Published: 2002

Author: Stephanie S. Tolan

Summary/General Thoughts: Surviving the Applewhites is a delightful romp. It is essentially a rom-com, but without the romance. The story throws very difference personalities together at close quarters. Hilarity ensues.

A very hippyish, artsy-fartsy Unschooling family adopts a thirteen-year-old juvenile delinquent as a foster child. The whole family subsequently has to work together to direct a community theater production of The Sound of Music.

Content: Jake Semple is a juvenile delinquent who set his school on fire. His parents are in jail for growing marijuana. However, all this is backstory. Jake is portrayed (somewhat unrealistically) as a loveable ruffian.

He acts like an ordinary grumpy tweenager. When he tries to smoke a cigarette, an adult yanks it out of his hand. When he swears, the narrator says, “Jake swore.”

In the play of The Sound of Music, Randolf Applewhite casts a Black Maria and a Vietnamese Liesle. The narration addresses racial politics with 90’s-style explicitness, even defining the phrase “colorblind casting.”

There is a plot summary of the play. The narrator defines the phrase “The Holocaust” – six million Jews murdered.

Educational Value: When the narrator uses a word the readers might not know, she flat-out defines the word. This is accomplished with some degree of subtlety. (In my opinion, she almost gets away with it.) At all events, your child might learn words like “restive” or “discordant” or “metamorphosis.”

Prose Style: Conversational.

Authorial Worldview: Hippyish. (The Applewhite family patriarch, instead of saying grace, thanks “all the powers that be” for the food.)

Respect for Adults: The children in the story generally obey the adults. When they don’t, they get punished.

However, the narrator calls adults by first names. Sometimes children address adults by their first names. I can’t guarantee that child characters don’t occasionally address their own parents by first names.

Portrayal of Home Education: The narration alternates between Jake’s perspective, and ED Applewhite’s perspective. ED is twelve years old, and a hyperorganized type A. She craves the order and the regimentation of school. ED resents being Unschooled. Jake is simply confused by it all. But somehow, the book still manages to make relaxed homeschooling look like an endless party. It is definitely outward-facing – trying to explain homeschool to an audience of schoolchildren.

Sequels: Two. There is slightly more “content” in the sequels. If I recall correctly, there is a quick-smooch teenage kiss in Book Two, and in Book Three, the phrase “hell yes” somehow got past the proofreader. (It is particularly odd, since Book One and Book Two go to such lengths to avoid swear words.)