The Pinballs

This is a good book for children as well as those who work with children in foster care or DFCS situations. Our daughters enjoyed it when they were young, and I use it as a resource to give to folks in care-giving situations for foster children

ISBN 0064401987 - An ALA Notable Children's book, The Pinballs is one of those books that took me a little while to like. Once I gave it a chance, it turned out to be a very good read. Carlie, Harvey and Thomas J. come into the foster care system and meet in the living room of the Masons. Mrs Mason can't have children, so she and her husband began the process to adopt. Along the way, they ended up as foster parents and they've gotten quite good at it. Harvey's there because his father got drunk and ran over his legs with the car - and that was after his mother ran away from them. Carlie's had a hard time with stepfathers and is in the system until things stabilize. Thomas J. is a mystery - a child who toddled up to a farmhouse owned by twin sisters, who took him and raised him until they both ended up in the hospital. Then the authorities found him and while they figured out what to do with him, he was at the Masons. Carlie comes across, at first, like a girl you'd like to NOT know; Thomas J. is the loudest quiet kid in the world; Harvey just seems to be broken, in more ways than one. How they help each other and how they learn to let others help them is a touching story that every kid - and every adult! - ought to read. And who they really are, under all the hurts of their short, messed up lives, might surprise you.

The Pinballs is a book about three children who are sent to a foster home. The three children are Carlie, Harvey, and Thomas J. Carlie is a fourteen-year-old girl who is at the foster home because her stepfathers abused her. Harvey is a thirteen-year-old boy who is at a foster home because his father had drinking problem and he couldn't take care of Harvey. Thomas J. is an eight year old boy who is at the foster home because when he was two his natal parents left him at the door step of the eighty-two year old Benson twins and they broke their hips walking down a path to their house and they couldn't care for him. So those three children were sent the Mason Foster Home. At first Carlie doesn't like anybody in the house, Harvey really doesn't communicate and Thomas J. talks too loud. What will happen to Carlie? What will happen to Harvey? What will happen to Thomas J.? Find out in The Pinballs by Betsy Byars. I think the Pinballs was very good because most of the characters were dynamic. Betsy Byars painted a vivid picture of the characters. There is a very big lesson that taught in this book and you will have to read this book to find out. I would suggest this to any person above the age of ten.

First a trivia question: Who played Carlie on the ABC After-school Special based on this book?This book was one of the earliest in children's fiction that tried to be more realistic, more relevant and present some of the darker realities that kids sometimes have to face. Both Carlie and Harvey were abused and Thomas J. was neglected. There's a lot of humor in this book, a lot of anger and a lot of truth-telling. But at the end, there's also hope as these 'pinballs' become friends and help each other come to terms with their problems.Trivia answer: Kristy McNichol.

We just finished reading The Pinballs in our fourth-grade classroom. Most of us thought it was a great book. We felt that we learned a lot about what it's like for someone to have to leave his or her family and go to a foster home for a while. We were interested in how Carlie changes. At the beginning she is sharp-tongued with everyone and she's angry all the time. Later on, she begins to trust and really care about the other foster kids and Mr. and Mrs. Mason, the foster parents. Carlie is not the only one who changes. We saw that Harvey reaches a deeper understanding of his father. Instead of just hating him for running over his legs with his car, he becomes more understanding after realizing that his mother never answered any of his letters (his mother ran away to join a commune). We liked what Carlie and Thomas J did at the end of the book to bring Harvey out of his depression in the hospital. We're not going to say what that is, though, because we want everyone who reads this review to read the book.