Takeoffs and Landings: Amazon.ca: Margaret Peterson Haddix, Greg Stadnyk: Books

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CDN $7.99

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Hardcover, Sep 1 2001

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Book Description

Publication Date: Sep 1 2001

"I read someplace that takeoffs and landings are the most dangerous part...."

After Chuck and Lori's father died in a tractor accident, their mother unexpectedly found a career as a motivational speaker. Since then, Mom has spent most of her time flying across the country for speaking engagements, leaving Chuck and Lori behind with their three younger siblings on their grandparents' Ohio farm.

Eight years after the accident, Chuck and Lori barely know their mother anymore, much less themselves: Chuck is perpetually self-conscious and awkward, while Lori can barely hide her resentment of her mother's absence. Now Mom is going on another speaking tour. But this trip is different: Chuck and Lori are coming with her.

As soon as their first plane takes off, Chuck and Lori start the painful process of reconnecting with Mom. Through an emotional two weeks of flying around the country, the taboo subject of Dad's accident is finally broached, and all three begin to understand themselves and one another in ways that they had not expected. By the final landing back in Ohio, it is clear that none of them will ever be the same.

Award-winning author Margaret Peterson Haddix delivers another tour de force in which the examination of a family in turmoil resonates with truth. Takeoffs and landings may be the most dangerous parts of a trip, but as Mom says, they can also be the best.

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"I read someplace that takeoffs and landings are the most dangerous part...."

Product Details

Hardcover: 208 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing (Sep 1 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0689832990
ISBN-13: 978-0689832994
Product Dimensions: 22 x 14.4 x 2 cm
Shipping Weight: 376 g

Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Despite an intriguing premise and format, Haddix's (Among the Imposters, reviewed June 11) novel may well stretch readers' credibility when years of problems are resolved in one brief summer trip. Siblings 15-year-old Chuck and 14-year-old Lori Lawson go on their first plane ride to join their motivational-speaker mother on a two-week five-city tour, and the teens end up learning about a lot more than fancy hotels and airports. Through Lori and Chuck's alternating perspectives (their mom breaks in occasionally to offer her point of view), readers discover just how angry the seemingly perfect Lori is towards her almost always absent mother and about overweight and clumsy Chuck's self-loathing they even learn why their mother won't talk about their father's death eight years ago. Haddix credibly maps out the Lawsons' dynamics and fills in some interesting details about growing up in agricultural Pickford County (in their chapters, Lori and Chuck discuss 4-H club and taking pigs to slaughter) but the three characters' chapters rotate so quickly that readers rarely get to settle into any one story line. The characters experience dramatic breakthroughs at the conclusion, each unearthing buried secrets from within themselves. But the revelations come too quickly and undermine the authenticity of the previous chapters. Ages 12-up.

From School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-A family struggling with guilt and loss learns that repressing feelings can be harmful. Fourteen-year-old Lori Lawson is popular, deeply fearful of appearing "different," and has a narrow view of the world; in short, she's a fairly typical teen. Her 15-year-old brother Chuck is overweight, insecure, and the object of derision in their rural home town. Their mother is a successful motivational speaker who tries to repair her failing relationship with her oldest children by taking them on a lecture tour. Finally, they talk to one another about their feelings and misplaced guilt about the death of the teens' father many years earlier. Lori ultimately learns to be kinder to those she loves while Chuck finds salvation in art, gaining self-confidence and purpose. Their mother realizes she needs to share information about their father with her children. The novel's structure is interesting, alternating between third-person perspectives of Lori and Chuck interspersed with their mother's motivational speeches and her true feelings of powerlessness. The narrative voices are individually distinct and ring true for all three characters, none of whom is entirely blameless in the degeneration of their relationships. Haddix employs some effective imagery (Lori describes the three of them as "an island of silence"). Young teens will enjoy the generally melodramatic tone, finding satisfaction in the revelations that occur at the end.

B. Allison Gray, South Country Library, Bellport, NY

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Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars PRETTY GOOD BOOK April 29 2003

By jodi palmer

Format:Hardcover

Imagine yourself being a perfect person with great grades, being pretty, and having lots of friends. Then, once you reach the big city and you know no one, your life turns around. Everyone gives you funny looks, your scared people will make fun of you, and it doesn't matter who you are or what you look like anymore.
Well, that is how it is like for Lori and her brother Chuck in this fiction novel called Takeoffs and Landings by Margaret Peterson Haddix.
In this story, Lori and Chuck don't see their mother that much ever since their father was killed on the farm. While their mom is out working, they live on a farm in a little place called Pickford County in Ohio. Lori and Chuck's mother invited them on a trip, which changes everyone's lives. As they travel to all of the big cities around the country, Lori finds out that she barely knows her mother. Lori thought she was the perfect girl until the trip, Chuck knew he was the kid everyone picked on and their mother was a mom that never saw her kids. While on the trip, the family fights constantly and they all learn things they never knew before.
Takeoffs and Landings shows many reasons why your whole life can change in a moments time. For instance, when Lori sneaked out in the streets of Atlanta on her own, her life changed instantly. She went from being well known and the prettiest girl in a little city to being alone and not so pretty in the big city. She was bumped every where she went, and no one said anything to her. She felt lost and very lonely. Will she find her way back and learn a different way to live life?
If you want to read an interesting book for teenagers that has great problems and conflicts of teen life's and shows a lot of courage and love, then you should read Takeoffs and Landings by Margaret Peterson Haddix.

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5.0 out of 5 stars A reader April 13 2003

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

This book was inspirational. It was a very enjoyable read. It was a privilage to see the development in each character and the relationships they have with each other. Beautifully composed, with a twist that stays true to the rest of the book.

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1.0 out of 5 stars Takeoffs and Landings Mar 10 2003

By "shadowgirlca"

Format:Hardcover

Takeoffs and Landings was a boring and monotonous novel, with uninteresting (and what seemed to be unimportant) dialogue and scenes. I found myself listlessly reading pages, and not even remembering what it was I had just read. The plot seemed too cliche-with a fat, made fun of brother, and the beautiful, popular sister uniting in their past. There were flashbacks to their history that seemed to have no importance to the present or future. I do not recomend this book for people that like a good or interesting read, or are advanced readers.

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