The Outcasts Of 19 Schuyler Place (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place was an interesting book at the time I read it. At a glance Margaret Rose Kane is like any other protagonist in a story, only to grow as the story continues. From a very basic summary Margaret is sent to a summer camp while her parents supposedly neglect her in favor of a trip to Peru. Her attitude towards the camp is one that emits negativity, refusing to do anything the counselors say just to spite everyone around her. To her credit this attitude eventually succeeds, although not in the most exciting fashion, and she finds herself at her uncles' house 19 Schyyler Place. 19 Schuyler Place holds three gigantic towers that her uncles have passionately created over their lifetime. It is these three towers that become a focal point of the story as the neighborhood plan to demolish the three towers. Their reasoning differs from my recollection - from endangering neighboring houses, to disrupting the flow and regulations of the area. As the story progresses the uncles slowly begin to wane in their prevention of the demolition. They begin to spend more time away from the house, presumably to not show their pained expressions to Margaret. For the stubborn Margaret Rose however, she is not willing to let the towers go down without a fight and she begins her elaborate plan.All that summary could have been taken away by the blurb of the book, which I admittedly used to refresh my memory (because it has been so long since I've read the story), but from a review standpoint it was difficult to give it a solid rating. I find it difficult to give books a proper numerical rating as I was in ALL of my prior "reviews". Before it was simple enough to just give it a 5 if it met entertaining status, a 4 if it had noticeable flaws, and anything lower would be based on my judgement. However now that 5-6 years have passed I realize that this book shouldn't be measured or compared against the other books I "reviewed". If I were to give it a four - does that mean it was worse than a five? Better than a three? No. It's not to compare this book to another based on how many stars it holds on a site. It just means that at the time of the review, I thought it deserved this much out of a total five.Margaret Rose develops as much as any other protagonist would, like you expect from a novel that is directed towards young readers. Despite that there were simple allusions that would sometimes throw the reader for a loop. At certain points in the story it seems like the government had won, there was no winning solution in a losing fight, when they were outnumbered from the start. Margaret gains allies slowly and by doing so she gains confidence and new insight towards characters that she once saw as differently. As the blurb read it said, "Margaret Rose is outraged and determined to strike a blow for art, for history, and for individuality". 4-5 years ago when I first read this I thought nothing more about it. Now however it seems that the symbolism in the tower is not just these three traits, but the stake of being different. Having the towers in the backyard of 19 Schuyler Place IS different. It's something that not many people can say they have. In the eyes of the neighborhood, such a drastic change is something that can't be overlooked and that it must be conformed to otherwise looks like a everybody else. It's an odd take on the book, believe me I couldn't quite understand my own thinking myself, but it's one that looks more and more believable if you look at all the little telltale signs the book gives. Being different, being the same or fitting in - it's a topic that many young readers can connect to. Especially in the classroom and outside of it, there's an ever-going battle of accepting difference. This becomes more and more obvious at the ending or you could look no further than the title - Outcasts.The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place manages to be very poetic at times where I don't expect it to. The writing came across as very simple, but required some thought process to be used to see an underlining meaning that the story was inferring.An example of that is the internal conflict between Margaret and her parents. This conflict could've been more played out but I'm guessing that wouldn't have made for the best read for students. This conflict reveals itself to be something more serious towards the end, but the story is still very safe with domestic conflict. This isn't the only thing that needs to be inferred upon but it's one that's revealed early on and not expanded upon until later.That being said I'm not sure who I would recommend this for. It's not for adult readers, but I can't wholeheartedly recommend it to the very young as well. In actuality I think it's fine to read this in junior high and high school as well, although the diction might seem a little too easy at that education level. The story ends with what I thought was a satisfying ending. It ties up the loose ends of certain characters that you may not have given a second thought to, although it's more like a brief summary than an epilogue. There are some thoughts that I would like to have answered, but it's not realistic to be able to put a lifetime of stories into a simple book. It did leave me wanting to know more about Margaret - but hopefully Silent to the Bone answers some of my questions. I find it odd how I read the "prequel" before Silent to the Bone - especially since Silent to the Bone was written four years prior to 19 Schuyler Place. However I love the book as a standalone, so I'm not sure how I'm going to approach Silent to the Bone (if I even bother to). There is even an allusion to the book in the epilogue, Margaret even mentions the main character of Silent to the Bone.In the end I found myself liking Margaret, even more so after all these years later rereading the book. As many changes as there will be in an ever-changing world 19 Schuyler Place will always rest between it's neighbors 17 and 21.
