Mick Harte Was Here

It was good and sad. Mick Harte was 12 years old, and his sister was 13. Mick Harte asked his sister to take his bike home, and sister said no. Mick was going to his friend's house for a litte bit, and his sister heared sirens. Mick got hit by a truck. The book goes back to the beginning of his life.

When I was a kid I rode my bike all the time. I rode it all around my block and up and down my street. I rode it with my dad and brother to the local high school where we'd play a makeshift game of bike tag. This was all in the 1980s and I have delightful memories of the time. Sure, there was the occasional scare. Once I rode into a street without looking and a car had to stop quite short to avoid hitting me. My dad wasn't too thrilled about that, but nothing bad happened and it wasn't as if I was punished. And not once, NOT ONCE, did I ever wear a bike helmet. At the time, I probably had some vague sense that I was invincible. Today, I look at that near miss with the car and silently shudder. Today kids know about bike helmets and most of them wear them. But there's nothing like a book like, "Mick Harte Was Here" to kinda drill the point home. I'm not saying that this book is just a good public safety message. I'm saying it tells a compelling story that will probably encourage your kids to take a little more care of their lives than if they hadn't read it in the first place. "So this isn't the kind of book where you meet the main character and you get to like him real well and then he dies at the end", says narrator Phoebe Harte. Mick Harte is dead, to begin with. In a straightforward voice, thirteen-year-old Pheobe tells of how her brother's death was an accident in the purest sense of the word. He was on his bike, he hit a rock, and he smashed into a passing truck. Instantaneous head wound. Instantaneous death. But before you get to that you get to see a little of Mick on that last day. You see how he messed around with his sister and how they had a mild fight that morning. You get a sense of his sense of humor and wacky style. Without really meaning to, you discover that you really like Mick. And now he's dead. With the barest minimum of text, author Barbara Park shows exactly how one family chooses to deal with Mick's death. Pheobe adjusts better than her parents, but she still has a great deal of difficulty figuring out exactly where Mick is. Fortunately, by the end of the book she's reached a kind of peace. A slow understanding that sometimes this is the way things are. And as a reader, you feel good about that. Sad, but good. Barbara Park's real strength here is the age group she's written this tale for. This is a kind of young reader chapter book, just perfect for fourth and fifth graders. Park's Phoebe has a definite dark sense of humor. For example, after she remarks that the only upside to someone's death is that you have no appetite she points out that she lost some weight just in time for the funeral. Says Phoebe in a bleak comedic voice, "Nature's real thoughtful that way". "Mick Harte Was Here", is ultimately hopeful, though. For people who have always associated Miss Park with her pre-eminently popular "Junie B. Jones" series, they may find themselves a little shocked to realize that Park can

This book is MICK HARTE WAS HERE. I want to tell everyone this book is sad and funny. What I like most about Mick is that he dressed as Thomas Crapper for trick-or-treating. Some people don't know about Thomas Crapper. He is the man who invented the toilet. I like the name of the dog Wocket because Mick couldn't pronounce his r's when he was three. The dog's name was supposed to be Rocket. The sad part is that Mick dies. Mick died from a bicycle crash because he didn't wear his helmet. Mick's family was like zombies. They wouldn't even eat in the dinner table because they saw the empty chair and they missed Mick. The dad didn't even iron his pants, and his mom didn't even change clothes. She didn't talk to her daughter, either. At the end of the book Phoebe went to the soccer field to sit there, when she saw a stick. Phoebe thought was a perfect size and small enough to carve the letters into the concrete so they could stay forever. She wrote the letters big enough to see them: MICK HARTE WAS HERE. That was the saddest thing I ever heard, and I want to tell everyone you should wear your helmet, if not, every day there will be deaths. This is a great book for everyone.

Now and then you come along a fantastic book that makes you cry. "Mick Hart was here" is an exellent example of this. It made me glance at my brother and choke back tears. As I can't imagine living for one day without my brother, it must have been encredubly hard for Pheobe as she would wander thoughtlessly into her brother's empty room, untouched since he died, and be so horrified at herself for letting herself go back there. Mick was killed in a terrible bike accident, and i have been in a bad bike accident also, so i felt sort of a special connection to this tear-jerking story. Luckily, i was wearing a helmet, and, while reading this story, i realized how it might have resulted if i hadn't been wearing one. I recommend this book to people that are 4th grade or older, because it's a little intense. Enjoy!

This is one of the most outstanding books dealing with the death of a child (and the family he left behind) that I have ever read! Right from the start, we are told that Mick will die because the narrator (his sister) doesn't want to use his death as a tear-jerker. After that, the book ranges from horrifying to sad to hilarious. (I always laugh out loud when the story of the monkey in the driveway is told -- read it and see if you don't crack up!) Park captures the pain of losing a sibling perfectly without being cloying or portraying the dead child as perfect. The family is REAL: they speak like real people, fight, laugh, cry, love, hurt, and heal like humans... this isn't a paper family