In the historic town of Norvelt, Pennsylvania, twelve-year-old Jack Gantos spends the summer of 1962 grounded for various offenses until he is assigned to help an elderly neighbor with a most unusual chore involving the newly dead, molten wax, twisted promises, Girl Scout cookies, underage driving, lessons from history, typewriting, and countless bloody noses (Gantos, Jack). According to one reviewer, the "real hero" is "his home town and its values", a "defiantly political" message. Vocabulary words that I would make sure to pre-teach include: o   Communist: a person who believes that all property in a society should be publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs. He makes plenty of mistakes... eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. You see, Jack has a little problem: anytime he's stressed out or scared, his nose spouts blood all over the place. Dead End in Norvelt follows Jack Gantos, a boy who lives in the small town of Norvelt named after Eleanor Roosevelt. Melding the entirely true and the wildly fictional, Dead End in Norvelt is the story of an incredible two months for a boy named Jack Gantos, whose plans for vacation adventure are suddenly ruined when he is grounded by his feuding parents for what seems like forever. The town of Norvelt, Pennsylvania, one of 99 subsistence homestead communities created during the Depression for unemployed workers, is a character in Jack Gantos's Dead End in Norvelt. Mrs. Gantos couldn't afford the cost and the doctor couldn't take the canned peaches or pickles she offered in exchange for the treatment. They walked a quarter mile up to Dr. Mertz's office. Soon, Jack finds himself right in the middle of a mystery. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. What quotes state the main character's strength? Jack Gantos is no ordinary hero, and yet he becomes one in the novel Dead End in Norvelt. How do they lie to themselves and to the entire community? Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. Discuss the most dishonest characters. In addition, I liked how you incorporated this text to be used in the social studies content because it provided students another example of how life was different and what it took to live in that time period. Dead End in Norvelt is an autobiographical novel by the American author Jack Gantos, published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in 2011. Explain how Bunny contributes to Jack’s fears. In the end, both mysteries are finally solved, and Jack's nosebleeds go away. What is in common with the explorers that Jack talks about? She called the plumber for help; in a town as small as Norvelt, the plumber serves as the ambulance driver as well. What does Mrs. Gantos miss most about the “old” Norvelt? Discuss how a town can change without changing its sense of community. The city was made up of two-hundred-fifty houses organized in neat sections, and Miss Volker has promised Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt herself that she would write the obituaries for each of the original families, until they are all gone. The only time he gets to leave the house is when Miss Volker, the town's elderly woman medical examiner, requests help.