The Cookcamp: 06/22/06

One of my favorite contemporary authors of juvenile fiction is Gary Paulsen. My most recent read by him is The Cookcamp, a book that I devoured in a couple of hours on Tuesday night.

Here is my BookCrossing review:

Excellent book! As with the other Paulsen books I've read, this story weaves together the adventure of living at a construction camp with the bittersweetness of being without family and the loss of loved ones. In this story a young boy (probably between the ages of 4 and 6) lives with his grandmother near the close of WWII while his mother settles some personal affairs. Throughout the boy must balance the excitement of living somewhere new with homesickness he is feeling. Meanwhile the grandmother must come to terms with her sense of loss for lost siblings and lost children as she watches her grandson grow.

I ended up rating the book a ten out of ten stars.

For books like The Cookcamp that I thoroughly enjoyed and that perhaps touched me in some sort of emotional way, I want to make sure the book travels to someone else who wants to read it or may take something extra away from reading it. One way I can do this is by RABCKing the book (a random act of BookCrossing Kindness, taken from the Danny Wallace Book, Practice Random Acts of Kindess) to another BookCrosser who has wished for it. In this case, I found only one person who had requested The Cookcamp so I sent a PM and received a lovely response. I won't go into the details of it beyond saying that she was very happy to receive the book and had been going through some tough times. I feel like the book has used me to find the person who needs it most.

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