Earthquake

by Matt Christopher, Ted Lewin

After running away from camp in the Adirondack Mountains on his horse, Jeff encounters unimaginable ordeals, including a severe earthquake.

Genres: Fiction

111 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1975

About the author

Matt Christopher is the writer young readers turn to when they're looking for fast-paced, action-packed sports novels. He is the best-selling author of more than one hundred sports books for young readers.

Matt Christopher is America's bestselling sports writer for children, with more than 100 books and sales approaching six million copies. In 1992, Matt Christopher talked about being a children's book author.

"I became interested in writing when I was 14, a freshman in high school. I was selling magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, Country Gentleman, and Liberty, and I would read the stories, particularly the adventure and mystery stories, and think how wonderful it would be to be able to write stories and make a living at it. I also read detective, horror, aviation, and sports stories and decided I would try writing them myself.

Determined to sell, I wrote a detective story a week for 40 weeks, finding the time to marry, work, and play baseball and basketball before I sold my first story in 1941, "The Missing Finger Points," for $50 to Detective Story magazine.

After writing and selling children's sports stories to magazines, I decided to write a baseball book for children. I was living in Syracuse, New York at the time, working at General Electric. I spoke about my idea to the branch librarian. She was immediately interested and told me that they needed sports stories badly. So I came up with my first children's book, The Lucky Baseball Bat. I submitted it to Little, Brown, and the book was published in 1954.

I'm sure that playing sandlot baseball and then semiprofessional baseball with a Class C club in the Canadian-American League influenced my writing. I had my own personal experiences, and I saw how other players reacted to plays, to teammates' and fans' remarks and innuendoes, to managers' orders, etc. All these had a great influence on my writing. My love of the game helped a lot, too, of course.

Out of all the books I've written, my favorite is The Kid Who Only Hit Homers. It's a fantasy, but the main character in it could be real. There are a lot of boys who would love to play baseball but, for some reason, cannot. The only difference between a real-life boy and Sylvester Coddmyer III is the appearance of a character named George Baruth, whom only Sylvester can see and who helps Sylvester become a good ballplayer.

I've written many short stories and books for both children and adults, and find that writing for children is really my niche. Being the eldest of nine children (seven boys and two girls), I've lived through a lot of problems many children live through, and I find these problems excellent examples to include in my books.

Sports have made it possible for me to meet many people with all sorts of life stories, on and off the field, and these are grist for this writer's mill. I'm far beyond playing age now, but I manage to go to both kids' and adult games just to keep up with them, and keep them fresh in my mind.Very few things make me happier than receiving fan letters from boys and girls who write that they had never cared for reading until they started to read my books. That is just about the ultimate in writing for children. I would never trade it for another profession."

Matt Christopher died on September 27, 1997. His legacy is now being carried on by his sons, Duane and Dale Christopher.

Reviews

[Rebekah Morris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this author probably does better with sports stories.
Most of this story was fun to read, but when the boy started feeding his horse his sandwiches and telling him they had to conserve their food I was left shaking my head. There was plenty of grass for the horse, and the boy should have known his horse didn’t need to eat his sandwiches.
The end was anti-climatic and I was left wondering what the purpose of the story was.
This is not a book I’ll be reading again.

[Katt Hansen · Rating 2 out of 5]

A boy who is unhappy at camp takes his horse and runs away through the Adirondack Mountains to get home. A story of survival in difficult circumstances, culminating in a violent earthquake.

I wasn't overly impressed with this story. A lot of it seems somewhat unrealistic, especially the fact that the boy keeps feeding his horse sandwiches (liverwurst? for a horse?) like that's going to be enough food, or even the right food for him. The boy's plan to get home is absolutely ridiculous - to just travel in a straight line over the toughest terrain imaginable, with no trails to follow, and using nothing but a compass. While the tale is thrilling at times, and has some nice bits about nature and survival skills, the whole book was lacking somewhat. I could't escape the feeling that it could have been better.

[John Teske · Rating 3 out of 5]

Remembered that I was riveted by this story as a young boy, I decided to reread it.

It is a coming of age story, a new version of the prodigal son story, a (main character) takes a journey story.

It is good, meant for young adults. It is also a bit dated, pre-cell phone GPS era, but nevertheless a good quick read for an adult, and wholesome.

[Ruth Hartnup · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's aimed at young male readers, and would probably be successful at getting them to read. But it's clunky, unrealistic, anti-climactic, and a bit dull.