“The Dump” is what Doug Swieteck calls his new home in upstate New York. He lands there in the summer of 1968, when the Apollo space missions are under way, Joe Pepitone is slugging for the New York Yankees, and the Vietnam War is raging. At home he lives with a father who has lost his way and a brother accused of robbery. And Doug’s oldest brother is returning from Vietnam. Who knows what wounds his missions have given him?
But Doug has his own mission, too, and it begins when he first sees the plates of John James Audubon’s Birds of America at the local library. His mission will lead him to Lil Spicer, who shows him how to drink a really cold Coke, to Mrs. Windermere, who drags him to a theater opening, and to the customers of his Saturday grocery deliveries, who together will open a world as strange to him as the lunar landscape.
Swieteck, who first appeared in Gary D. Schmidt’s Newbery Honor book The Wednesday Wars , will discover the transforming power of art over disaster in a story about creativity and loss, love and recovery, and survival.
加里•施密特
美国著名儿童文学作家，曾两度荣获纽伯瑞儿童文学奖，现任密歇根州凯尔文大学教授。2004年，《鲸眼》获得纽伯瑞文学奖，并被美国图书馆协会、《学校图书馆期刊》评为年度好书。2005年，《第一个男孩》入围马克•吐温奖。2008年，《星期三的战争》再度摘得纽伯瑞文学奖。2011年，《周末图书馆》入选美国国家图书奖，并被评为亚马逊年度最佳学生读物。