Helpful Score: 1
Knot Crews was picked up out of the trash shortly after he was born in Statenville, Georgia. In his twelve years since, he has not had an easy life, living with the alcoholic woman who is raising him, and Knot is always hungry. Money that comes their way usually goes for liquor rather than food and heat. He is an African American boy growing up in the 1960s during the days of segregation and the Civil Rights Movement. He sees the racial tensions first hand.
Out riding his bike one day, Knot picks up a bag of money that a bankrobber drops in his attempt to escape the police. Knot takes the bag home and discovers tens of thousands of dollars wrapped in stacks of one-hundred dollar bills. He hides the money so that Marge, his "mother", won't find it.
Knot sees so much poverty in his own life and in the lives of the neighbors around him. He is a good child and comes up with a plan to mail out a $100 bill anonymously to people in need, but without getting caught. Some don't have money for heat, food, medicine or decent clothing.
The Little Known by Janice Daugharty is a wonderful coming-of-age story of a boy living in poverty who has a heart of gold, and who tries to help others but learns that people have wants as well as needs. The Little Known is also about family and belonging since Knot feels he doesn't belong to anyone. I was so happy to again come upon Troublesome Creek, a location that has been in several of Janice Daugharty's books as well as Statenville, Georgia. Details of place are one of the things I enjoy most about Daugharty's books because I can see in my mind exactly where the story is taking place. These are all real places.
The characters in The Little Known could easily walk off the pages. They're real people, not exaggerated caricatures of an imagination, but humans living out their lives in the best way they can and the reader gets to know them as they evolve throughout the story. This is an excellent book written by a Southern author who writes about the places she knows best.
"The real measure of a hero is humility--I'm only a poor man and little known." (p.180)
Out riding his bike one day, Knot picks up a bag of money that a bankrobber drops in his attempt to escape the police. Knot takes the bag home and discovers tens of thousands of dollars wrapped in stacks of one-hundred dollar bills. He hides the money so that Marge, his "mother", won't find it.
Knot sees so much poverty in his own life and in the lives of the neighbors around him. He is a good child and comes up with a plan to mail out a $100 bill anonymously to people in need, but without getting caught. Some don't have money for heat, food, medicine or decent clothing.
The Little Known by Janice Daugharty is a wonderful coming-of-age story of a boy living in poverty who has a heart of gold, and who tries to help others but learns that people have wants as well as needs. The Little Known is also about family and belonging since Knot feels he doesn't belong to anyone. I was so happy to again come upon Troublesome Creek, a location that has been in several of Janice Daugharty's books as well as Statenville, Georgia. Details of place are one of the things I enjoy most about Daugharty's books because I can see in my mind exactly where the story is taking place. These are all real places.
The characters in The Little Known could easily walk off the pages. They're real people, not exaggerated caricatures of an imagination, but humans living out their lives in the best way they can and the reader gets to know them as they evolve throughout the story. This is an excellent book written by a Southern author who writes about the places she knows best.
"The real measure of a hero is humility--I'm only a poor man and little known." (p.180)
