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    The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester
    The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester
    The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester
    Ebook128 pages1 hour

    The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester

    By Barbara O'Connor

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    An amazing secret has tumbled off a freight train into Carter, Georgia, and Owen Jester is the only person who knows about it. If he can simply manage to evade his grandfather's snappish housekeeper, organize his two best friends, and keep his nosy neighbor, Viola, at bay, he just might be in for the summer of a lifetime. With her trademark wit and easy charm, Barbara O'Connor spins a fantastic fable of friends, enemies, and superbly slimy bullfrogs.

    This title has Common Core connections.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateAug 31, 2010
    ISBN9781429994682
    Author

    Barbara O'Connor

    Barbara O’Connor was born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina. She has written many award-winning books for children, including the New York Times–bestselling Wish, Wonderland, How to Steal a Dog, Greetings from Nowhere, and Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia.

    Read more from Barbara O'connor

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    Reviews for The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester

    3.5/5

    8 ratings8 reviews

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    • 2/5
      I wasn't enamored by this story. I found the story itself to be predictable and it lacked that wow factor. I also found that the characters lacked depth. I also found that the characters acted with disrespect towards one another for much of the book, which I was also not a fan of.
    • 5/5
      I am excited to read this book as a read-aloud to my class this year. We always begin with tall tales and this short chapter book mixes elements of a typical summer childhood with a little bit of whimsy. I think they will really enjoy it! I sure did!
    • 3/5
      Author Barbara O'Connor has a knack for effortlessly conveying the ambience of a southern small town, as well the inner conflicts of a child weighing right and wrong. Owen Jester suspects something has fallen off the night run of the freight train and discovers it is a mini-submarine destined for a resort park in Florida. He and his pals plot and scheme to get it down to the pond, but nosy neighbor girl Viola pricks at his conscience by pointing out it doesn't belong to them. Owen also is debating whether to release the bullfrog he hoped to keep as a pet.
    • 3/5
      Fun story. Not totally unbelievable, and I loved how the geeky girl next door ends up saving the day.
    • 4/5
      Grades 3-6
      Owen Jester, newly moved in with his grandfather after his father lost his job, has just caught the biggest, greenest, slimiest bullfrog in all of Carter, Georgia. He has all sorts of big plans for Tooley Graham. But Tooley's not cooperating. Instead of enjoying the indoor and outdoor frog houses that Owen has designed especially for him, Tooley just sits there. Owen hates to admit it, but his annoying, know-it-all neighbor Viola may be onto something when she says that Tooley just wants to be free. Interwoven with Owen's quandary over what to do about Tooley is the mysterious thud and tumble, tumble, tumble sound that he heard the other night when the train went through. He just knows that something amazing has fallen off the train, and he is determined to comb the woods behind his grandfather's house until he finds it. This story of summertime adventures and friendships in unlikely places has lots of kid appeal.
    • 3/5
      Owen Jester wishes his family hadn't moved to his grandfather's house after his dad lost his job. For one thing, his grandfather's live-in nurse sure knows how to ruin anyone's idea of a good time. And then there's Viola, the girl next door, who can't ever mind her own business. She even thinks Owen should put his freshly captured bullfrog back into the pond. Then late one night, Owen hears a curious noise when the train passes by his grandfather's house. Something mysterious and wonderful has fallen off the train. When Owen finally discovers what it is, he realizes he just might need a know-it-all after all. But can he trust Viola to keep the most fantastic secret to ever tumble into Carter, Georgia?
    • 3/5
      I got a copy of this book through the Amazon Vine program. It looked like a fun little read. It ended up being okay but was a bit simpler and less wondrous than I was hoping for.Owen Jester lives in a house with his parents, grandfather, and housekeeper. No one does much with him and he is left mainly to his own devices; he has two friends he hangs out with and there is a girl who bothers them from time to time. Most of the book is spent dealing with Owen's struggles about whether or not he should keep this magnificent frog he caught or release him. The other parts of the book deal with Owen and his friends trying to find something that fell off of a train in the middle of the night.The story is well-written and paced well enough. It teaches about responsibility, a little about ecology, and about friendship. Honestly I thought it was a bit boring, but a younger reader might find it to be more interesting.Owen's parents aren't really more than place-holders and his friends aren't that well-developed as characters either. The highlights of the story are definitely Owen himself and the girl that shadows Owen and his friends.Overall a simple story that is well written and tells of a boy's summer adventures. An okay read, but nothing very wondrous or fantastic here. I thought it was a bit boring and that the characters were underdeveloped. Younger readers might find the story more intriguing. Personally I would recommend "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" or "The Year Money Grew on Trees", as better stories about middle grade kids spending their summers in interesting ways and learning interesting things.
    • 3/5
      This is a sweet story about a young boy, Owen Jester, trying to deal with the move to his grandfather's house. Two big things happen to him in this story: 1) he catches the world's most beautiful bullfrog and 2) he discovers the mysterious and wonderful thing that fell off the train that runs behind his grandfather's house. How he deals with these two events, make up the course of the book.Let me start by saying that I love Barbara O'Connor's writing. How to Steal a Dog is a book I love and recommend often to my elementary school students. I was not that thrilled with this book, however. The first 7 or 8 chapters were repetitive . . . Owen worried about frog, Owen and friends trying to get rid of know-it-all Viola. While the short chapters and easy reading seem like they should appeal to reluctant readers, not much happens in his book until the last couple of chapters. It's a sweet story but I'm not sure if young boys (who this book seems to be geared toward) will stick with it. Hopefully, I'm wrong.

