Death -- Juvenile fiction |
Schools -- Juvenile fiction |
Ghost stories |
Pennsylvania -- Juvenile fiction. |
Ghost stories -- Juvenile fiction |
Ghosts -- Fiction |
Ghosts -- Juvenile fiction |
Pensilvania |
Staat Pennsylvania |
Štatu Pennsylvanie |
Stanu Pennsylvania |
Stato di Pennsylvania |
Vysomene Valstijos Pennsylvania |
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania |
Ḳommonṿelṭ of Pensilṿeynia |
Pennsylvaani |
Pennsilfaani |
Keystone State |
Quaker State |
ペンシルベニア州 |
Penshirubenia-shū |
ペンシルベニア |
Penshirubenia |
ペンシルヴェイニア州 |
Penshiruveinia-shū |
ペンシルヴェイニア |
Penshiruveinia |
ペンシルヴァニア州 |
Penshiruvania-shū |
ペンシルヴァニア |
Penshiruvania |
פנסילבניה |
Pensilvanyah |
Province of Pennsilvania |
Pennsilvania |
Available:
Library | Shelf Number | Shelf Location | Status |
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Searching... Norton Public Library | YA SPI | YOUNG ADULT FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Ahern MS Media Center Foxboro | FIC SPI | Stacks | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Attleboro Public Library | MR SPINELLI,J | MIDDLE READER | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Carver Public Library | J FIC SPI | CHILDREN FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Dighton Public Library | J SPI | 1:JDIMOD | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... East Bridgewater Public Library | SPI | CHILDREN FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Fall River Main | JFIC SPI | CHILDREN FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Foxboro - Boyden Library | J SPINELLI | CHILDREN FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Hanson Public Library | SPINELLI | YOUTH-FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Holmes Public Library | J SPI | CHILDREN FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... James White Memorial, E. Freetown | J FIC SPI | CHILDREN FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Mansfield Public Library | Y FIC SPINELLI | YOUTH-FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Mattapoisett Free Public Library | JMREAD SPI | MIDDLE READER | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Middleborough Public Library | YA FIC SPI | YOUNG ADULT FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... New Bedford Francis J. Lawler Branch | J FIC SPINELLI | CHILDREN FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... New Bedford Free Public Library | J FIC SPINELLI | CHILDREN FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... New Bedford Howland-Green Branch | J FIC SPINELLI | CHILDREN FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... New Bedford Wilks Branch | J FIC SPINELLI | CHILDREN FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Norfolk Public Library | JF SPIN | CHILDREN FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Pembroke Public Library | YA FIC SPINELLI, J. | YOUNG ADULT FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Rehoboth - Blanding Free PL | YA FIC SPINELLI, J. | YOUNG ADULT FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Somerset Public Library | Y SPINELLI JERRY | CHILDREN FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Swansea Public Library | J SPINELLI, J | CHILDREN FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Wareham Free Library | J SPI | CHILDREN FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Westport Free Public Library | J FIC SPI | CHILDREN FICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Can playing dead bring you back to life? Maybe on Dead Wednesday... On this day the worlds of a shy boy and a gone girl collide, and the connection they make will change them both forever. A brilliant new novel from the Newbery Medal winner and author of the New York Times bestseller Stargirl .
"Jerry Spinelli has created another middle grade masterpiece." - BookPage, starred review
On Dead Wednesday, every eighth grader in Amber Springs is assigned the name and identity of a teenager who died a preventable death in the past year. The kids don black shirts and for the whole day everyone in town pretends they're invisible-as if they weren't even there. The adults think it will make them contemplate their mortality. The kids know it's a free pass to get away with anything.
Worm Tarnauer feels invisible every day. He's perfectly happy being the unnoticed sidekick of his friend Eddie. So he's not expecting Dead Wednesday to feel that different. But he didn't count on being assigned Becca Finch (17, car crash). And he certainly didn't count on Becca showing up to boss him around! Letting this girl into his head is about to change everything.
