Young Adult Fiction Coming Of Age
Pluto's Ghost
- Publisher
- Tundra Book Group
- Initial publish date
- Sep 2010
- Category
- Coming of Age, Thrillers & Suspense, Disabilities & Special Needs
- Recommended Age
- 12 to 18
- Recommended Grade
- 7 to 12
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780385665902
- Publish Date
- Sep 2010
- List Price
- $14.95
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
"Murderer. It's one kick in the belly of a word isn't it? Has a taste, too. It tastes like barbed wire and has wild hyena eyes. Murderer. Murder-her. Did he? Did I? That's when I remember what I want to forget."
Jake Upshore has loved Skye Derucci since before he can remember. Volatile, complex and frustrated (he's got a label disorder from all the labels he's been given) at the best of times, Jake's on a desperate quest to find Skye before she aborts the baby he believes is his. As he hurtles headlong toward certain tragedy, Jake relives the fatal choices he's made and the powerful forces that have led him to this to end. A gripping thriller and a heart-wrenching love story, Pluto's Ghost is a raw and powerful novel about anger, escape, and redemptive love.
About the author
Sheree Fitch's first two books, Toes in My Nose (1987) and Sleeping Dragons All Around (1989), launched her career as a poet, rhymster, and a “kind of Canadian female Dr. Seuss.” Fitch has won almost every major award for Canadian childrenÕs literature since then, including the 2000 Vicky Metcalf Award for a Body of Work Inspirational to Canadian Children. She has over twenty-five books to her credit, including her bestselling and critically praised adult novel, Kiss the Joy as it Flies (2008). Fitch's home base is the East Coast of Canada.
Visit her at: shereefitch.com
Excerpt: Pluto's Ghost (by (author) Sheree Fitch)
a
Skye Derucci and her mother, Ruth, disappeared on a Tuesday night in March. A nasty spit of a night. Snottin’ weather we say here in Poplar Hills—that frozen, phlegmy mix of sleet and snow. Not very pleasant and not exactly the kind of night to hit the road unless you had one good goddam of a reason. So to give you a time line, approximately forty-eight hours later I was arrested in Halifax and freaking out in that cop car. That night was months back and then some but seems more like an hour ago. Time’s a slippery slide of an idea anyways and how do you tell time when you feel you’ve gone underground, when you’ve been swallowed and sucked right under by some monster sinkhole? Answer me that.
Everything that’s happened is because of Skye. I’m not blaming. I’m just saying. I’m telling this tale because of Skye and everything I did those two days was because of Skye and the only reason I was starting to think my pathetic life wasn’t such a crock a shit after all was because of Skye. Maybe, when you hear me out, you’ll come to understand I’m guilty of only one thing for sure—losing my way because of Skye. Loving her way too much. I’ll own up to that from the get go.
I know how it looked. I do. I know that when I went after her, I looked like some storybook monster on a jeezlus rampage but I had my reasons and I sure as hell didn’t intend to hurt anyone. Especially Skye. My girl. My girl. Mine. Skye.
Did you ever read a poem by that e.e. cummings poet dude? The poem I’m talking about’s got lines in it that go something like you are whatever the sun blah blah blah blah and the moon, too? Well that poem pretty much says it all. Except for one other pretty significant factor: I fell in love with Skye Derucci the same year my mother died.
I was five. Yeah. I’d like to say it ain’t so, about my mother I mean, but it is so the truth and maybe that’s why ever since then, love and death fit together like interlocking pieces in a never-ending puzzle called my life. If you think a five-year-old boy can’t fall in love then you don’t know squat. At least you don’t know what I know about how little kids feel.
Best as I can describe it, love feels like in the summer when I’m outside mucking in the dirt and it’s one of those days so blue and yellow and lime green you got to wear shades or you’ll be blinded by all that jeezly light.
That’s how it is—that’s what love feels like whether you’re five or fifteen or maybe even eighty-five-who knows? My point is, I fell head over heels with Skye Derucci in kindergarten.
I’m eighteen now, so you might even say I’ve been crazy about her since before I can even remember.
Skye. Moon. Sun. Stars. My universe.
Editorial Reviews
Praise for The Gravesavers:
"Although Sheree Fitch is a prolific and prizewinning author of children's books, The Gravesavers is her first novel. On the strength of this debut, it's fair to say that she's found another medium in which she excels....[A] thoroughly satisfying experience for readers."
— The Globe and Mail
"The Gravesavers is a humorous and heartfelt look into a devastating time in a young girl's life. Fitch has truly captured the angst and curiosity inherent in the nature of any young person...It is a pleasure to read a book with a real story with real people that I feel comfortable letting my children read."
— The Edmonton Journal
Librarian Reviews
Pluto’s Ghost
As far as most people are concerned Jake Upshore is a hopeless, violent troublemaker. Skye Derucci knows another side of Jake, though, and has been able to break through his tough exterior. But their love must remain hidden from a town’s harsh judgements and Skye’s extremely strict father. When Skye disappears Jake frantically sets out to find her but ends up in jail with the odds stacked against him.Source: The Canadian Children’s Book Centre. Best Books for Kids & Teens. 2011.
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Whispers of Mermaids and Wonderful Things
Atlantic Canadian Poetry and Verse for Children
Kisses Kisses, Baby-O!
Trilingual Edition