    Book preview

    The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester - Barbara O'Connor

    CHAPTER ONE

    Owen Jester tiptoed across the gleaming linoleum floor and slipped the frog into the soup.

    It swam gracefully under the potatoes, pushing its froggy legs through the pale yellow broth. It circled the carrots and bumped into the celery and finally settled beside a parsnip, its bulging eyes staring unblinkingly up at Owen.

    See, Tooley? I told you, Owen said. It’s not hot.

    He plucked a carrot out of the soup and popped it into his mouth.

    Still cold.

    Not yet heated up for his grandfather’s supper.

    Owen scurried into the pantry and hunkered down on the floor among the sacks of potatoes and jars of pickled okra and waited for Earlene.

    When he heard the clomp, clomp of her heavy black shoes on the wooden stairs, he slapped a hand over his mouth to stifle a giggle. When he heard the kitchen door swing open, he slapped his other hand over his mouth, his shoulders shaking with a silent laugh. Then he peeked through the crack in the pantry door.

    Earlene stomped over to the stove in that no-nonsense way of hers. She picked up a wooden spoon from the kitchen counter and peered into the pot. Then she placed the spoon back on the counter, stepped away from the stove, jammed both fists into her waist, and said, Owen.

    Her voice had that sharp edge to it that Owen had heard so many times before. He ducked back against the pantry wall and held his breath.

    And then, quick as lightning, the pantry door burst open and Earlene’s hand shot in, grabbed Owen by the collar, and yanked him to his feet.

    Earlene was not a yeller.

    Earlene was a snapper.

    Get that frog out of there, she snapped.

    You think that’s funny? she snapped.

    She gave his collar a shake.

    You are a bad, bad child, she snapped. And I thank my lucky stars every day that you are not mine.

    She gave his collar another shake. And I thank the good Lord up above that your grandfather doesn’t know what’s going on in this house.

    She stomped over to the counter and began arranging pill bottles on a tray. The very idea of that poor sick old man up there in the bed not able to do a thing but sleep and eat applesauce and you down here thinking up ways to make my life miserable.

    Earlene sure knew how to ruin a good time.

    After supper, Owen sat on his closet floor beside the plastic tub where Tooley lived and looked down at the frog. Tooley was the biggest, greenest, slimiest, most beautiful bullfrog ever to be seen in Carter, Georgia.

    It had taken Owen nearly a month to catch him. A month of clomping through mud and scooping with fishnets and buckets and colanders and even a hamster cage. A month of squatting on logs, holding his breath, not moving a muscle, watching that big frog with the heart-shaped red spot between his bulging yellow eyes. A month of telling his friends Travis and Stumpy he was going to catch that frog no matter what.

    And then one day, just last week, he did.

    The right scoop with the right net at the right time.

    He had brought the frog home and made him a perfect frog house in a plastic tub in the closet.

    And he had named him Tooley Graham.

    Tooley after his cousin who lived in Alabama and played in a rock-and-roll band and wore leather bracelets and made everyone mad when he came to Georgia to visit the family at Thanksgiving. (Everyone but Owen, who thought Tooley was cool.)

    And Graham after the big pond where the bullfrog had lived before Owen caught him. Graham Pond.

    Owen poked the frog with his finger. Come on, Tooley, he said. "You gotta eat something."

    But Tooley wouldn’t even look at the dead fly that Owen had dropped into the water in the tub.

    So Owen laid the chicken wire back on top of the tub, put a brick on top of the chicken wire, and flopped onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling. Travis and Stumpy were probably skateboarding over at the Bi-Lo parking lot. Maybe they were throwing rocks at the Quaker State Oil sign out on Highway 11. Or maybe they were thinking up some great new way to torture their dreaded enemy, Viola.

    But Owen was stuck here in his bedroom, thanks to Earlene, who had tattled on him big-time as soon as his mother had gotten home from work. He could tell his mother had thought that soup trick was at least a little bit funny. He had seen the corners of her mouth twitch when Earlene went on and on about what a bad, bad boy he was.

    But his mother had told his father and his father had slammed his fist on the kitchen table and hollered at Owen and now here he was in his bedroom, just him and Tooley.

    Owen wished they had never moved in with his grandfather. He wished they still lived in that little house over on Tupelo Road. Travis had lived next door and Stumpy had lived across the street and life had been good.

    But then the hardware store had closed and his father didn’t have a job, so they had moved across town to live with his grandfather.

    There were three good things and three bad things about living with his

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