The Crying Rocks

by Janet Taylor Lisle

Book Overview

The Newbery Honor winning author of Afternoon with the Elves tells the story of a girl who bravely explores--and reclaims--her past after she meets a boy who tells her she looks like one of the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1481479768
• ISBN13: 9781481479769
• Release Date: May 2017
• Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.2"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

I am a sixth grade student at CCMS

I am a sixth grade student and I read The Crying Rocks by Janet Taylor Lisle, its about a girl named Joelle, who was adopted when she was five years old by her adopted parents who she called Aunt Mary Louise and Vernon. In this book she looses a loved one though. She also makes friends with a boy named Carlos, who is in her Spanish class. They both spend most of their time together learning about these Indains who lived years before and where killed by a surprise attack by the English. Her and Carlos go into the woods to see an old Indian council place where she sees visions of what happened to the Indians in the land, and what they did for a living. She finds a painting in the library that she sees two girls on a hill watching the other Indians like they were out cast of the tribe but Joelle rembers them as if they meet before. When she goes to the Crying Rocks with Carlos she learns something about him that he hides from her even though see doesn't mind but she also finds something in the swamp that scares them and then to make things worse they hear a load moan. So now they are wondering what made that noise and where did it come from? I loved this book so much it kept me reading late into the night wondering what would come next. My favorite part was when she goes to the Crying Rocks and when Carlos tells his secret . I think this was Janet's best books and I will read more of them too. So I hope you like this book as much is I did .

The Crying Rocks

This was a wonderful, historically accurate fiction novel. It is easy enough for children to read and interesting enough for adults to enjoy. It covers subjects regarding adoption, abandonment, native americans and the idea of not knowing where you belong as a child. Highly recommend!

An incredible ending.

Fourteen-year-old Joelle, who is adopted and lives in Marshfield, Rhode Island, doesn't know much about her past. All she is aware of is that she was brought in from a train station when she was just five years old. "I can't remember anything so don't ask me!" she yells irritably to anyone who snoops, including Carlos, an eccentric kid in her Spanish class. But when Carlos, a collector of arrowheads and Native American lore, tells her that she resembles an Indian girl in an old mural of Narragansett Indians in their school library, she can't resist taking a look. She is dumbfounded by a spark of recognition. When Joelle asks her adoptive parents, Uncle Vernon and Aunt Mary Louise, about her past, they tell her what happened but she doesn't believe them. Then, while on a hike, Carlos tells her about the Crying Rocks, where howls on windy days are thought to be the spirit voices of children who were flung from the boulders to an early death. Joelle doesn't believe that story either until one day, while at the Crying Rocks with Carlos, she hears crying and screaming. After her Aunt Mary Louise dies, she grows more and more curious about her past, not to mention the cries and screams. Will Joelle ever discover the truth behind the Crying Rocks and her past? Or will both stories be a secret forever? THE CRYING ROCKS had an incredible ending, and I agree wholeheartedly with Joelle's attempts to learn the details of her past. If you enjoy reading touching books about friends and family, read this one to find out what happens to Joelle and her family. --- Reviewed by Ashley Hartlaub

Richie's Picks: THE CRYING ROCKS

" 'So tell me about these Indians who were supposedly around here,' she says, as if she's never heard of Indians before. Which is laughable. Half the names of places in Rhode Island are Native American. There are statues of Indians in the parks and plaques that tell where this treaty was signed or that attack happened. Everyone has heard of the Indians, they just don't think about them that much. Indians are ancient history here, like three hundred years ago or more." "One little, two little, three little IndiansFour little, five little, six little IndiansSeven little, eight little, nine little IndiansTen little Indian boys." I was a little kid on Long Island back in an era when in circle time songs you'd as easily count ten little Indians as you would count six little ducks or ten green and speckled frogs. A few years further on, in the mid 1960s, I chose "The Indian Tribes of Paumanok" (a Native American name for Long Island) as the topic for a social studies report. And while this raised my 10 year-old state of consciousness a few notches, I still had a heck of a time envisioning the booming suburbs where I lived as having been a vast woodland sheltering those peoples. In contrast, thirteen year old Joelle, the main character in THE CRYING ROCKS, has such an ability and inclination. In fact, she can sometimes imagine someone from the distant past following her. Joelle, who was adopted at five by "Aunt" Mary Louise and "Uncle" Vernon, has that hunger to know about her own roots. In sharp contrast to her "heavy and earthbound" adoptive parents, Joelle is such a tall and striking seventh grader that a group of little neighborhood girls worships her from a distance, imagines her to be royalty, and emulates her style. But it is clear to the reader that something awful must have happened to Joelle as a young child, since she cannot remember the mysterious and unspoken circumstances in which she came to be discovered at the railroad depot of the northwestern Rhode Island community where she has since lived. " 'Back in the woods there's a place where they used to meet. A high council place. There are trails, too. You can tell they're old Indian paths because of how deep they're worn down. It would take hundreds of years of feet to wear down a path like that.'" 'Hundreds of years of feet?' she says. 'Give me a break.'" 'A thousand years, even. Some artifacts are that old and more. What's amazing is how their culture got wiped out when the white man came. Fifty years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, the Narragansetts were all gone, thirty or forty-thousand people who lived right around here.'" 'What happened?' Joelle asked in spite of herself." Carlos stares at her. 'Disease, first, then they were killed off. The last few were sold into slavery down in the West Indies. It's one of those histories people don't like to remember.'" 'But you do?'" 'I'm part Indian.'" 'Really?'"Carlos stands up straighter and looks at her defiantly, as if she migh

How they change each other's life makes for a moving saga

Grades 7 and up will appreciate this warm story of Joelle, who discovers a likeness to Native Americans which will change her perceptions of who she is and Native history. Her new friend Carlos who has introduced her to this history has his own hard secret to reveal - one which involves a family loss and a hidden guilt. How they change each other's life makes for a moving saga.