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    William S. and the Great Escape
    William S. and the Great Escape
    William S. and the Great Escape
    Audiobook5 hours

    William S. and the Great Escape

    Written by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

    Narrated by James Colby

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Edgar nominee Zilpha Keatley Snyder is a three-time Newbery Honor winner, and her book The Unseen was named as both a School Library Journal Best Book and Parents' Choice Silver Honor Winner. In William S. and the Great Escape, Snyder pens a middle-grade adventure sure to be ranked with her very best.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateDec 4, 2009
    ISBN9781440774294
    Author

    Zilpha Keatley Snyder

    Zilpha Keatley Snyder is the author of The Egypt Game, The Headless Cupid, and The Witches of Worm, all Newbery Honor Books. Her most recent books include The Treasures of Weatherby, The Bronze Pen, William S. and the Great Escape, and William’s Midsummer Dreams. She lives in Mill Valley, California. Visit her at ZKSnyder.com.

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    Reviews for William S. and the Great Escape

    3.5/5

    20 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      The author has done a wonderful job of creating a sense of compassion and fear for the characters of this book. After a long struggle as the younger children of the broken, penniless, abusive, and careless Baggett family look for a way out. Just 100 miles away there is someone who loves them, someone who provides hope. This is their struggle and journey to find a way to keep the hope and save themselves from a life of misery and terror. This is nn excellent read that makes its point, but without the gruesome descriptions of abuse and squalor. The hero of the story dives into The Tempest and other Shakespearean works to describe his emotional state, and the underlying theme of the story. This book provides an excellent resource for teachers to introduce young children to the works of Shakespeare.
    • 4/5
      It is August 1938 and, despite the Great Depression gripping the country, William cannot tell that anything has changed for the Baggett family. His father and stepmother depend on government handouts to feed their large family just like they always have; he still has to avoid attracting the attention of his older half-brothers who delight in tormenting him; and he will never understand how his mother could have ever married "Big Ed," his father, in the first place. William, who is twelve years old, has been planning to run away from the Baggetts for a long time and he hopes to save enough money in the next few months to make that happen. His plans change, though, when his younger sister Jancy suffers a loss at the hands of the older Baggetts and convinces William that now is time for the four youngest Baggetts to make their escape. One morning before daybreak, William, his two younger sisters, and four-year-old Buddy sneak away to walk the five miles to town where they hope to catch a bus to their Aunt's house - some 65 miles up the road. If it were that easy, of course, William S. and his siblings would not have experienced much of a "great escape." Even before they make it to town things get shaky, but the young Baggetts are offered temporary shelter by Clarice, a little girl whose dog discovers them walking down the street. William's biggest problem while hiding out with Clarice's help is how to keep the two youngest Baggett kids from bouncing off the walls from boredom, a predicament he handles by performing Shakespeare's The Tempest for them. William and Jancy, despite the odds against them getting there, are determined to make it to their Aunt and, when they do, they find they may have completed only what will be the first leg of a longer journey. "William S. and the Great Escape" will, I think, be enjoyed by children from about 10 to 13 years of age. Children of that age are generally already familiar with classic tales about stepchildren being abused or ignored by parents who favor their own older children, so they should be sympathetic to the plight of the youngest Baggetts. They will also thrill to the dangers and close calls the children face as they try to outwit the adult world. The author, though, in her zeal to promote the works of William Shakespeare to her young audience, may have overdone it to such a degree that some of those young readers resort to skimming whole chapters of the book in order to get back to "the good parts." I passed "William S. and the Great Escape" on to my 10-year-old granddaughter yesterday and I look forward to hearing what she thinks of it. I suspect that, since she is part of the book's target audience, she might see it very differently from the way I did. Rated at: 3.5
    • 4/5
      William S. Baggett has no choice but to plan his escape- he is too small, too nice, and too talented to survive in the Baggett household. That said, his escape plans are a distant dream, brought sharply into focus by his sister's determination to escape (with their younger siblings) from an increasingly abusive situation. The tale of the preparation and the escape make for a great adventure-read for children. This is a wonderful book with a great retro-feel; the Depression-era tale resonates with authenticity. The quirky storyline and interesting cast of characters kept this adult reader involved; I'm sure younger readers would be equally engrossed. On the other hand, there are darker themes that are touched on here so parents should be ready to discuss the issues of child abuse, welfare fraud, bullying and violence as they arise. All in all an excellent read!
    • 3/5
      William S. Baggett is planning to run away . . . when he's older. Since their mother died, life has been miserable with an abusive father, uncaring stepmother and mean older brothers. But when his sister Jancy's guinea pig is flushed down the toilet, the two decide they can't stay to be tormented by their older siblings any longer. They escape along with a younger sister and brother and head to their aunt's house. They are forced to take a brief detour with a rich girl who admired William's rendition of Ariel in Shakespeare's The Tempest and talks them into hiding out at her house for several days. They eventually make it to their aunt's house but trouble follows them . . . The author is a three time Newbery winner so obviously she knows how to write. The main characters are endearing and the story arc satisfying -- however, I did have a few problems with this book. - This is supposedly set in the late 1930's -- but the only way the reader knows that is because it says on the first page that it is 1938 -- and the depression is mentioned once. Other than that, the language and lifestyles, activities and food are exactly the same as today. They ride on a Greyhound bus . . . does it look like the buses we have now. There are cars driving all over . . . do they look different. Expressions like "lame brain" are used. Did they really say that back then? If this is supposed to be 1930, we should know that and feel that and learn about that time period . . . the author telling us should not be the only clue. - There was way too much backstory and "telling". The first 3 chapters were all telling us about stuff that already happened -- and the same thing happened at the end. It made for rather boring reading -- I want to be in the story and experiencing it along with the characters. - In the middle of the book, we were in the present story which was great but there are so many scenes of William acting out Shakespeare's play and while I appreciate the effort to introduce children to Shakespeare, again it made for dull reading. - The book seems to be written for young children but toward the end, there is some really violent stuff with William getting beaten senseless and the younger sisters being forced to watch. This seemed really disturbing and didn't match the lighter tone of the rest of the book. Overall, this book seemed to have a lot of promise but the book read more like a first draft too me -- with some of the dull parts omitted, the backstory turned into present, more details about the time period and more action, this would have been a 5 star book.