Misplaced Pages

A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
1987 novel by Gordon Korman
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag
First edition
AuthorGordon Korman
LanguageEnglish
PublisherScholastic Trade
Publication dateAugust 1987
Media typePrint (Hardcover, MMP)
Pages257 pp
ISBN0-590-40694-9
LC ClassPZ7.K8369 Se 1987

A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag is a young adult novel by Gordon Korman, a Canadian-born author who now lives in New York City.

The main characters are Raymond Jardine and Sean Delancy. Sean is a popular student, a starter on the high school basketball team. Raymond Jardine is the man with no luck and therefore is constantly scheming to get to the Greek Island Theamelpos that he calls "the luck place", in order to cure his absence of luck.

Plot

The plot of the novel revolves around Jardine bringing Sean Delancey, his English poetry project partner, into various schemes to ensure their arrival at Theamelpos for the summer. The central one of which involves winning an English-department contest based on their poetry unit. Along the way they encounter Ashley, a beautiful model who becomes the third member of their poetry project, and Cementhead (Steve Semenski), the luckiest student in the school. Sean and Raymond eventually ask Sean's grandfather to impersonate a (fictional) virtually-unknown poet, Gavin Gunhold, in order to bolster their poetry project for English class.

A subplot revolves around the unmasking the school administration's coverups regarding a local government contract to use the school as a testbed for SACGEN (Solar Air Current GENerator), a (fictional) stand-alone power system project that is supposed to power the school using only renewable energy. The school building was disconnected from the electric power grid, and its central core was gutted to house the control room and the storage batteries. Unfortunately, the project barely functions, causing frequent blackouts, leading the students to refer to it as "The Windmill."

Unbeknownst to Sean and Raymond, their English teacher had removed the only bibliographical proof of Gunhold's demise from the local library in order to see how far they would go in their attempts to win the contest. This eventually leads to them conspiring with Sean's grandfather to demonstrate the unreliability of "The Windmill" by inviting the local news media to a poetry recitation at the school. Determined to continue the coverup, the school principal and government officials in charge of the project disregard the system engineer's warnings, leading to the catastrophic failure and subsequent explosion of the SACGEN unit.

Following the demise of the SACGEN unit, and the unmasking of the student's forgeries of additional poems by Gunhold, the principal awards Sean and Raymond with the prize trip to Theamelpos in order to make them unavailable for comment during the construction of SACGEN-II.

Reception

A review in Canadian Family said the book was "a classic tale of teenage scheming" which "will keep readers laughing and engaged throughout". Tanya Boudreau of CM Magazine gave the book 3 out of 4 stars, opining that "Raymond and Sean are likeable, well-rounded characters who have memorable personalities and quirks".

References

  1. Korman, Gordon (1987). A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag. New York: Scholastic Inc. ISBN 0-590-40694-9.
  2. "A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag". Scholastic Corporation. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  3. Boudreau, Tanya (16 November 2012). "CM Magazine: A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag". CM Magazine. University of Manitoba. Retrieved 4 August 2015.

External links

Novels by Gordon Korman
Macdonald Hall
Other series
Bugs Potter
  • Who is Bugs Potter? (1980)
  • Bugs Potter LIVE at Nickaninny (1983)
Jeremy Bloom
  • The D- Poems of Jeremy Bloom: A Collection of Poems About School, Homework, and Life (Sort Of) (1992)
  • The Last-Place Sports Poems of Jeremy Bloom: A Collection of Poems About Winning, Losing, and Being a Good Sport (Sometimes) (1996)
Monday Night Football
  • The Quarterback Exchange (1997)
  • Running Back Conversion (1997)
  • Super Bowl Switch (1997)
  • Heavy Artillery (1997)
  • Ultimate Scoring Machine (1998)
  • NFL Rules! Bloopers, Pranks, Upsets, and Touchdowns (1998)
Slapshots
  • The Stars From Mars (1999)
  • All-Mars All-Stars/The Dream Team (1999)
  • The Face-off Phony (2000)
  • Cup Crazy (2000)
  • 4-in-1 Slapshots: The Complete Collection (2008)
Nose Pickers
  • Nose Pickers from Outer Space! (1999)
  • Planet of the Nose Pickers (2000)
  • Your Mummy Is a Nose Picker (2000)
  • Invasion of the Nose Pickers (2001)
  • 4-in-1 The Ultimate Nose-Picker Collection (2006)
Island
  • Shipwreck (2000)
  • Survival (2001)
  • Escape (2001)
  • 3-in-1 Island Trilogy Bind-Up Book (2006)
Son of the Mob
Everest
  • The Contest (2002)
  • The Climb (2002)
  • The Summit (2002)
Dive
  • The Discovery (2002)
  • The Deep (2003)
  • The Danger (2003)
On the Run
  • Chasing the Falconers (2005)
  • The Fugitive Factor (2005)
  • Now You See Them, Now You Don't (2005)
  • The Stowaway Solution (2005)
  • Public Enemies (2005)
  • Hunting the Hunter (2006)
Kidnapped
  • The Abduction (2006)
  • The Search (2006)
  • The Rescue (2006)
Swindle
The 39 Clues
Titanic
  • Unsinkable (2011)
  • Collision Course (2011)
  • S.O.S. (2011)
Ungifted
Hypnotists
  • The Hypnotists (2013)
  • Memory Maze (2014)
  • The Dragonfly Effect (2015)
Masterminds
  • Masterminds (2015)
  • Masterminds: Criminal Destiny (2016)
  • Masterminds: Payback (2017)
Standalone
  • I Want to Go Home! (1981)
  • Our Man Weston (1982)
  • No Coins, Please (1984)
  • Don't Care High (1985)
  • Son of Interflux (1986)
  • A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag (1987)
  • Radio 5th Grade (1989)
  • Losing Joe's Place (1990)
  • The Twinkie Squad (1992)
  • The Toilet Paper Tigers (1993)
  • Why Did the Underwear Cross the Road (1994)
  • The Chicken Doesn't Skate (1996)
  • Liar, Liar Pants on Fire (1997)
  • The Sixth Grade Nickname Game (1998)
  • No More Dead Dogs (2002)
  • Maxx Comedy: The Funniest Kid in America (2003)
  • Jake, Reinvented (2003)
  • Born To Rock (2006)
  • Schooled (2007)
  • The Juvie Three (2008)
  • Pop (2009)
  • Slacker (2016)
  • Restart (2017)
  • Whatshisface (2018)
  • Level 13: A Slacker Novel (2019)
  • The Unteachables (2019)
  • Notorious (2019)
  • War Stories (2020)
  • Unplugged (2021)
  • Linked (2021)
  • Operation Do-Over (2022)
  • The Fort (2022)
  • The Superteacher Project (2023)
  • Mixed Up (2023)
  • Slugfest (2024)
  • Faker (2024)
  • Old School (2025)
  • Snoop (2025)
Categories: