Boys Start the War

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Overview

It's the summer holidays--time for camping, fishing or just lazing, until girls move in next door. That means war, but the girls know how to fight back. Phyllis Reynolds Naylor is the winner of the Newbery Medal.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307514851
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	12/30/2008
Series:	Boy/Girl Battle Series , #1
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	629,254
Lexile:	740L (what's this?)
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor grew up in Anderson, Indiana, and Joliet, Illinois. She loved to make up stories and write little books when she was growing up, and sold her first story when she was 16 for $4.67. Naylor worked as a teacher and an editor before she began to write full-time in 1960. She sold her first book for children in 1965. Her book Shiloh won the Newbery Medal in 1992, and later became part of a quartet of novels.Phyllis Reynolds Naylor lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland with her husband, Rex who is a speech pathologist. They have two grown sons and four grandchildren.

Editorial Reviews

The slapstick, mischief, and trickery in this good-humored story about getting your own back will keep middle grade readers laughing. Furious that the kids in the new family across the river are all girls, the Hartford brothers start a campaign to drive the Malloys out of their West Virginia town. What the boys don't realize is that the girls can give as good as they get. The reversals are both wild and banal: the girls' tricks range from stealing jockey shorts off the line to pretending to be dead; the boys have a great time with Halloween-type monster disguises and with catching the girls in embarrassing moments. The story is told from the point of view of the fourth-grader in each family. They can't help admiring each other's tricks; they even wonder--momentarily--if it might be fun to be friends. Unlike Naylor's books about Alice, the embarrassment here isn't mixed with anguish. Shame is just a spur for gleeful revenge. And they do get revenge. Both sides. Again and again.

Hazel Rochman