Park's Quest

by Katherine Paterson

Book Overview

Park can't figure out why his mother refuses to talk about his father who died in Vietnam eleven years ago. Park has no memory of him. ... But he is determined to find the answers to his questions.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140342621
• Release Date: September 1989
• Publisher: Puffin Books
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.7" x 0.4" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

Park's Quest

Katherine Paterson is one of my very favorite authors. As a young child, I read many of her books including The Great Gilly Hopkins, Bridge to Terabithia, and Jacob Have I Loved. I recently finished reading Park?s Quest as an assignment for my college children?s literature class. As I began reading Park?s Quest, I must admit that I was confused when Park, the main character, went back and forth between his character and an Arthurian knight of old on a quest. It took me a long while to figure out why Park switched to speaking/thinking as if he were a knight. But once figuring it out, that he (Park) was on a quest to find out more about his father who was killed in the Vietnam War, the concept of the Arthurian knight made sense. Since Park?s mother does not inform him of his father, he begins searching for his father?s roots and family. As Park investigates more about his father and family he gathers startling and important information to help him along his ?quest.? Does Park find the true history about his father, is the question that the reader has the whole time while reading the book. This book by Paterson is cleverly written to keep the reader wondering the whole time and engaged in the book until the last words.

Great read aloud.

My 10 year old daughter and I read this book together. I couldn't help it, I just had to read ahead after she went to bed at night! Hope you enjoy it as well. The only other book we've read together that had the same effect on me was "Letters from Rifka." (K. Hesse)

This book is a great for anyone to curl up and read.

I think this book is appropriate for any age group. I am 20 years old and I still could not put the book down. If you like fiction, this is the book for you.

This was a great story with great charachters and plot.

This Katherine Paterson was great, (as usual) and I would recomend it to any Katherine Paterson lover. It is good for all ages. It is happy, and sad, and funny. A very charming book.

THE TRUTH FROM THE BLACK WALL

Like an Arthurian knight setting out on a quest, eleven-year-old Park is determined to learn the truth about his father, who died on his second tour of Viet Nam. But his mother clams up on the subject, refusing to share critical information about the elusive man. Will she nurse her grief forever or is there more to it? This story reads like a squire's swift lance, as Park's imaginary mental adventures parallel real life situations. (There are quotes from Emily Dickinson's poetry and Rosemary Sutcliff's Arthurian novel, the Sword and the Circle.) Denying the danger, growing frustration and possible shock of knowledge wrongfully withheld from him for a decade, Park pursues his goal relentlessly; yet he is sickened by gradual then sudden revelations, as he pieces together the pathetic patchwork of his father's life. Both sides of the family kept him in deliberate ignorance, but whom were they trying to protect--the innocent boy or their own hurt pride? Park seriously considers an abrupt departure from the Colonel's stately Virginia farm, since it was His choice to make the trip, therefore his right to leave. Why stay where no one wants him or believes he has a right to be? This boy has a critical need to find and know his father--even in death--yet his mother seems to deny his very existence. Does she have the right to obliterate her son's biological and cultural heritage? "They needed the life flowing from his memory." How can he convince her to stop using his baby name of Pork? When will he be granted the minimal courtesy of being called Park the Fifth? A poignant, fascinating book about a boy's journey into the Past, in order to come to terms with the Present, thus to reshape his Future. Sensitive with compassionate humor, an entertaining introduction to our post Viet Nam national shame, delusion and prejudice.