The Great Whale of Kansas

by Richard W. Jennings

Book Overview

As a young boy begins to dig a hole in his back yard, his shovel suddenly strikes something hard, and big, as it turns out, in more ways than one. What he discovers, preserved in the Cretaceous... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618102280
• ISBN13: 9780618102280
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.7"
• Age Range: 10 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 5 to 7

Customer Reviews

THE GREAT WHALE OF KANSAS delivers.

THE GREAT WHALE OF KANSAS is a tall tale about an 11-year-old boy living in Melville, Kansas, who loves to dig holes. Big holes."I believe there is nothing, absolutely nothing, half so much worth doing as simply digging a hole," the unnamed narrator explains. "A hole is an achievement. A great hole is a great achievement."While attempting to build a pond in his backyard, the boy uncovers what appears to be a fossil. His persistent digging reveals it to be an extremely large fossil of a unique nature. Soon, thanks to the financial aspirations of the digger's father, the "Fossil Expert" for the state of Kansas gets involved and a series of controversies ensue involving who owns the fossil, what should be done with the fossil and whether or not it is really a fossil at all.The unlikely tale is great fun to read because Jennings has given his narrator a perfect voice --- smart, wise-cracking and honest, the narrator tells his story engagingly, reporting the bizarre occurrences that pepper the story with a straightforwardness grounded in the idea that most anything can happen in a state as odd as Kansas. The narrator is both supported and opposed by a wacky cast of characters --- a mother who only makes sandwiches for meals, the pretentious "Fossil Expert," a bevy of eccentric members of the Quattlebaum family, and Phil, the solitary duck --- whose various outrageous actions are in perfect keeping with the tone of the story.The narrator's most stalwart friends, Tom White Cloud, a bookstore owner of Native American descent, and Miss Joyce "Penny" Whistle, the narrator's science teacher on whom both Tom and the narrator have a crush, come to his aid late in the story when it appears everyone has lost sight of the real importance of what has appeared in the narrator's backyard. The "moral" of the story is laid on pretty thick by the book's end, but that hardly detracts from the overall pleasure THE GREAT WHALE OF KANSAS delivers. --- (...)

The Great Whale of Kansas

I like the book so far,because in the story it tellsabout a young boy in his backyard and,they are pucifect. My best part is that when he is digging,and he discoverspreserved in the cretaceous lime stone is more than spectiacular. The U.S.Mail the setting of the story is Highley Park,the conflict is a fossil that is five-foot musasaur the characters are,Phile,Miss.Whistle,Chief Wah-Shum-Gah.