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The Great Unexpected

By: Sharon Creech
Narrated by: Heather O' Neill, Erin Moon
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Publisher's summary

I had big thoughts to match the big wind. I wondered if we find the people we need when we need them. I wondered if we attract our future by some sort of invisible force, or if we are drawn to it by a similar force. I felt I was turning a corner and that change was afoot.

In the little town of Blackbird Tree live two orphan girls: one Naomi Deane, brimming with curiosity, and her best friend, Lizzie Scatterding, who could talk the ears off a cornfield. Naomi has a knack for being around when trouble happens. For she knows all the peculiar people in town - like Crazy Cora and Witch Wiggins and Mr. Farley. But then, one day, a boy drops out of a tree. The strangely charming Finn boy. Then the Dingle Dangle man appears, asking all kinds of questions. Curious surprises are revealed - three locked trunks, a pair of rooks, a crooked bridge, and that boy. Soon Naomi and Lizzie find themselves zooming toward a future neither could ever have imagined. Meanwhile, on a grand estate across the ocean, an old lady whose heart has been deceived concocts a plan. . . .

As two very different worlds are woven together, Newbery Medal winner Sharon Creech celebrates the gossamer thread that connects us all, and the great and unexpected gifts of love, friendship, and forgiveness.

©2012 Sharon Creech (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers
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What listeners say about The Great Unexpected

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Not our favorite Creech book.

This is a story with potential, and there were positives, but the ending was frustrating.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Adolescent Fairy Tale

Any additional comments?

Naomi and Lizzie are two orphan girls living in a small American town with many albeit distant connections to Ireland. One day boy called Finn falls out of a tree practically onto Naomi’s head, and this begins the magical mystery. Who is “this Finn boy” and who is the Dingle Dangle man who has been seen around town, and what do they have to do with the orphan girls? The girls’ story is told alternating with a tale of others who live across the ocean in the old country, and, of course, they are somehow all connected.

The Great Unexpected reads like a modern Irish fairy tale; if you enjoy fairy tales, or realistic fantasy you might also like: A Dog For Life, by L.S. Matthews or My Name is Mina and I Love the Night, by David Almond.

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

This book is AMAZING

It has the best characters and I love how both of the story’s in the book bound together and pull into one of the most spectacular books I’ve ever read!!! You must read this❤️❤️🥳

I would love to write more but I don’t wanna give any spoilers😬😳🤫

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