7 Total Resources View Text Complexity Discover Like Books Audio Excerpt from Tangerine Name Pronunciation with Edward Bloor Grade 4-8. Problems crop up, too, in this book's pacing, but first-novelist Bloor pulls it off, wedding athletic heroics to American gothic with a fluid touch and flair for dialogue. In your notebook, list the page numbers and answer the question completely (at. A modern-day classic underdog story to share with middle graders.
A swarm of mosquitoes hovers over the housing development. The horrific elements, however, remain largely unresolved. The playing fields are symbolic arenas in which Paul's anger at his brother and his tentative friendships with a group of poor minority kids get worked out. The element of suburban ecological horror here is both frightening and surreal, but it gives way in the second half of the novel to an onslaught of soccer and football games. As buried memories surface, he uncovers the ugly truth of what his football hero brother did to him years ago. When his family moves to Florida's Tangerine County, where lightning strikes every day and toxic smoke billows through the air, Paul begins to remember something else. Revealing his gentle but slightly dark sense of humor, Bloor reflects, “Here I am writing another book about neglectful parents during the time I could be spending with my children.When he was little, Paul stared at an eclipse too long. He is also trying to balance writing a second “Florida Gothic” with the responsibilities of fatherhood (Bloor and his wife, Pam, have two young children, Spenser and Amanda). During the hours he’s not working at Harcourt, he is attending book signings and speaking at schools. Now living in a Florida “target-for-disaster” subdivision similar to Paul’s neighborhood in Tangerine, Bloor is experiencing the frenzy of activity that goes along with success. “Reading hundreds of YA novels while working at Harcourt Brace led me to believe I could find a niche for myself in the field.” “Making up educational materials for my classes brought me into publishing, and published brought me back to writing,” he states.
Repayment came in the way of “piles” of rejection slips.ĭuring this “low” period, Bloor’s family relocated to Florida, where Bloor gave up writing to teach English to middle-school and high-school students. His sister, to whom Tangerine is dedicated, spent “many hours” typing up a still unpublished first novel and Bloor sank a $500 inheritance from his grandfather into hiring a literary agent. “But I was clueless about what to do about it,” he admits. He wrote plays that were produced in his high school and was editor of the school literary magazine.Īfter receiving an English degree from Fordham University, Bloor’s dream of becoming a published author continued. “My most successful period occurred from seventh grade to 12 th grade.” Growing up in Trenton, N.J., Bloor was influenced by literary/theatrical circles in New York. “I’ve always been a writer,” says Bloor, who narrates into a Dictaphone on his way to work and while mowing his lawn. Part of his revision included the challenging task of fleshing out minor characters introduced by a legally blind protagonist. The author won battles to keep the “sinking classroom” scene and the book’s original title, but had to rework other aspects of the story. “I had a hard time convincing him that such things really do happen in Florida,” recalls Bloor, adding that Stearns was attracted to the oddness of the story but asked for a number of revisions.
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