The Barnes & Noble Review
Kate DiCamillo follows up her Newbery Honor-winning novel, Because of Winn-Dixie, with an emotionally rich and poignant tale of one boy's struggle to find himself in a confusing and harsh world. The Tiger Rising is about the heartbreak of loss, the hope of new beginnings, and the unexpected events that often color our lives.
Twelve-year-old Rob Horton's life has been thoroughly uprooted: Following his mother's recent death, his father has moved them to a rundown motel in northern Florida. Faced with a grief he doesn't understand and his father's refusal to talk about it, Rob stumbles through his new life like an automaton. At school he is constantly bullied because of his newcomer status and an inexplicable leg rash he's had since his mother's death. The only bright light in Rob's day is another new student the bullies have targeted, a girl named Sistine ("like the chapel"), who is as openly angry and pugilistic as Rob is withdrawn and passive. Drawn together by their shared outsider status and a common emotional void (Sistine's parents have divorced) the two quickly become friends.
Even when Rob is suspended from school, he continues to see Sistine each day when she stops by to deliver his homework. Their bond is strengthened when he shares with her a startling discovery -- a live tiger trapped inside a cage in the woods behind the motel where he lives. They immediately start scheming up ways to help the creature escape and eventually, fate provides them with the perfect means to do so. But they fail to weigh all the consequences of their actions, a fact that becomes tragically clear within minutes of the tiger's release. Yet there is triumph in the outcome as well, for it leads to an epiphany of sorts for both Rob and his father, setting Rob at long last on the road toward emotional healing.
At just over 100 pages, The Tiger Rising is a quick read, despite its apparently languid pace. But don't let the story's slimness fool you -- DiCamillo packs a powerful punch and plenty of satisfaction into those few pages, filling each one with vivid imagery, poetic prose, and high emotional impact. (Beth Amos)
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The Barnes & Noble Review
Kate DiCamillo follows up her Newbery Honor-winning novel, Because of Winn-Dixie, with an emotionally rich and poignant tale of one boy's struggle to find himself in a confusing and harsh world. The Tiger Rising is about the heartbreak of loss, the hope of new beginnings, and the unexpected events that often color our lives.
Twelve-year-old Rob Horton's life has been thoroughly uprooted: Following his mother's recent death, his father has moved them to a rundown motel in northern Florida. Faced with a grief he doesn't understand and his father's refusal to talk about it, Rob stumbles through his new life like an automaton. At school he is constantly bullied because of his newcomer status and an inexplicable leg rash he's had since his mother's death. The only bright light in Rob's day is another new student the bullies have targeted, a girl named Sistine ("like the chapel"), who is as openly angry and pugilistic as Rob is withdrawn and passive. Drawn together by their shared outsider status and a common emotional void (Sistine's parents have divorced) the two quickly become friends.
Even when Rob is suspended from school, he continues to see Sistine each day when she stops by to deliver his homework. Their bond is strengthened when he shares with her a startling discovery -- a live tiger trapped inside a cage in the woods behind the motel where he lives. They immediately start scheming up ways to help the creature escape and eventually, fate provides them with the perfect means to do so. But they fail to weigh all the consequences of their actions, a fact that becomes tragically clear within minutes of the tiger's release. Yet there is triumph in the outcome as well, for it leads to an epiphany of sorts for both Rob and his father, setting Rob at long last on the road toward emotional healing.
At just over 100 pages, The Tiger Rising is a quick read, despite its apparently languid pace. But don't let the story's slimness fool you -- DiCamillo packs a powerful punch and plenty of satisfaction into those few pages, filling each one with vivid imagery, poetic prose, and high emotional impact. (Beth Amos)
Publishers Weekly
After Rob's mother dies, he and his father move to a new town to get a fresh start, he discovers a caged tiger in the woods. An emotionally rich story about a boy caught in the powerful grip of grief. Ages 8-up. (Aug.)
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
DiCamillo's second novel may not be as humorous as her debut, Because of Winn-Dixie, but it is just as carefully structured, and her ear is just as finely tuned to her characters. In the first chapter, readers learn that Rob lost his mother six months ago; his father has uprooted their lives from Jacksonville to Lister, Fla.; the boy hates school; and his father's boss, Beauchamp, is keeping a caged wild tiger at Beauchamp's abandoned gas station. The author characterizes Rob by what he does not do ("Rob had a way of not-thinking about things"; "He was a pro at not-crying"), and the imprisoned tiger becomes a metaphor for the thoughts and feelings he keeps trapped inside. Two other characters, together with the tiger, act as catalyst for Rob's change: a new classmate, Sistine ("like the chapel"), who believes that her father will rescue her someday and take her back to Pennsylvania, and Willie May, a wise and compassionate woman who works as a chambermaid at Beauchamp's hotel. The author delves deeply into the psyches of her cast with carefully choreographed scenes, opting for the economy of poetry over elaborate prose. The climax is sudden and brief, mimicking the surge of emotion that overtakes Rob, who can finally embrace life rather than negate it. DiCamillo demonstrates her versatility by treating themes similar to those of her first novel with a completely different approach. Readers will eagerly anticipate her next work. Ages 10-up. (Mar.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
School Library Journal
Gr 4-6-Kate DiCamillo's novel (Candlewick, 2001) is about the distances between people, and the giant leaps of faith that are sometimes needed to bridge those distances. Rife with symbolism, this story focuses on Rob's losses--not just of his mother who died of cancer, but his loss of his father, who is struggling with his own grief. Rob has two talents: keeping his emotions under cover, and carving wood into beautiful shapes. Life at the Kentucky Star Motel in rural Florida, where Rob's father works as a handyman, is lonely and bleak until a caged tiger appears in the woods and a new friend helps to open Rob's heart. Sistine, the new girl at school, also suffers, but she is alive with raw emotions and spunk. She and Rob form a friendship, and together they set out to free the tiger whose caged existence represents their own limited horizons. Film and Broadway actor Dylan Baker reads with a gentle drawl, changing his voice just enough to breath life into the characters. Even so, the characters remain rather contrived. In particular, the figure of the tiger is not vividly portrayed, partly because it carries more symbolic weight than the story can plausibly sustain. DiCamillo's somewhat heavy-handed symbolism leads to an inconclusive climax that ends with Rob's father shooting the tiger after Rob and Sistine release it. The sacrifice of the tiger as a condition for Rob's bonding with his father and his emergence as a character is not an ending that will appeal to animal lovers.-Emily Herman, Hutchinson Elementary School, Atlanta, GA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Themes of freedom and responsibility twine between the lines of this short but heavy novel from the author of Because of Winn-Dixie (2000). Three months after his mother's death, Rob and his father are living in a small-town Florida motel, each nursing sharp, private pain. On the same day Rob has two astonishing encounters: first, he stumbles upon a caged tiger in the woods behind the motel; then he meets Sistine, a new classmate responding to her parents' breakup with ready fists and a big chip on her shoulder. About to burst with his secret, Rob confides in Sistine, who instantly declares that the tiger must be freed. As Rob quickly develops a yen for Sistine's company that gives her plenty of emotional leverage, and the keys to the cage almost literally drop into his hands, credible plotting plainly takes a back seat to character delineation here. And both struggle for visibility beneath a wagonload of symbol and metaphor: the real tiger (and the inevitable recitation of Blake's poem); the cage; Rob's dream of Sistine riding away on the beast's back; a mysterious skin condition on Rob's legs that develops after his mother's death; a series of wooden figurines that he whittles; a larger-than-life African-American housekeeper at the motel who dispenses wisdom with nearly every utterance; and the climax itself, which is signaled from the start. It's all so freighted with layers of significance that, like Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue (2000), Anne Mazer's Oxboy (1995), or, further back, Julia Cunningham's Dorp Dead (1965), it becomes more an exercise in analysis than a living, breathing story. Still, the tiger, "burning bright" with magnificent,feralpresence, does make an arresting central image. (Fiction. 10-12)
From the Publisher
Kate DiCamillo, whose Because of Winn-Dixie was a Newbery Honor Book, again explores the difficulty of fitting into a new place. But The Tiger Rising is even more emotionally affecting as Rob and Sistine, united by their aloneness, grapple with unlocking their own heartaches as they debate whether to free the tiger. —The New York Times Book Review
The author delves deeply into the psyches of her cast with carefully choreographed scenes, opting for the economy of poetry over elaborate prose. . . . DiCamillo demonstrates her versatility by treating themes similar to those of her first novel with a completely different approach. Readers will eagerly anticipate her next work. —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
It deals with the tough issues of death, grieving, and the great accompanying sadness, and has enough layers to embrace any reader. —School Library Journal (starred review)
The story deftly shows the anxiety and suspense of getting close to someone after experience has taught you that may not be safe to do. DiCamillo's gorgeous language wastes not a single word: spare and taut her sentences spin out, with the Florida mist rising off them, and unspoken words finally said aloud. —Booklist
Young readers who enjoyed DiCamillo's first novel won't be disappointed by her second. —The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
The brief novel, which features a well realized setting and an almost palpable aura of sadness, has a certain mythic quality. —The Horn Book
. . . the tiger, 'burning bright' with magnificent, feral presence, does make an arresting central image. —Kirkus Reviews
Together [the characters] learn about trust, friendship, and feelings as they plot to set the tiger free. In the process, they learn another valuable lesson, one that readers won't soon forget. This poignant, powerful story was written by the author of the Newbery Honor book Because of Winn-Dixie. —Dallas Morning News
DiCamillo, who grew up in Central Florida and wrote the multi-award winning Because of Winn-Dixie, could almost have titled her bittersweet second novel "Because of the Tiger" . . . because of the tiger, Rob and Sistine make the fateful decision that allows Rob and his father to grieve more openly for their loss. —Orlando Sentinel
Powerfully written by the author of Because of Winn-Dixie, this poignant story is certain to garner accolades on many levels. —Syndicated Column - Kendal Rautzhan
