The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg

Title: The View from Saturday

Author: E.L. Konigsburg

Publisher: Atheneum 1996

Genre: YA fiction

Pages: 176

Rating:   5 / 5 stars

Reading Challenges: Young Adult; A to Z -- V; My Years 1996

How I Got It: Library Loan

HOW HAD MRS. OLINSKI CHOSEN her sixth-grade Academic Bowl team? She had a number of answers. But were any of them true? How had she really chosen Noah and Nadia and Ethan and Julian? And why did they make such a good team?It was a surprise to a lot of people when Mrs. Olinski's team won the sixth-grade Academic Bowl contest at Epiphany Middle School. It was an even bigger surprise when they beat the seventh grade and the eighth grade, too. And when they went on to even greater victories, everyone began to ask: How did it happen?It happened at least partly because Noah had been the best man (quite by accident) at the wedding of Ethan's grandmother and Nadia's grandfather. It happened because Nadia discovered that she could not let a lot of baby turtles die. It happened when Ethan could not let Julian face disaster alone. And it happened because Julian valued something important in himself and saw in the other three something he also valued. 

One of my favorite childhood books is E.L. Konigsburg's From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.  Ever since then, I have reread that book every few years.  Yet somehow I never read any of Konigsburg's other books.  I finally picked this one up from the library.

And I'm so glad I did.  I loved this story of four students and their teacher, each on a journey and not even realizing it until the end.  I loved how each section of the story was interlaced with personal recollections from each of the four students.  I could imagine my sixth-grade self right alongside them for every adventure and obstacle.  The book is a quick read, but so dense with material.  This would be the perfect book to read on a rainy day.  If I was teaching middle school langauge arts, this would be on my permanent list of books to discover.  Now I really want to read the rest of Konigburg's material.