Rascals from Haskell's Gym

by Frank Bonham

Book Overview

Product Details Reading level: Baby-Preschool Paperback Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks (April 1980) Language: English ISBN-10: 0590302310 ISBN-13: 978-0590302319 Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 3.8 x 0.6... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0590302310
• ISBN13: 9780590302319
• Release Date: April 1980
• Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Spirit of 76

Remember when they painted all the fire hydrants red white and blue? This is 119 pages of reading that was new to kids born in the 60's. Worning - Spoilers ahead: Summary: Miss Sissy is very involved in the competition between two gymnastics schools, at the same time worrying about her father's efforts to save an old, run-down, but historically-significant and hyphenated-hotel. Her gymnastic-team is challenged by a rival-group that isn't interested in playing-fair. Ya gotta love him: when Frank draws his lines he makes them thick, black, heavy, and indelible, like an 1976 El Marko... And never more so than in the contest between gymnast slash heroine Sissy Benedict and her conniving rival Juno Heinrich (No relation to the 2008 movie starring Ellen Page and Jennifer Garner - that's a coincidence). The 1976-Juno has had her "back up" since Sissy left Mrs. Heinrich's club, affectionately called "Haskell's Rascals," to join coach Bonnie Walker's Butterflies-- and took almost 20 other rather dissatisfied girl-friends with her to fly with the Butterflies. On top of that, Sissy's widowed father, who's devoted to wood and old buildings (and also maybe the comely Ms. Walker), is consumed with restoring the antique Sam Clement's Mark Twain Hotel that the villainous famous-old-historic-hotel leveler, Mr. Heinrich, has in his sights for the dreaded dreadful wrecking ball. Between practicing her routines and working for that elusive quality called "style" into her Butterfly performance, Sissy worries with her father about if they'll be able to raise the money to purchase and thus, save the hotel. It looks totally impossible when 3,000 individually-raised dollar bills disappear from Dad's dresser, and the gloom is compounded when the Butterflies lose a ""grudge match"" with the Rascals. But the author is only warming up for Sissy's triumph on both of these fronts -- and sure as hard wind blows cold on Lake Michigan in December: she finds the missing cashola on the very night that she leads her club to victory in a much more important four-way-team-meet. All this despite a horribly injured ankle (ala Karate Kid) and them cheating Rascalz' dirty tricks. Oh yeah, the author piles it on high and deep like a metaphor of something really high and deep.) But this book's clearly maid-to-order (No relation to the Ally Sheedy movie of ten years later) for the 1976 gymnastics audience-- but the book is thoroughly proficiently crafted, even generously so for 1976, as such sports story books go.

Fun book

I read this book many, many times as a young girl. I absolutley loved it. It'a a great book for a student or girl who loves gymnastics.