Book 14 The Postcard by Tony Abbott

Summary

Jason does not know much about his father's mother. All he knew was that she was sick and in a wheel chair. When the news came that his grandmother died, Jason's father left to Florida to make arrangements for the funeral and to sell her house. Jason had plans for the summer, but when his mother told him that he would have to go to Florida to help his father, Jason did not want to go. He felt that there was something suspicious going on between his parents, and that his mother was really sending him to keep an eye on his father.

When Jason arrived in St. Petersburg, the first thing that hit him was the heat and humidity. Jason did not like Florida at all. As he was helping his father clean the house, Jason came across an interesting magazine and began to read it. He received a mysterious phone call and found a postcard. Meanwhile, Jason's father met with an accident and had to be hospitalized. While his father was recuperating,

Jason decided to follow the clues and became engrossed in the mystery surrounding his grandmother.

With the help of Dia, Jason found out that his grandmother had a long ago romance with a man that her father did not approve of. Through subterfuge and carefully left clues on postcards, the two were able to communicate. Jason spent his summer finding postcards which led him to hidden typed written pages of a magazine story that never went to print. Jason and Dia had to go to different places around St. Petersburg as indicated by the postcards they found. Each time, they were chased by some old men who were once the hired thugs of Jason's great grandfather. This is a mystery that is action packed.

Impressions

This is a teen mystery that might interest students who like to read about old fashioned mysteries and old time adventures, what the reviewers refer to as a gumshoe detective style story.  I think that some of the events that were written about were not too plausible, and students will probably be able to see through the thin plot right away.  But there are so many people and characters in the story that some students may become confused as to their relationship, one from the other.  

Use in the library

The activity that can be used in the library is to introduce postcards to the students. Show students what postcards really look like and discuss their uses. Students can then make their own postcards with pictures from their city. Each postcard should identify a significant and easily identifiable place in the city. Students can display these postcards on the bulletin board, or use these postcards to describe the picture and why it was chosen. Another use for the postcards is to have the students work in groups and develop a short mystery related to each postcard they created. Have students write clues on each postcard. Then the groups can exchange postcards and see which group solves the mystery first.

Another activity to do with this book is to discuss the mystery itself. Have students identify and list all the clues that Jason found and answer comprehension questions. Which clues pointed Jason to the true mystery of who his grandfather was? How is it that Jason's father did not know? How did Jason feel about Florida after solving the mystery? When Jason's father was in the hospital, what excuse did he give for not visiting? Why did the police insist that Jason call his mother? Why did Jason avoid calling?

Reviews

From Booklist

Abbott, author of Firegirl (2007) and the Droon series, sets no easy task for himself with this book, which contains a mystery within a mystery. Thirteen-year-old Jason is heading to St. Petersburg to help clean out the house of a deceased grandmother whom he’s never met. As soon as he arrives, mystery

meets him. Who are those odd people at the funeral? And what about the strange phone call that leads him to a tinted postcard of a Florida landmark about to be demolished? The postcard points Jason to several old manuscripts that tell the story of his grandparents’ romance. Or do they? Abbott plays with style as he alternates between the contemporary mystery of finding the manuscripts with the manu- scripts themselves, written in a hard-boiled detective style. The result is sometimes too convoluted, but the book is so enticing that readers will go along even when the going is rough. Jason (paired nicely with a neighbor girl as sidekick) is a hero worth rooting for. Kudos, too, to the book’s designer, whose use of old postcards heightens the appeal. Reviewed by Ilene Cooper

From School Library Journal

Retirement mecca St. Petersburg provides the perfect backdrop for Abbot's mystery. Jason,13, flies down to Florida to help his dad settle his grandmother's estate. Worried about his parents' marriage and disgusted with the heat and totally bored, he is intrigued when he finds an old postcard of his grand- mother's. A hotel on it is the same one that appears in a mystery in an old magazine that he also finds

in her house. The stories star someone called Marnie, a name that the funeral director calls Jason's grandmother, Agnes. Jason suspects that it wasn't a slip of the tongue after all, and that the tales really feature his grandmother. A mysterious phone call leads the teen and his new friend Dia to follow a trail of vintage postcards through local landmarks. Abbott's gift: for creating complicated, realistic young

characters is evident in Jason, but he is joined by stock characters from the pages of an old gumshoe mystery. The contrast between Jason's real adolescent angst and the cliched mystery woven throughout makes each element seem richer. The surprise ending to the mystery and the not-so-surprising ending

to Jason's real-life drama are quite satisfying. While less-sophisticated readers might be confused by the scene switches caused by the story-within-a-story format, many will enjoy this novel. Reviewed by Nicki Clausen-Grace, Carillon Elementary School, Oviedo, FL

Resources

Abbott, T. (2008). The postcard. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.

Clausen-Grace, N. (2008, April). [Review of the book The postcard by T. Abbott]. School Library Journal, 54(4), 139. Retrieved from http://www.slj.com/

Cooper, I. (2008, May). [Review of the book The postcard by T. Abbott]. Booklist, 104(17), 48.

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