Kaleidoscope Eyes
by Jen Bryant
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jen BryantEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-05-12
ISBN: 0375840486
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Book Reviews of Kaleidoscope Eyes
Book Review: Kaleidoscope Eyes: An Amazing Novel in Verse
Summary: 5 Stars
Kaleidoscope Eyes by Jen Bryant is the second novel in verse I've read in the past week. I was trying to explain to my daughter, who was quite interested in the layout as she was paging through it, how very interesting these books are. While it may seem easier to compose a story with so few words, my thoughts after reading Three Rivers Rising by Jame Richards just a few days ago and Kaleidoscope Eyes by Jen Bryant today, is that writing a story with so few words may actually be more difficult. Each phrase conveys so much. Writing up a short summary of these books has left me feeling as though I cannot clearly communicate the many facets of either story adequately.
Kaleidoscope Eyes is set during the Vietnam War.
The cast of characters includes:
Lyza, who is a teenager coping with her mother's absence, trying to grow up. Her grandfather passes away, leaving an envelope only for her. The information in the envelope leads her and her friends on the hunt for a buried treasure that Captain Kidd, a pirate, buried near her New Jersey town.
Denise - Lyza's sister, is busy dating Hairy Harry, a long-haired war protester, and listening to Janice Joplin. The sisters are often at odds, and Denise is truly a vision of sixties pop culture.
Their father is a professor at a local college, working long hours to repay the debts their mother accumulated before deserting her family. While he is against the war, he is quiet about his feelings in order to keep his job.
Malcolm, Lyza's good friend, is an African American male, whose brother, Dexter, gets drafted to go to war. Both acknowledge that his race may put him where the worst fighting is taking place. The issue of race are evident when Malcolm cannot find a job because he is black and he has never been seated at the restaurant where Denise works.
Carolann, Lyza's best girlfriend is instrumental to the location of Captain Kidd's treasure as is Malcolm.
Bryant does an amazing job of weaving in the feelings present in the sixties - the fear and anger about Vietnam, the sadness of those who fought in Vietnam and returned changed forever, the way in which music and entertainers influenced the teens of this decade. Even Bryant's title, Kaleidoscope Eyes, originates from the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
This book was fabulous and I will highly recommend this for teen readers.
Summary of Kaleidoscope Eyes
Will Lyza?s 1968 summer mystery lead to . . . pirate treasure?When Lyza helps her dad clean out her late grandfather?s house, a mysterious surprise brightens the sad task. In Gramps?s dusty attic, Lyza discovers three maps, carefully folded and stacked, bound by a single rubber band. On top, an envelope says ?For Lyza ONLY.? What could this possibly be? It takes the help of her two best friends, Malcolm and Carolann, to figure out that the maps reveal three possible spots in their own New Jersey town where Captain Kidd (the Captain Kidd, seventeenth-century pirate) may have buried a treasure. Can three thirteen-year-olds actually conduct a secret treasure hunt? And what will they find?
In a tale inspired by a true story of buried treasure, Jen Bryant weaves an emotional and suspenseful novel in poems, all set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War during a pivotal year in U.S. history.
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