E. L. Konigsburg, The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place (Atheneum, 2004)What do you do when you're faced with the destruction of a local landmark? What do you do if that local landmark was built by your relatives? It's an interesting question, though on the surface one has to figure it's going to be pretty narrow-market subject matter. Pretty familiar territory to me, though, as my in-laws' parents and grandparents were intimately involved with the now-dismantled Euclid Beach Park (watch for the forthcoming Arcadia Press title!), and, well, it's E. L. Konigsburg, who after From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler can do no wrong in my eyes, so away I went.The time is the end of the eighties, the place small-town middle America. Margaret Rose Kane is going through adolescence with the help of her parents and a couple of eccentric uncles who are well-known in the community for three large works of art in their backyard, forty-foot-plus towers decorated with all sorts of shiny gewgaws. The trouble first starts when Margaret's parents are travelling in Peru for the summer, and the uncles have prior commitments, so Margaret is shipped off to a summer camp she loathes. After she and the head of the camp reach a “mutual decision” (read: she quits just before they toss her out on her ear) and she's rescued by one of her uncles, she finds out about those prior commitments—they're fighting a legal battle with their neighborhood association, who are trying to get the towers taken down for being unsafe and a blight on the community. As with all these sorts of sillinesses, there are people trying to stop it, but no one's quite sure how to go about doing so. Margaret to the rescue, and in organizing the fight to stop the towers from being torn down, she learns far more than she would have stuck in some summer camp in the woods.Konigsburg is a gifted writer, and once this book gets going, it's fabulous. The book's problem, unfortunately, is that it does take quite a while to get going. Still, I'd advise that if you're thirty or forty pages into the book and wondering if it's ever going to go anywhere, press on; you've got some more crust to chew through, but the meat inside is well worth savoring. And the resolution of the book is truly wonderful, bringing everything full circle in the best of ways. This is fun stuff, and I definitely recommend it both for the teens who are its target audience and us old fogies who were raised in Frankweiler. ****
What do You think about The Outcasts Of 19 Schuyler Place (2006)?
I really enjoyed this book!I have read it in the past. But since I am studying this author, I chose to listen to this book on audible.I love the protagonists in this book. They are so enjoyable, funny, and intelligent. On the other hand, the antagonists were thoroughly enjoyable to despise. I was laughing out loud throughout the reading. The audible version was read by Molly Ringwald who did a great job, especially with the great uncle's accents. I enjoyed that the author didn't end the story the way the protagonists wanted it to be resolved, but instead she came up with a different, better, solution.WARNINGS:Sex: noneDrugs: alcohol use by adults (and dogs)Violence: an out of control construction bossLanguage: none
—Summer Turner
The art-mystery elements and also the quick climax and resolution reminded me a LOT of a recent favourite book of mine, Chasing Vermeer, which is inspired by Konigsburg's style (says the author). So comparison is inevitable.I liked the characters of Chasing Vermeer better. I find them warmer. The characters in this Konigsburg book are awfully cold and distant and self-possessed. I also wanted more closure about all the relationships, e.g. Mrs. Kaplan (camp director). Anyway, the camp stuff was interesting, as was the allusion to "Bartleby, the Scrivener" ("I prefer not to"), by Herman Melville. I was suprised to come across such a reference in a children's book and also really happy that I recognized it. You don't truly appreciate the power of an allusion until you get one ...Edit: Wow I just learned that "Schuyler" is pronounced "Skyler." Oh OK.
—Allison
There are children's books and there is children's literature. I have come to the conclusion that Konigsburg writes the latter. These books beg to be studied as well as enjoyed. In The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, we meet Margaret Rose Kane and her old-world Hungarian-American uncles. She wants to stay with them over the summer as she has done in the past, but this year she's going to a fancy summer camp. It's far from great. A clique of mean girls does their best to destroy her, but she rises above it with strength of character that brings tears to the eye.Meanwhile, her uncles have their own fight on their hands. They've been living in a downtown neighborhood since the 1940's and saw it rise and fall to the state of a run-down, deserted--albeit historic--area. In the lean years after one of their wives passed away, they found fulfillment in taking scraps of metal, jewel, and glass and creating artistic towers in their backyard. These towers are extraordinary and breathtaking. Koningsburg spends chapters getting us to fall in love with them as much as Margaret does... and then she pulls the rug right out from under us.Redevelopment... gentrification... the city wants to tear down the towers. Concerns of safety and lack of permits are the reason, but there we are in the midst of a struggle between the rights of the community and the rights of the individual. There are questions of the value of art and legal rights. This is a powerful story. I loved it.
—Ellen
