Beethoven in Paradise

by Barbara O'Connor

Overview

Set in a trailer park called Paradise

"You're just wasting your God-given talents if you don't get yourself something besides a little ole harmonica to play." Wylene made it sound so easy. Martin had always like music -- liked to listen to it, liked to make up tunes in his head. But all he had to do was say the word "piano" to his father and all hell would break loose. His father thought music was for sissies, and was always mad at Martin for not being good at baseball. But with a lot of help from his friends Wylene and Sybil and his grandmother, Hazeline, Martin learns that, although he can't change his father, he can learn to stick up for himself. With humor, pathos, and a colorful cast of offbeat characters, Barbara O'Connor shows that there's room for genius wherever there's a place for compassion-- even in Paradise.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466809949
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	09/10/1999
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	166 KB
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

About the Author

Barbara O'Connor is the author of numerous acclaimed books for children, including Me and Rupert Goody, Greetings from Nowhere and How to Steal a Dog. She has been awarded the Parents' Choice Gold and Silver Awards, the Massachusetts Book Award, and the Dolly Gray Award, among many honors. As a child, she loved dogs, salamanders, tap dancing, school, and even homework. Her favorite days were when the bookmobile came to town. She was born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina, and now lives in Duxbury, Massachusetts, a historic seaside village not far from Plymouth Rock.

Barbara O’Connor was born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina. She has written many award-winning books for children, including the New York Times–bestselling Wish, Wonderland, How to Steal a Dog, Greetings from Nowhere, and Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia.

Editorial Reviews

Martin, a 12-year-old musician, covets a violin in a pawnshop. "Quirky characters populate this promising first novel set in a South Carolina trailer park," said PW. Ages 10-13. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 5-8Martin, almost 13, is musically talented and lives in a trailer park called Paradise. His macho father thinks that music is for wimps and that real boys play baseball, which Martin hates. Actually, when the story begins, Martin is something of a wimp, afraid to stand up to his father and assert himself. But as his love for music grows and as he finds allies in unexpected places, he discovers the inner resources he needs to get started on his own path. Sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant, this very Southern novel is laden with local color and eccentric characters. O'Connor's use of specific detailsthe old Studebakers, the Little Debbies, the bacon grease everywhereseems a bit heavy-handed at first, but the author's skillful characterizations and graceful writing style save the day. Readers really get under Martin's skin, making his gradual transformation both realistic and gratifying. Like life, many of the problems here don't have easy answersand, like life, things don't always go the way one might expect them to. The theme of finding oneself despite misunderstanding parents will attract middle school kids. An intriguing first novel from a writer to watch.Lauralyn Persson, Wilmette Public Library, IL

School Library Journal

For every child who was ever forced to play sports, a kindred spirit: Martin, 12, the funny, angst-ridden, musically talented hero of O'Connor's first novel. "Paradise" is the name of the South Carolina trailer park where Martin lives with his long- suffering mother, sadistic father, and a peanut gallery of eccentric characters: ultra-shy Wylene, a handkerchief-factory worker who is Martin's closest friend and fellow music-lover; the scrawny, chain-smoking Hazeline, who wants her beloved grandson to stand up to his self-centered father, Ed, who believes that music is for sissies. Ed bullies the boy for daydreaming and pressures him to play on the Little League team, but he can't smother Martin's interest in a violin that he spies in a secondhand store. Wylene's purchase of the violin enables Martin to demonstrate his real talent and to experience genuine happiness; its destruction, in Ed's hands, induces Martin to take his first steps toward his destiny. Readers will relish this trip down South, and they couldn't ask for a better guide than O'Connor, who captures a young boy's heart and holds it out as a gift.

Kirkus Reviews

Martin. . .is musically talented and lives in a trailer park called Paradise. His macho father thinks that music is for wimps and that real boys play baseball.” —School Library Journal

“For every child who never wanted to play sports, a kindred spirit. . .Captures a young boy's heart and holds it out as a gift.” —Pointer, Kirkus Reviews

“Quirky characters populate this promising…first novel….” —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher