Module 7: As Easy As Falling off the Face of the Earth: Lynne Ray Perkins

Book Summary: 


Ry is on a train to summer camp when he realizes that the camp has been cancelled. He leaves the train briefly to call his grandfather, as there is no signal, and gets stranded without his bags. He hitches by train and loses his boot and ends up in a town in the middle of nowhere, meets Del, who is the hero in the tale. Del, the ultimate optimist, puts down everything to drive Ry home to Wisconsin and then, find that Ry's grandfather is missing, whereupon Ry and Del go on a search for Ry's parents, who are sailing in the Caribbean.


APA Reference: 


Perkins, L. R. (2010). As Easy As Falling off the Face of the Earth. New York : Greenwillow Books.


My Impressions: 


This book is entirely unexpected, and I love it. Some people might think this book is an impossible one to have happen in real life, but I don't believe that, as there are heroes left in the world. In this story, one part that I thought was interesting was that while Del the hero is lying in bed, injured after falling off a windmill, Ry is in the Caribbean sailing Del's friends' boat, without knowing how, crashes it, but finds something much more important in the process.


Professional Review: 


Starred Review* "Sixteen-year-old Ry opens a letter en route to a summer program informing him that camp has been canceled because “a statistically improbable number of things have gone wrong.“ He hops off the train in Montana to figure out what to do, and his own series of improbable misfortunes begins—the train moves on without him (but with all his stuff), leaving him alone with a dying cell phone in the precise middle of nowhere. Oh, and one of his shoes just floated off down a river. He befriends a man named Del, who figures there’s nothing he can’t fix (when it comes to other people’s problems, anyway). They set off on a cross-country road trip to get Ry back home and then, due to any number of minor and major catastrophes, to an island in the Caribbean. Ever-placid Del and milquetoast Ry make for affable traveling companions, but the real pleasure is Perkins’ relentlessly entertaining writing. She dabbles just on the clever side of intruding on the narrative, and she infuses her prose with more personality than many could squeeze out of an entire cast. The knock against her Newbery-winning Criss Cross (2006) was a lack of plot, and although a lot of things happen here, it would be a stretch to call this leisurely novel plot-driven. The point is that it doesn’t matter, and wallowing in the wry humor, small but potent truths, and cheerful implausibility is an absolute delight. Grades 8-11."

Chipman, I. (2010). [Book review of the book As Easy As Falling off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins]. Booklist, 106(16). Retrieved from Children's Literature Database via Ebscohost: http://libproxy.library.unt.edu:2378/cgi-bin/member/search/f?./temp/~9PfJgL:1

Library Uses:

Have the students write a short story of a time when they had to depend on luck to get through. Or, have them write a short story where they are the character... how would it end differently?