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The Pinballs
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The Pinballs (1977) (edit title/settings)

by Betsy Byars (Author) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

You can't always decide where life will take you--especially when you're a kid. Carlie knows she's got no say in what happens to her. Stuck in a foster home with two other kids, Harvey and Thomas J, she's just a pinball being bounced from bumper to bumper. As soon as you get settled,... read more

Summary edit see section history

The Pin balls was about 3 foster kids. Harvey, who is abused by a father, that cripples him, by running over his legs with his car. Ashamed he lies about his injury, and puts it off on sports (football). He also takes up an interest at the foster home, of making lists. I forgot what brought... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

The Pin balls was about 3 foster kids. Harvey, who is abused by a father, that cripples him, by running over his legs with his car. Ashamed he lies about his injury, and puts it off on sports (football). He also takes up an interest at the foster home, of making lists. I forgot what brought this on. In the end his father does come back, and wants now to get custody of him again. Henry doesn’t really want anything to do with him now. He ends up in the hospital, after refusing to talk to anyone after a visit from his father, and devising a plan to find and stay with his mother. I think she left to go *find herself* and is living on a vine yard, with some strange man. His foot swells, and Thomas and Carlie bring him out of his depression by getting him the one thing he says he always wants to have (a puppy). Thomas J is another one of the foster kids. He lived with a set of twins (ladies) Thomas and Jefferson. Who eventually break their hips, and die (at the same time as far fetched as this is to believe). Then there’s Carlie, a smart ass, who comes to the foster home because her mom’s boyfriends have been abusive to her. She describes them as pin balls (meaning they don’t have control of their destinies) but changes her mind at the end of the book, and has the ephipany that they have the ability to make their destinies be whatever they want them to be.

Characters/People edit see section history

  • Harvey: His father gave him two broken legs. His mother left him at a young age and is adopted.
  • Mrs. Mason: Is the foster mother of Carlie, Harvey, and Thomas J
  • Thomas J.: Was left at the door of a barn. Was took in by the owners known as the Benson twins and was nurtured by them too.
  • Benson: The oldest twins in the town where Thomas J lives with them.
  • Carlie: A girl who has never met her father and didn't get along with her step-fathers.
  • Mr.Mason: Husband of Mrs.Mason. Has had a bad childhood just like Carlie, Harvey, and Thomas J.
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First Sentence edit see section history

One summer two boys and a girl went to a foster home to live together.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Betsy Byars (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
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Publication Date: 1977
ISBN: Add the ISBN.
Page Count: 144

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

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