My One Hundred Adventures
(Libby/OverDrive eAudiobook)

*Starred Review* Jane, 12, longs for adventures, maybe a hundred of them. Not too much happens at the beach where she lives with her younger siblings and  her mother, a poet with a fondness for putting up jam. As the summer slips by, adventures do find Jane but they come with people attached. Her newfound relationship with preacher Nellie leads to a trip in a hot-air balloon and a foray into the world of healings and psychic revelations. Mrs. Parks' thrombosis (or is it bursitis?) and a desire to get to California result in an all-night automobile ride that ends because Mrs. Parks' bottom gets sore. And throughout the summer there's a procession of possible fathers: the free spirit, the poet, the Santa look-alike, the man in a suit who gets tossed in the ocean by a whale. With writing as foamy as waves, as gritty as sand, or as deep as the sea, this book may startle readers with the freedom given the heroine independence that allows her to experience, think about, and come to some hard-won conclusions about life. Sometimes Jane's duped, sometimes she's played; but if hope fades, it returns, and adventure still beckons. Unconventionality is Horvath's stock in trade, but here the high quirkiness quotient rests easily against Jane's inner story with its honest, childlike core.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2008 Booklist

With its introspective mood and measured pace, this quietly captivating novel marks a new course for National Book Award-winner Horvath (The Canning Season). Newly restless with the comfortable cadences of her family's daily routine, Jane, 12, prays for adventures and finds plenty, thanks to the inhabitants of the Massachusetts beach town where she lives. The townspeople's eccentricities are classic Horvath, but this time the protagonist takes charge of her own self-discovery; she becomes the storyteller instead of being the audience. As she comes to realize that "everyone in the whole world is, at the end of a day, staring at a dusky horizon, owner of a day that no one else will ever know," Jane begins to sense what lies behind often flamboyant facades, understanding that the surly woman who has blackmailed Jane into a summer of babysitting can be "touchingly proud" of her waitress uniform; that the town preacher Nellie Phipps is mostly fascinated with herself, despite her talk of spiritual growth; and that a standoffish neighbor can come through in a crisis. A compassionate spirit infuses this luminous tale. Ages 8-12. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Gr 4-7-Twelve-year-old Jane Fielding lives an idyllic life on the Massachusetts shore in Polly Horvath's novel (Schwartz & Wade, 2008). Her mother, a sometimes poet who won a Pulitzer, lovingly creates simple meals from the shore's bounty. Jane longs for some excitement and prays for 100 adventures. Adventure comes in waves and brings all manner of problems. For example, Preacher Nellie launches Jane in a hijacked hot air balloon so the youngster can toss Bibles to those below. Jane fears repercussions when she hits a baby on the head, and the angry mother cons the girl into babysitting her trailer park brood for the summer. A succession of odd men show up at the family's door, some wishing to court Jane's mother, and any one of them could be the youngster's father. Jane is scammed by a fortune teller and her best friend runs away to New York City. The girl's character is gently honed by her adventures, and she comes away with a greater appreciation of home and the people in her life, especially her tender-hearted mother. Tai Alexandra Ricci strikes just the right chord in telling Jane's episodic story, delivering the lyrical language with ease. Listeners will relish this gentle, well-written tale.-Tricia Melgaard, Centennial Middle School, Broken Arrow, OK (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(Intermediate, Middle School) "All our lives are mundane, but all our lives are also poetry." And so it is with Horvath's latest book at its ambiguous, magical best. In the first of Jane Fielding's longed-for adventures, the summer she's twelve, a bony man in a loose suit turns up, stays for dinner, and invites the family to a fair in town. "That was your father," Jane's mother says afterward. Is he? Or does Jane's poet-baker-beachcomber mother think that she and her siblings need a father? In the course of the summer three more strange men turn up: a father for each of them? Meanwhile, Jane's adventures tumble after one another -- a lumpy mix of farce and burlesque. Fat, foolish preacher Nellie Phipps wheedles Jane into distributing Bibles from a hot-air balloon; one of the dropped Bibles allegedly strikes the youngest of the "smelly, runny" Gourd brood; and to prevent Mrs. G. from claiming compensation, Jane agrees to all-day babysitting, every day. Since the Gourds live in a trailer and Mr. G. is a violent drunk, that means taking them hither and yon into further adventures. Some of the farce is genuinely funny, like the competition between two elderly parishioners for the most serious illness, and even the lowly Gourds have their exalted moments. The Gourds are inescapably trailer trash, but Horvath is an equal-opportunity offender: she also caricatures a posturing poet and the culturally naive Ned -- the last and most empathetic of the possible fathers. There isn't the meanness, though, that has sometimes marred Horvath's previous books. And along with a plenitude of mundane, poetic moments, there's a vibrant current of story that doesn't end on the last page.From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Twelve-year-old Jane Fielding's soul itches for adventure. Her life on the Massachusetts shore with her siblings and poet mother is rich with familial love, natural beauty and fresh shellfish, but she still longs to embark into the "know-not-what." Her fervent prayers for adventure are soon answered when a disheveled man shows up for dinner and when, afterwards, her mother casually states, "That was your father," as if to imply that Jane wasn't, as she'd hoped, "conceived in the depths of a moonlit sea." As the scales fall from Jane's eyes, she struggles to make sense of a touchy-feely, "energy"-obsessed preacher, a purse-stealing fortuneteller touting "transparent poodles" (translation: transporting portals), and, most poignantly, a parade of possible fathers. Jane is a lovely blend of hopeful and compassionate, disillusioned and grumpy: "I pour more orange pop moodily into my cup and think about murder-suicides and wonder if they begin with too much food and fun and games." Jane's poetic, philosophical musings capture a child's logic with an adult voice in this witty, wise and wonderful novel. (Fiction. 12 & up) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

