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Switch
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Published:
Penguin Young Readers Group 2021
Lexile measure:
HL: High-Low 700L
Status:
Available from OverDrive
Description
A surreal and timely novel about the effects of isolation and what it means to be connected to the world from the Printz Award-winning author of Dig.
Time has stopped. It's been June 23, 2020 for nearly a year as far as anyone can tell. Frantic adults demand teenagers focus on finding practical solutions to the worldwide crisis. Not everyone is on board though. Javelin-throwing prodigy Truda Becker is pretty sure her "Solution Time" class won't solve the world's problems, but she does have a few ideas what might. Truda lives in a house with a switch that no one ever touches, a switch her father protects every day by nailing it into hundreds of progressively larger boxes. But Truda's got a crow bar, and one way or another, she's going to see what happens when she flips the switch.
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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
05/11/2021
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780525555520
ASIN:
B08HY299YN
Lexile code:
HL: High-Low
Lexile measure:
700
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

A.S. King. (2021). Switch. Penguin Young Readers Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

A.S. King. 2021. Switch. Penguin Young Readers Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

A.S. King, Switch. Penguin Young Readers Group, 2021.

MLA Citation (style guide)

A.S. King. Switch. Penguin Young Readers Group, 2021.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
Copy Details
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Shared Digital Collection11
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Grouped Work ID:
11f481f0-1e85-7e95-11d8-e03cc579990a
Go To Grouped Work
Needs Update?:
No
Date Added:
May 05, 2021 18:21:04
Date Updated:
May 05, 2021 18:21:04
Last Metadata Check:
Apr 21, 2024 15:55:39
Last Metadata Change:
Jan 30, 2024 10:51:22
Last Availability Check:
Apr 21, 2024 15:55:43
Last Availability Change:
Sep 11, 2023 00:50:27
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
Apr 25, 2024 02:10:18

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publishDate
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title
Switch
fullDescription
A surreal and timely novel about the effects of isolation and what it means to be connected to the world from the Printz Award-winning author of Dig.
Time has stopped. It's been June 23, 2020 for nearly a year as far as anyone can tell. Frantic adults demand teenagers focus on finding practical solutions to the worldwide crisis. Not everyone is on board though. Javelin-throwing prodigy Truda Becker is pretty sure her "Solution Time" class won't solve the world's problems, but she does have a few ideas what might. Truda lives in a house with a switch that no one ever touches, a switch her father protects every day by nailing it into hundreds of progressively larger boxes. But Truda's got a crow bar, and one way or another, she's going to see what happens when she flips the switch.
gradeLevels
      • value: Grade 3
reviews
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        March 29, 2021
        On June 23, 2020, Earth fell into a space-time fold that stopped every clock. Now, per government mandate, all students must spend two hours per day—as measured by a website that “tells you what time and date it would be”—contemplating a fix. Truda Becker, 16, suspects the universe pressed pause because people ceased caring about each other, but has no clue how to rectify the situation, particularly since her own family is struggling due to her sociopathic older sister’s sadistic manipulations. To cope, Truda throws javelins, which “teach me how to fly through time when no time exists,” and endeavors to uncover the mysterious switch over which her father has nailed a series of increasingly large boxes—some the size of rooms. Every night, while her household sleeps, Truda takes a crowbar to her father’s handiwork, hoping to learn the mechanism’s purpose. This powerful tale from Printz Medalist King (Dig) satirizes society’s time fixation while illustrating the importance of candor, compassion, and self-care. Surreal imagery and poetic narration capture Truda’s inner turmoil without obscuring plot or hindering pace, resulting in a read that’s poignant, propulsive, and profound. Ages 14–up. Agent: Michael Bourret, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret Literary.

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        April 1, 2021
        Printz Award winner King returns with another surrealist masterpiece. On June 23, 2020, the world became caught in "a fold in time and space." For the past nine months, the United States has enacted Solution Time and been using N3WCLOCK to keep some semblance of normality. High school javelin star Truda Becker isn't satisfied with these patched-together efforts, though, and she is determined to use psychology to find the "Real Solution." While she puzzles over the irregularities of time and their grander meaning, Truda is also weighed down by irregularities in her home life. Her father, an immigrant from an unspecified country, spends his days obsessively building and rebuilding room-sized plywood boxes, making a disorienting warren of their family home. Her "clairvoyant" mother comes and goes, her brother is acting jumpy and suspicious, and the shadow of Truda's abusive sister casts a pall over them all. Truda is determined: "By the end of the month, I will figure out how to make people give a shit about other people. I still have no idea how I'll do this because I live in a house where emergencies are cubed like snack cheese and giving an actual shit has been put on hold." Intentionally perplexing, the book carefully doles out reveals as it steadily weaves together seemingly disparate threads with precision. This otherwise stellar title unfortunately is marred by the repeated use of deaf to describe emotional evasion and dishonesty. Main characters read as White by default. Timely and timeless. (Speculative fiction. 14-18)

        COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        April 15, 2021
        Grades 9-12 After time stopped, "nothing [moved] forward," including clocks, and the world scrambled to adjust to this unexplainable phenomenon. For Truda, nine months later, this means Solution Time, where schoolkids are tasked with exploring ways to fix time. She believes the key is getting everyone "to give a shit about people." This challenging, surrealist novel is rooted in psychology, grounding its mind-bending world building in Tru's mental state as she navigates the mysterious tension circulating through her household. As her father turns their home into a plywood labyrinth, her brother hides from some secret shame, and her absent "clairvoyant" mother flirts with returning home, a loose plot tracks Tru's sudden javelin-throwing superpower. It's difficult to distinguish between metaphor, delusion, and "reality," but King invites readers to embrace the confusion as she guides them, and Tru, out of the maze, gradually revealing the characters' underlying traumas, which revolve around an unnamed sister and her cruel manipulations. The text is experimental, often reading like poetry, with forward slashes breaking sentences into agrammatical formations. A work of literary significance that, while it will speak worlds to some, may find limited appeal thanks to a high barrier of entry.

        COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

      • premium: True
      • source: School Library Journal
      • content:

        Starred review from May 1, 2021

        Gr 9 Up-On June 23, 2020, Earth became trapped in a fold in time, and time stopped. A temporary solution was found as humanity kept keeping artificial time using a website called N3WCLOCK, but high schools across the world continued to task their students to find a permanent solution to the crisis. Tru Becker is one of these students, but she doesn't think that she is the best person to solve this problem. She has enough problems at home: Her father is obsessed with building boxes around a mysterious switch in the middle of their house, her mother-as far as Tru knows-is in rehab, her brother Richard spends most of his time teaching himself Portuguese, and her sister...well, maybe it's best Tru not think too much about her sister. But then two things happen that make Tru think she might actually be the perfect person to solve the time issue: She accidentally stops time by taking a nail out of one of her father's boxes, and she breaks the world record javelin throw at her first track meet. But being the center of attention is the last thing Tru wants. King perfectly captures a feeling of listlessness with this surreal and experimental novel. Highly conceptual with a unique writing style, feelings of isolation are intertwined with explorations of how it feels to connect with another human being. Tru is an interesting and inquisitive main character and acts as the perfect vehicle for readers' own explorations of isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. VERDICT Timely and extraordinary, teen readers will find themselves immersed in this timeless world-if they can get past the unfamiliar prose style. Highly recommended.-Tyler Hixson, Brooklyn P.L.

        Copyright 2021 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: The Horn Book
      • content:

        Starred review from September 1, 2021
        "It is, and has been, June 23, 2020, for nine months now." Global time has inexplicably paused. The U.S. government has created a new school curriculum called "Solution Time" that instructs students "to solve the world's time problem...figure it out / be sufficiently distracted." Sixteen-year-old Truda believes "the universe noticed we're falling apart and we need to learn how to rest," but she's having a hard time crafting a thesis that proves it, because her concentration is shot by confusing dramas at home: her mother's departure; her brooding older brother's odd hours; her sadistic, banished sister's lies. And Truda's father is building a maze of plywood boxes around a mysterious switch in their house. But the most unsettling development is Truda's bizarre new ability to stop time within stopped time. She becomes convinced that the switch in her house is the key and works to dismantle the boxes to discover the truth. Through an intentionally oblique text with occasional refrains ("to understand anything is to understand energy") and ideas coexisting within sentences, sometimes separated by slashes, King (Printz winner for Dig., rev. 3/19) explores the meaning of time and the toxicity of family secrets. This inventive, surreal novel's dedication, "For the class of 2020," makes a direct address to real-life teens' "lost" COVID-19 year. Jennifer Hubert Swan

        (Copyright 2021 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

      • premium: True
      • source: The Horn Book
      • content:

        July 1, 2021
        "It is, and has been, June 23, 2020, for nine months now." Global time has inexplicably paused. The U.S. government has created a new school curriculum called "Solution Time" that instructs students "to solve the world's time problem...figure it out / be sufficiently distracted." Sixteen-year-old Truda believes "the universe noticed we're falling apart and we need to learn how to rest," but she's having a hard time crafting a thesis that proves it, because her concentration is shot by confusing dramas at home: her mother's departure; her brooding older brother's odd hours; her sadistic, banished sister's lies. And Truda's father is building a maze of plywood boxes around a mysterious switch in their house. But the most unsettling development is Truda's bizarre new ability to stop time within stopped time. She becomes convinced that the switch in her house is the key and works to dismantle the boxes to discover the truth. Through an intentionally oblique text with occasional refrains ("to understand anything is to understand energy") and ideas coexisting within sentences, sometimes separated by slashes, King (Printz winner for Dig., rev. 3/19) explores the meaning of time and the toxicity of family secrets. This inventive, surreal novel's dedication, "For the class of 2020," makes a direct address to real-life teens' "lost" COVID-19 year.

        (Copyright 2021 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

popularity
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shortDescription
A surreal and timely novel about the effects of isolation and what it means to be connected to the world from the Printz Award-winning author of Dig.
Time has stopped. It's been June 23, 2020 for nearly a year as far as anyone can tell. Frantic adults demand teenagers focus on finding practical solutions to the worldwide crisis. Not everyone is on board though. Javelin-throwing prodigy Truda Becker is pretty sure her "Solution Time" class won't solve the world's problems, but she does have a few ideas what might. Truda lives in a house with a switch that no one ever touches, a switch her father protects every day by nailing it into hundreds of progressively larger boxes. But Truda's got a crow bar, and one way or another, she's going to see what happens when she flips the switch.
sortTitle
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      • description: YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Science Fiction / Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic
      • code: YAF018070
      • description: Young Adult Fiction / Family / Siblings
      • code: YAF058140
      • description: Young Adult Fiction / Social Themes / Mental Illness