This Journal Belongs To Ratchet

J. Cavanaugh, Nancy. This Journal Belongs To Ratchet. (Illinois: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky). 978-1-4022-8106-8.

This Journal Belongs to Ratchet

Ratchet, whose real name is Rachel, hates to move. Every year or so she and her father move to a house called a “handyman special”, because her dad is a mechanic, and Ratchet helps fix cars with him. This means that they buy a house cheap, then fix it up by the end of the year and move again. This also means that she never gets a chance to make a friend, partly because she is home-schooled. So when this year they move again, Ratchet has to change something. She buys a new writing notebook, unlike the ones she usually has, scrounged from some yard sale.

     A boy named Hunter and his gang are always making fun of her but when they want to make go-carts for the go-cart race, Ratchet and her dad have to help the boys make their go-carts. Hunter starts being less of a beast and when the other boys make fun of her he stands up for her. Soon they are friends. She helps him remember how to build an engine and remember the names of the tools, because if the boys that Ratchets dad is teaching don’t pass the test that he has made for them, they won’t be able to participate in the go-cart race. And if the tree park gets torn down against Ratchet’s and her dad’s will, there will be no go-cart race. When Ratchet’s essay on why the tree park should be saved gets entered in the newspaper’s essay contest and she is the winner, will the tree park be saved?

     I recommend this book to anyone who loves a good story with a touch of sadness and mystery.

Walk Two Moons

Of Lunatics and Kidnappers

         Salamanca, or Sal for short, misses her mother a lot. Her mother went on a trip to find her true self, but got killed in a bus accident before she arrived home. Now Sal's father has sold their farm and has “temporarily” moved to the city to date another woman, Mrs. Cadaver. Sal befriends the worrywart Phoebe, who always fears the worst to happen. But when Phoebe’s mother disappears and changes from sensible to flirtatious, Phoebe thinks the worst has happened. Sal tells Phoebe’s story to her grandparents while they drive the route that her mother took when she went to find her true self, of lunatics and kidnappers, of frozen dinners and mysterious notes, of old Mrs. Partridge and cholesterol. But Sal has two stories going on at once, the car trip story, and the story of Phoebe. Listen to the stories, laughing at the funny parts and crying at the sad parts. I recommend this book to people who love a book with a surprise ending.

Creech, Sharon. Walk Two Moons. (New York:HarperTrophy), 1994. 280, 978-0-06-440517-1