*Starred Review* Jane, 12, longs for adventures, maybe a hundred of them. Not too much happens at the beach where she lives with her younger siblings and  her mother, a poet with a fondness for putting up jam. As the summer slips by, adventures do find Jane—but they come with people attached. Her newfound relationship with preacher Nellie leads to a trip in a hot-air balloon and a foray into the world of healings and psychic revelations. Mrs. Parks' thrombosis (or is it bursitis?) and a desire to get to California result in an all-night automobile ride that ends because Mrs. Parks' bottom gets sore. And throughout the summer there's a procession of possible fathers: the free spirit, the poet, the Santa look-alike, the man in a suit who gets tossed in the ocean by a whale. With writing as foamy as waves, as gritty as sand, or as deep as the sea, this book may startle readers with the freedom given the heroine—independence that allows her to experience, think about, and come to some hard-won conclusions about life. Sometimes Jane's duped, sometimes she's played; but if hope fades, it returns, and adventure still beckons. Unconventionality is Horvath's stock in trade, but here the high quirkiness quotient rests easily against Jane's inner story with its honest, childlike core. Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.

With its introspective mood and measured pace, this quietly captivating novel marks a new course for National Book Award–winner Horvath (The Canning Season ). Newly restless with the comfortable cadences of her family's daily routine, Jane, 12, prays for adventures and finds plenty, thanks to the inhabitants of the Massachusetts beach town where she lives. The townspeople's eccentricities are classic Horvath, but this time the protagonist takes charge of her own self-discovery; she becomes the storyteller instead of being the audience. As she comes to realize that "everyone in the whole world is, at the end of a day, staring at a dusky horizon, owner of a day that no one else will ever know," Jane begins to sense what lies behind often flamboyant facades, understanding that the surly woman who has blackmailed Jane into a summer of babysitting can be "touchingly proud" of her waitress uniform; that the town preacher Nellie Phipps is mostly fascinated with herself, despite her talk of spiritual growth; and that a standoffish neighbor can come through in a crisis. A compassionate spirit infuses this luminous tale. Ages 8–12. (Sept.)

Gr 4–7— This is Horvath's most luminescent, beautifully written novel yet. Jane Fielding lives what seems to be an idyllic life with her poet mother and three younger siblings in a house on the beach in coastal Massachusetts, where they gather mussels, pick berries to eat, and lay in the warm tidal pools. But at 12, Jane no longer wants every summer to be exactly the same. She prays for adventures, 100 of them, and gets 14, each of which gives her insights into understanding herself. She delivers Bibles from a hijacked hot-air balloon, is tricked into babysitting for the five messy Gourd children, is fleeced by a fortune-teller, and meets several men who could be her father. Horvath's latest offering certainly has some eccentric, unforgettable characters and some dark humor and irony. Yet the author has significantly mellowed in this quieter work, which will have wider kid-appeal. Indeed, it is Jane's honest, clear voice—that of a young girl on the natural cusp of separating from her family—that drives the story and engages readers. The author is a gifted writer, a word alchemist. She has an eye for exposing the miraculous in the mundane. The book is filled with pithy observations and memorable passages that invite immediate rereading and admiration. This is Horvath at the top of her game, and that's saying something.—Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME