The Tiger Orchard

by Joyce Sweeney

Book Overview

Joyce Sweeney captures the spirit and inner souls of teenagers in this daring novel of familial responsibility and independence. Through his sessions with a therapist, Zack realizes that his mother... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0440219272
• ISBN13: 9780440219279
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Laurel Leaf Library
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.2" x 6.9"
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

I love this book very much and it is very sad too

I can't type it very good, because I've read it in Dutch

"The Tiger Orchard" is a must read for everyone!

The main character, Zack, is an eighteen-year-old high-school student. South Florida is his home along with his brother Josh, his only friend Sunbeam (his dog), and his mother. He is a friendly, calm and stable guy, or so he appears.Zack is enrolled in an art class at school. (This is also where he meets Clara, the love of his life.) The end of the year assignment is to "make a piece in which you show the secret to your soul....without letting others figure it out." He decides that the perfect picture would be the scene from his reoccurring nightmare, 'the tiger orchard.' He is in therapy to understand the symbolism of this nightmare. He slowly begins to remember special times and incidents with his father, who is now 'dead,' that happened thirteen years ago. (As far as he knows.) After his father 'kidnaped' him, Zack's mother had him thrown in jail and got a court order for him to not have any contact with either of the boys while they were minors. Zack confronts his mom about all of his thoughts and he learns that his father is actually alive. After graduation, Zack decides to meet his father. He digs through his mom's things and finds that he is currently living in South Carolina. His trip and stay there turn him completely around. He catches up on lost time with his father, meets his father's girlfriend, and discovers the missing half of his life. Now he just has to figure out what to do about his divorced parents, college, and of course, Clara.

this book was a heartbreaker,very well written.

This was a very sad book about a boy named Zack who is lead to believe his father is dead.Zack and his mother arent geeting alomg very well especially after Zack finds out that his mother has been lyeing to him the whole time about his father. So Zack goes out to find his father when he finds him he relizes that he is paying for Zack and his brothers education. So Zack decides that he is going to live with his father for a while. Zack decides that hes going to go to college in Georgia because this way he's right in the middle of his parents and he can go and visit both of them instead of going to college in the town were his mother lives or in the town were his father lives and not be able to see just one of them