Don't Shoot!: Chase R.'s Top Ten Reasons Not to Move to the Country

By Michael J. Rosen

Book Overview

"This is a rich and provocative story." -- School Library Journal

Fourteen-year-old Chase Riley has just moved with his parents from Columbus, Ohio, to a farmhouse in the country, but it may as well be on another planet. For starters, there's a plague of cicadas, but that's nothing compared to the awesome appearance of deer in the woods -- or strapped to hunters' cars. Chase seeks refuge at his computer, blasting off droll commentary, until a freak accident involving his own dog changes everything. And that's when he begins devising The Plan.

A Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year

A West Australian Young Readers Book Award Reading List Selection

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0763620882
• ISBN13: 9780763620882
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Candlewick Press (MA)
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.37 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.2" x 7.6"
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

especially great for "guys who read" and for inquiry-based learning

I used this with my 6th & 7th graders, but it's really a story that appeals broadly, to older readers as well. These two reviews do a good job of sharing the book's concept. The e-mail are so inviting and disarming. "This modern concept of a novel in E-mails works surprisingly well. The voice is fresh and upbeat, precocious and irreverent. Readers witness Chase's growth from self-absorbed, introverted computer addict to a young man who begins to notice the world around him. He begins to see the poverty his neighbors and friends face, and he starts to care about them. The building of a new bedroom over the garage, with help from family and friends, is emblematic of the new direction in Chase's life. That this moral growth can be shown through one character's E-mails is a testament to the author's skill and restraint."--Kirkus Reviews "The hardest thing for grownup authors of kids' books is getting kids' voices right--especially the laconic, funny, emotionally wary voices of teenage boys. Michael Rosen pulls it off in this Internet-Age epistolary novel." --Washington Post

Writing e-mails has taken the place of forming friendships.

It is August 10th. Fourteen-year-old Chase Riley is online writing a heads-up newsletter to his old classmates in the big city of Columbus, Ohio. Chase is now living on a farm sixty miles away, so Chase's dad can have some peace and quiet to study and write after he comes home from his job at the lab. Peace and quiet are the buzzwords. Chase is feeling rebellious at having to be so far away from his friends, but his e-mails are still bright and funny.It is not that quiet, Chase tells his buddies. The Cicadas in the daytime and the bullfrogs at night make ear-splitting noises. Is this what adults call "the joy of country living?" He knows that his two dogs are in heaven, free to run loose and chase anything that excites them. Unfortunately, they are also learning about skunks and tomato juice baths --- a bitter lesson. Even Chase smelled of skunk for awhile!Then there is the matter of making new friends. Chase keeps to himself when school starts and spends his time writing e-mails to his newsletter group and his sister, Mallory, at Kent State. He doesn't seem to be settling in to his new school environment, and the school guidance counselor is becoming worried. For Chase, writing e-mails has taken the place of forming friendships.I hope that most young readers will find the main character, Chase Riley, cool. He is an amazingly talented fourteen-year-old with obvious gifts in writing and computer literacy. His intelligence, fierce independence, and wry humor will help him to handle the adjustment of leaving the city for the country, making new friends, and coping with the other events in life's journey. (...)

An endearing portrait of youth culture and a great read...

I too disagree with the Publisher's Weekly review of this book. I am a middle school educator. I know my students well, and this qualifies me to say that this book does a wonderful job of representing the adolescent mind. It is unfortunate that the reviewer from Publisher's Weekly disparages the impact of e-mail on young lives and fails to recognize its effectiveness in telling a unique story. E-mail is second only to verbalizing for communication (and in many cases, e-mail allows the expression of what cannot be communicated verbally). Therefore, the format of this novel WORKS. Young people will not only relate well to the novel's format, but they will enjoy reading the funny, brief, sometimes emotional chapters. This would be an especially effective book for resistant or struggling readers, as it is extremely engaging and easy to identify with. The protagonist is endearing and his inner struggle is realistically portrayed. I believe that adolescents will relate to Chase's challenges, especially his feeling of isolation being so far from his friends and from what is familiar to him. I believe too that Chase's idealism is something that young readers will recognize as a quality that they share.One of the most interesting aspects of this novel is its brilliance in convincingly representing one side of the conflict (the anti-hunting side), then putting the reader "into the shoes" of someone on the other side (the pro-hunting side). This sets up a situation where readers must examine their own stance on the issue, then weigh and evaluate both sides, as Chase (the protagonist) does. This process is an important developmental step for young people, one that they will be faced with throughout their lives. It is important for adolescents to have experiences that develop their ability to look at both sides of an issue and make informed choices for their own actions. The engaging story will lead readers into this learning process, leaving them with a more fully developed ability to look at similar difficult issues from a variety of perspectives. This also sets up a great forum for classroom discussion.I am 34 years old and a professional, yet I enjoyed this book greatly. I read it to consider its inclusion in a unit I am designing for my classroom. I am looking forward to sharing this book with my students in the fall, and I hope that many other educators will do the same.

a great read

I don't exactly agree with the Publisher's Weekly review of this book, I thought the email form worked great. It was an inventive and dynamic way to express the mindset of a city kid readjusting to a rural environment. I found a review of this book in The Horn Book and I thought they put it nicely: "The book's email format work well, emphasizing the isolation and loneliness of a contemporary computer kid transplanted into a rustic, old-fashioned setting." At the heart of the book, though, is the conflict between us and nature, raising questions about what rights we have to exploit our surroundings. It is for this reason that I think this is an important book for kids to read, both city-slicker and rural alike.

simply outstanding

This was a great read.Using an unusual but effective narrative style, Rosen captures, in a series of emails, his characters and settings perfectly. From the way people in the rural midwest wave by lifting one finger off the steering wheel to the sudden and shocking blast of a 12-guage shotgun, the details make this book engagingly real.Having moved from the city to the country, Chase's entire world changes. Where he once had friends, he now has only thousands of ciacadas (the emoticon representing the cicadas is the worth the cost of the book in and of itself). But what bothers him most about his new life is the hunting that goes on, particularly after one of his dogs is shot. The hunting debate becomes the central issue of the story, and Rosen explores it with tremendous wit and heart, asking all the right questions and never offering easy answers. With complex and charming characters, a fascinating issue explored with great sensitivity, and some of the funniest emoticons I've ever seen, this one will grab your interest--and keep it.