about the book
It’s the first day of school and the kids in the neighborhood have new pencils, notebooks, clothes, and friends. Not me. I’m sitting at the same old battered kitchen table (from the Salvation Army) wearing the same old faded T-shirt (from Goodwill), working with the same old battered textbooks (from the library sale).
My name is Rachet. My mom died when I was five and I don’t remember much about her. I’m eleven and have always been home-schooled.
Dad is a mechanic who fixes up old cars and restores old houses for a living. He recycles everything. (He says if God wanted us to throw stuff out, he would have parked a dumpster in the Garden of Eden!) He is also a “crazy” environmentalist who is trying to save Moss Tree Park from being turned into a strip mall (so I have to help him with his community service after his protest rally arrests). Don’t get me started on his political views!
I’m tired of this old second-hand junk, the homeschooling, and not being normal. I’m tired of moving from place to place and not having friends. That’s about to end. I got a plan.
I’m using this brand new notebook as my journal to track how I am going to change my freakish life! (And probably some doodles, lists, stories, and poems. It’s my journal. I can put anything I want in it, including a few family secrets.)
I’m going to take a charm class I am also going to find out everything I can about my mother. If I can become exactly like her, I will be able to change everything!
“Rachet!”
Now if only dad would let me work on my secret project in peace and stop calling me to help him fix some old rust bucket!
about the author
Nancy J. Cavanaugh describes herself as being slow and steady and says that she is an extremely slo-o-o-o-o-o-w reader. She also writes all her books in pencil and that is a slow process!
Nancy grew up in Chicago and earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education at Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minnesota. She went on to earn a master’s in curriculum and instruction from the University of Illinois, and currently lives in Tarpon, Florida, with her husband Ron and their daughter Chaylee.
She’s worn all sorts of career hats: housecleaner, babysitter, candy stripper, fitness instructor, camp counselor and invention director, mechanics instructor, curriculum writer, elementary and middle school teacher (for 17 years) , and English teacher in China! She is currently working as a library media specialist in an elementary school.
This Journal Belongs to Ratchet is her first book, but she has been writing for almost twenty years. She says one of the best parts of being an author is being able to say “I’m working” when she is actually just lounging around reading middle grade novels! She even admits that she gets some of her best ideas for writing projects from watching TV. Like her character Rachet, Nancy is pretty handy with mechanics’ tools and is able to take apart and put back together a small engine!
Sources:
Author website
Author interview : Jean Book Nerd
Author video interview
Book trailer: This Journal Belongs to Ratchet
Also by Nancy J. Cavanaugh:
Always, Abigail. Sourcebooks Jabberwocky. 2014.
read more!
Always, Abigail by Nancy J. Cavanaugh
Just when it looked like Abigail and her two best friends’ dreams of getting on the pom-pom squad and becoming popular in Crestdale Heights Middle School were about to become reality, Abigail learns that she hasn’t made the cut. She is also assigned to a different home room than her friends. Could her luck get any worse? The answer is yes.
Ellie McDoodle : New Kid in School by Ruth McNally Barshaw
Ellie is a major doodler, hence the nickname McDoodle. Her journal chronicles her mishaps as she tackles moving to a new home and school. There are mean kids who play “new kid bingo,” waiting for her to mess up and cry. Her new friend has a brother with Down’s syndrome. And the lunch lines are way too long! To cope, she fills her pages with jokes, riddles, and even instruction on making cootie catchers! And of course, her doodles!
One White Dolphin by Gill Lewis
A year after her mother disappeared on a dolphin-saving expedition, Kara and her father are struggling financially. Most others in their village want to dredge the reef to help the fishing business. When a magical albino dolphin is caught in the fishing nets, the whole community rallies about Kara to save the white dolphin calf and the reef.