This is the story of the unexpected, heartbreaking, hilarious, truly epic day when Worm Tarnauer discovers his own life.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5--8--Dead Wednesday is a day filled with school-sponsored invisibility and unsponsored shenanigans. Intended to make eighth graders contemplate their mortality by giving them the name and identity of a teenager who died a preventable death and treating them as invisible, students instead take it as a one-day pass to get away with whatever they want. When Worm is assigned Becca Finch, the ghost of Becca decides to haunt him for the day. His mom keeps sending him urgent, cryptic messages saying he needs to get home or something bad will happen. Why doesn't anyone else have their profile bugging them? What do his mom's messages mean? Why are Becca and Worm together, and what could it mean? Narrator Kirby Heyborne's unique voices bring the engaging, lovable characters to life. His versatile narration keeps pace with the author's writing style of mixing the tongue-in-cheek with the serious. Heyborne changes tones easily and appropriately. The plot is well developed and will make listeners think. Together, the two do a great job of bringing Worm's and Becca's worlds to life. The ethnicity of the characters is unspecified but cued white. VERDICT A great listen for anyone who likes supernatural fantasy, humor, and magical realism. Recommended for most library collections.--Jessica Moody
Publisher's Weekly Review
Robbie "Worm" Tarnauer is excited to participate in Dead Wednesday, when all eighth graders in Amber Springs, Pa., are given a black shirt, assigned the name of a local teenager who died a preventable death, and then ignored for the day--treated as "dead" by the faculty. Though it's intended to be a grim warning, most students see the day as license to goof off. Worm, however, aptly named since he prefers to be "out of sight, underground, watching, listening," is happy for a day of invisibility. But when Worm receives the name "Rebecca Ann Finch" and dons the black shirt, he also gets a surprise: the sudden presence of Becca's ghost. A quirky, charismatic 17-year-old wearing raspberry-colored pajamas, she's guilt-ridden about the pain her death caused and convinced that she's arrived to help Worm take charge of his existence. The more she reveals about her life and death, however, the more Worm wonders if it's Becca who actually needs his assistance. Though Becca's characterization can feel more conceptual than fully fleshed, and the male characters frequently view girls as homogeneous, self-conscious Worm's slow-building affection for lively Becca leads to a bittersweet conclusion that prepares both for the future. Centering meaningful themes of ephemerality, forgiveness, and self-acceptance, Spinelli's (Stargirl) characters--cued white--will undoubtedly dig their way into the hearts of readers who need them most. Ages 10--up. Agent: William Reiss, John Hawkins & Assoc. (Aug.)
Horn Book Review
"Worm" Tarnauer is the sort of middle-school kid who likes to be invisible, "to be out of sight, underground, watching, listening. A spectator" -- until a ghost girl changes all of that. Worm can't wait for Dead Wednesday, when eighth graders are supposed to remember Pennsylvania teenagers who died from preventable accidents, such as wrapping their cars around trees. ("Wrappers," the kids callously call them.) Their faces are on posters in the school, and eighth graders receive their name cards and wear black shirts. The students become "Deaders," and teachers act like they don't see them. But to "freedom-drunk" eighth graders, lack of supervision means raucous behavior, a.k.a. pure bliss. Then the dead girl on Worm's card -- Rebecca Ann Finch, age seventeen -- appears and tells him she is there "to fix him," to show him the life he is missing by being a worm, a middle-school fun junkie, more interested in video games than the real life all around him. Spinelli makes the relationship between a boy and a ghost heartwarming; the life lessons of a dead girl profound; and social commentary astute but not didactic. Dialogue is snappy, and every scene is tight and memorable. Susan Caraway from Spinelli's Stargirl (2000) might see in Becca Finch a kindred spirit. Dean Schneider November/December 2021 p.118(c) Copyright 2021. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
For two teenagers, a small town's annual cautionary ritual becomes both a life- and a death-changing experience. On the second Wednesday in June, every eighth grader in Amber Springs, Pennsylvania, gets a black shirt, the name and picture of a teen killed the previous year through reckless behavior--and the silent treatment from everyone in town. Like many of his classmates, shy, self-conscious Robbie "Worm" Tarnauer has been looking forward to Dead Wed as a day for cutting loose rather than sober reflection…until he finds himself talking to a strange girl or, as she would have it, "spectral maiden," only he can see or touch. Becca Finch is as surprised and confused as Worm, only remembering losing control of her car on an icy slope that past Christmas Eve. But being (or having been, anyway) a more outgoing sort, she sees their encounter as a sign that she's got a mission. What follows, in a long conversational ramble through town and beyond, is a day at once ordinary yet rich in discovery and self-discovery--not just for Worm, but for Becca too, with a climactic twist that leaves both ready, or readier, for whatever may come next. Spinelli shines at setting a tongue-in-cheek tone for a tale with serious underpinnings, and as in Stargirl (2000), readers will be swept into the relationship that develops between this adolescent odd couple. Characters follow a White default. Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli. (Fiction. 12-15) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
It's finally here, the day when the eighth-graders get to be deaders. Yes, they'll each be given the name and photo of a teenager who died that year in a stupidly preventable way--speeding, driving while texting, taking drugs. But the truly excellent parts of this "scare them straight" campaign are the half day of school and behavioral free pass that go with it, because anyone wearing the black shirt signifying their status as dead for the day is soundly ignored by the living. For shy, acne-prone Worm, nothing could be better than sanctioned invisibility. It comes as a surprise, therefore, when Worm's assigned dead teen, Becca Finch, shows up to spend Dead Wednesday with him. No one else can see or hear her or seems to be experiencing this peculiar phenomenon, but Becca is so chatty and in the moment and, well, a girl, that Worm doesn't mind. As the two wander through town getting to know each other and figuring out just what is going on, personal revelations spark without romanticizing the process or losing sight of the circumstance that brought them together. Spinelli writes with wry humor that still makes room for sweetness and a belief in the impossible. A stellar pick for tween collections.