Jack Wilson is unhappy although his family has all the money they need and he is attending a high-class private school in the community they have a large house in outside Washington, D.C. He is close to his younger sister but not to his parents, especially not to his father.
Jack decides that he needs to take some measures to improve his school so that it is more tolerable. He puts a coded ad in the school newsletter and eventually has four boys join him. Among the things they do is to set off an old cannon on the school grounds and burn a message in the school lawn. Their plans are carried off smoothly and undetected except by the school psychologist, Sue, a Christian, who is onto him right away and begins researching his family. A family secret is much alluded to throughout the story.
The family secret is that Jack's older sister has killed herself and their father is partly to blame for her action. Suicide is of course an important theme to address in juvenile books.
But the book has other themes and unrealistic events that I find distracting and slightly offensive. The main objection to the school seems to be that the students are required to wear uniforms. In today's schools, and I don't think it was much different 25 years ago when the book was published, almost anything goes in attire. I don't believe the author of a book for teens in the Church ought to make the wearing of school uniforms such a hated thing. This is of course a school for children of wealthy parents. But students in this type of school are clearly in the minority. And students in all types of schools have read and are going to read this book. Requiring school uniforms prevents competition in clothing styles and brands. It keeps poorer students from looking more shabbily dressed than their wealthy peers. It teaches children that what they wear is important and sets a standard that they will, it is hoped, strive to maintain throughout life. What looks better, everyone in uniforms, or everyone in shorts and tee shirts with meaningless or degrading slogans? If everyone wants to look the same in their dress, why not have them wear something that looks nice, and mature? So few people, it seems, adults included, know how to dress professionally or neatly when out in public. Or if they do know, they just don't care how they look. Enough about that topic!
Other than that, the book had too many unrealistic things for a novel of its nature, non-fantasy. Jack and his friends got into the school principal's office and stayed there overnight. (What happened to the alarm system?) He brought along his 100-year-old battle rifle. Yet in the morning when school employees began coming in, there was no terrific panic about a teenager having this rifle. SWAT teams were not called in, nor the FBI. No great efforts were made to get in there and take this weapon away from the boy. It would not happen like that in a true-to-life story. The very fact that Jack has decided to bring his prize possession, the rifle, in to school and threaten people with it is in itself, unnatural to Jack's character. Even some of the things he and his society decide to do, such as destroying all the school uniforms they can carry out of the laundry, are against the nature that he has been portrayed with. Any time one of the team members presents an idea, it is accepted with no real objection. This type of action would be more apt to take place in a school district in the ghetto where crime is rampant (not that there is no crime in Washington, D.C.) than in a school for privileged youngsters.
The only suggestion I can think of for improvement would be to shorten the work as it was written, have Jack reform and then show some of the good he is capable of doing. He does wake up in the end but it is while he's still in the school office and Sue has come in to talk to him. No time remains to show how he and his friends are punished and what they do to make up for their rebellion. In reality, he would likely have been tried as an adult and perhaps sent to reform school. The author has no mention of what possible punishment might come to him. The reader is left to think that everything will just be all right automatically now that he has had a change of heart.
Jack decides that he needs to take some measures to improve his school so that it is more tolerable. He puts a coded ad in the school newsletter and eventually has four boys join him. Among the things they do is to set off an old cannon on the school grounds and burn a message in the school lawn. Their plans are carried off smoothly and undetected except by the school psychologist, Sue, a Christian, who is onto him right away and begins researching his family. A family secret is much alluded to throughout the story.
The family secret is that Jack's older sister has killed herself and their father is partly to blame for her action. Suicide is of course an important theme to address in juvenile books.
But the book has other themes and unrealistic events that I find distracting and slightly offensive. The main objection to the school seems to be that the students are required to wear uniforms. In today's schools, and I don't think it was much different 25 years ago when the book was published, almost anything goes in attire. I don't believe the author of a book for teens in the Church ought to make the wearing of school uniforms such a hated thing. This is of course a school for children of wealthy parents. But students in this type of school are clearly in the minority. And students in all types of schools have read and are going to read this book. Requiring school uniforms prevents competition in clothing styles and brands. It keeps poorer students from looking more shabbily dressed than their wealthy peers. It teaches children that what they wear is important and sets a standard that they will, it is hoped, strive to maintain throughout life. What looks better, everyone in uniforms, or everyone in shorts and tee shirts with meaningless or degrading slogans? If everyone wants to look the same in their dress, why not have them wear something that looks nice, and mature? So few people, it seems, adults included, know how to dress professionally or neatly when out in public. Or if they do know, they just don't care how they look. Enough about that topic!
Other than that, the book had too many unrealistic things for a novel of its nature, non-fantasy. Jack and his friends got into the school principal's office and stayed there overnight. (What happened to the alarm system?) He brought along his 100-year-old battle rifle. Yet in the morning when school employees began coming in, there was no terrific panic about a teenager having this rifle. SWAT teams were not called in, nor the FBI. No great efforts were made to get in there and take this weapon away from the boy. It would not happen like that in a true-to-life story. The very fact that Jack has decided to bring his prize possession, the rifle, in to school and threaten people with it is in itself, unnatural to Jack's character. Even some of the things he and his society decide to do, such as destroying all the school uniforms they can carry out of the laundry, are against the nature that he has been portrayed with. Any time one of the team members presents an idea, it is accepted with no real objection. This type of action would be more apt to take place in a school district in the ghetto where crime is rampant (not that there is no crime in Washington, D.C.) than in a school for privileged youngsters.
The only suggestion I can think of for improvement would be to shorten the work as it was written, have Jack reform and then show some of the good he is capable of doing. He does wake up in the end but it is while he's still in the school office and Sue has come in to talk to him. No time remains to show how he and his friends are punished and what they do to make up for their rebellion. In reality, he would likely have been tried as an adult and perhaps sent to reform school. The author has no mention of what possible punishment might come to him. The reader is left to think that everything will just be all right automatically now that he has had a change of heart.
