probably important to know that Winnie's parents have never been exactly normal. Like, instead of playing board games after dinner, the way some families did, Winnie's dad--a biologist--might sit her down for a slide show about his latest research on the beneficial properties of bat guano, which only made Winnie wish she'd never eaten dinner at all. Or Winnie's mom--a mathematician--might try to explain her current work on the Conway's thrackle conjecture, which only made Winnie wish she'd never grown ears. (Once, Winnie made the mistake of asking if she and her parents could play Boggle after dinner, and afterward she'd had to sit through a two-hour presentation of all of her parents' many awards and grants--none of which, they informed Winnie, had been won playing Boggle--and a four-hour argument about whether or not Winnie's dad had more awards than Winnie's mom because there were simply more prizes for biologists than there were for mathematicians.) (Winnie never asked about Boggle again.) But finding her parents waiting for her on the couch together seemed especially weird to Winnie. Because, normally, Winnie's parents weren't even home when she got out of school. Normally, Winnie started her homework all by herself and then heated water on the stove exactly at 5:55 p.m., so the pot would be boiling and ready to put pasta in as soon as they got home. (Winnie's parents were very precise about mealtimes.) (They were very precise about a lot of stuff.) Another weird thing Winnie noticed that afternoon was the way her parents were sitting. While she was standing in the doorway with Buttons weaving between her legs, she realized that she hadn't ever seen both of her parents on the same couch before. When they watched television or sat with guests, Winnie's mom usually squished herself against one couch arm, while her dad sat in the recliner on the far side of the room. "What's going on?" Winnie asked. Even Buttons let out a confused mew? "Come sit down," Winnie's mom replied, patting the couch cushion between herself and Winnie's dad. "Yes," Winnie's dad agreed. (That was another weird thing, Winnie noticed. Her parents never agreed.) "Have a seat. We marked a spot for you." And that was the weirdest thing of all. There was a tiny X of masking tape stuck to the center of the middle couch cushion. Her parents, Winnie realized as she stepped closer, had measured out a spot for her, so that she'd be sitting exactly evenly between them--not one millimeter closer to one than the other. But Winnie, who was pretty used to her parents being weird, decided there was nothing to do but sit. Buttons sat, too, hopping right into her lap. "Winifred," her mom said. She cleared her throat. "Your father and I--" "Oh no," Winnie's dad cut in, putting up a hand to stop Winnie's mom. "We agreed I would tell her. You got to tell Winifred about the tooth fairy." Winnie's mom frowned. "I don't see how that's pertinent, Varun. This is an entirely different--" "We discussed this," Winnie's dad argued. "But once again, you're attempting to ruin--" While Winnie's parents argued, Buttons purred a little louder in Winnie's lap, scrunching his head under her hand. Winnie scratched and scratched at Buttons's soft orange fur, while her parents argued and argued. Winnie watched her mom, so angry with her dad. She watched her dad, so furious with her mom. Her parents might have been acting weird, Winnie realized, but the fighting, that was completely normal. And when she realized that, Winnie knew, deep in her gut, precisely why her parents had sat her down on that tiny X of masking tape. "You guys are getting a divorce, aren't you?" she asked them. Her parents stopped fighting at once. They turned, both together, and they stared at her. "That's the thing you were going to tell me, right?" Winnie said. "Yes," Winnie's mom said, putting a hand on Winnie's knee. "But don't worry. We have a very sensible plan for how to divide your time equally between the two of us." Winnie's dad put a hand on Winnie's other knee. "Exactly evenly," he told her. For the next half an hour, Winnie sat precisely between her two parents, with one of their hands on each of her knees, as they explained their very sensible plan for her future. They'd found an unusual street, they told Winnie, a "real gold mine," called Circle Road, just one block over from Winnie's uncle Huck's house. Winnie scratched a little harder at Buttons's neck. Circle Road, Winnie's parents explained, looped around on itself in a tiny circle, so that there was just enough space for two houses. Winnie stroked Buttons's soft belly. Winnie's mom would live in the two-story Colonial on the northernmost end of the circle, and Winnie would stay with her on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Fridays. Winnie caressed the base of Buttons's ears, just the way he liked. Her dad would live on the southernmost side of the street, in the yellow split-level (which might have seemed smaller than Winnie's mom's house, he informed his daughter, but was technically bigger, because of the square footage of the basement). Winnie would stay with him on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Winnie rubbed under Buttons's orange chin. Both houses had sprawling backyards, they went on, which backed up onto each other. Winnie nestled her cheek in the soft fur at the base of Buttons's neck. And at the exact center of Circle Road, her parents said, smack in between the two houses--and definitely not (they'd checked) on either parent's property--was an enormous linden tree, with thick branches that reached in all directions. That's where Winnie would stay on Wednesdays. Winnie must've squeezed Buttons a little too tightly then, because he let out an angry mew! "I'm going to live in a tree ?" Winnie asked her parents. It was the first thing she'd said in thirty minutes. "Don't be ridiculous," her mom said. "You'll be in a treehouse ," her dad clarified. "Your uncle Huck has already agreed to design it." Hearing that made Winnie and Buttons feel a little bit better, because Uncle Huck was both an amazing uncle and a fabulous architect. (He was also the one who'd taught Winnie all about Artist Vision, which was something that would definitely come in handy later.) But still . . . "You really want me to live in a treehouse every Wednesday ?" Winnie asked, glancing from her mom to her dad and back again. "All by myself?" "It's the only way to split things evenly," her dad replied. "Since every week has seven days in it. Seven, you know, is not an even number." "Yes," Winnie's mom said. "We went over and over it. That's the only way it works. Three days with your father, three days with me, and one day on your own. Doesn't that sound like a very sensible plan?" "Um . . . ," Winnie began, glancing from her dad to her mom and back again. Buttons wasn't quite sure how he felt about things, either. "I guess?" she said at last. "I knew you'd think so," her dad said with a smile. "It was my idea, after all." " Your idea?" Winnie's mom cried. "I very much disagree with that statement, Varun." "Oh, do you?" Winnie's dad said. "What a shock, Alexis, that you feel the need to disagree with me." "I'll disagree with you when you take claim to my proposals, Varun." As her parents continued their argument, Winnie scooped up Buttons and headed down the hallway to her room. Neither of her parents seemed to notice that she'd left. Winnie shut the door on their bickering, thinking that perhaps it wouldn't be so bad after all, having one day a week to herself. Excerpted from The Great Treehouse War by Lisa Graff All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
