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Jack Henry #4
Jack on the Tracks: Four Seasons of Fifth Grade
From the Newbery Medal-winning author of Dead End in Norvelt , nine semi-autobiographical stories that will make you laugh so hard it hurts
In Jack on the Tracks , fifth-grader Jack Henry is hoping for fresh adventure when he moves to a new home in Miami with his family, but he can't escape his old worrying ways. He worries about being fascinated with all things gross and disgusting. He worries about his crazy French-obsessed schoolteacher. And most of all he worries about worrying so much. In this cycle of interrelated stories, there may be light at the end of the tunnel, if only Jack can get on the right track to survive his outrageous year.
In Jack on the Tracks , fifth-grader Jack Henry is hoping for fresh adventure when he moves to a new home in Miami with his family, but he can't escape his old worrying ways. He worries about being fascinated with all things gross and disgusting. He worries about his crazy French-obsessed schoolteacher. And most of all he worries about worrying so much. In this cycle of interrelated stories, there may be light at the end of the tunnel, if only Jack can get on the right track to survive his outrageous year.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
22 people are currently reading
104 people want to read
About the author
Jack Gantos
81 books551 followersJack Gantos is an American author of children's books renowned for his portrayal of fictional Joey Pigza, a boy with ADHD, and many other well known characters such as Rotten Ralph, Jack Henry, Jack Gantos (memoirs) and others. Gantos has won a number of awards, including the Newbery, the Newbery Honor, the Scott O'Dell Award, the Printz Honor, and the Sibert Honor from the American Library Association, and he has been a finalist for the National Book Award.
Gantos was born in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania to son of construction superintendent John Gantos and banker Elizabeth (Weaver) Gantos. The seeds for Jack Gantos' writing career were planted in sixth grade, when he read his sister's diary and decided he could write better than she could. Born in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania, and raised in Barbados and South Florida, Mr. Gantos began collecting anecdotes in grade school and later gathered them into stories.
After his senior year in high school (where he lived in a welfare motel) he moved to a Caribbean island (St Croix) and began to train as a builder. He soon realized that construction was not his forté and started saving for college. While in St. Croix he met a drug smuggler and was offered a chance to make 10 000 dollars by sailing to New York with 2,000 pounds of hash. With an English eccentric captain on board they set off to the big city. Once there they hung out at the Chelsea hotel and Gantos carried on dreaming about college. Then, in Jacks own words, "The **** hit the fan" and the F.B.I. burst in on him. He managed to escape and hid out in the very same welfare motel he was living during high school. However, he saw sense and turned himself in. He was sentenced to six years in prison, which he describes in his novel -HOLE IN MY LIFE-. However, after a year and a half in prison he applied to college, was accepted. He was released from prison, entered college, and soon began his writing career.
He received his BFA and his MA both from Emerson College. While in college, Jack began working on picture books with an illustrator friend. In 1976, they published their first book, Rotten Ralph. Mr. Gantos continued writing children's books and began teaching courses in children's book writing. He developed the master's degree program in children's book writing at Emerson College in Boston. In 1995 he resigned his tenured position in order to further his writing career (which turned out to be a great decision).
He married art dealer Anne A. Lower on November 11, 1989. The couple has one child, Mabel, and they live in Boston, Massachusetts.
www.jackgantos.com
Gantos was born in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania to son of construction superintendent John Gantos and banker Elizabeth (Weaver) Gantos. The seeds for Jack Gantos' writing career were planted in sixth grade, when he read his sister's diary and decided he could write better than she could. Born in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania, and raised in Barbados and South Florida, Mr. Gantos began collecting anecdotes in grade school and later gathered them into stories.
After his senior year in high school (where he lived in a welfare motel) he moved to a Caribbean island (St Croix) and began to train as a builder. He soon realized that construction was not his forté and started saving for college. While in St. Croix he met a drug smuggler and was offered a chance to make 10 000 dollars by sailing to New York with 2,000 pounds of hash. With an English eccentric captain on board they set off to the big city. Once there they hung out at the Chelsea hotel and Gantos carried on dreaming about college. Then, in Jacks own words, "The **** hit the fan" and the F.B.I. burst in on him. He managed to escape and hid out in the very same welfare motel he was living during high school. However, he saw sense and turned himself in. He was sentenced to six years in prison, which he describes in his novel -HOLE IN MY LIFE-. However, after a year and a half in prison he applied to college, was accepted. He was released from prison, entered college, and soon began his writing career.
He received his BFA and his MA both from Emerson College. While in college, Jack began working on picture books with an illustrator friend. In 1976, they published their first book, Rotten Ralph. Mr. Gantos continued writing children's books and began teaching courses in children's book writing. He developed the master's degree program in children's book writing at Emerson College in Boston. In 1995 he resigned his tenured position in order to further his writing career (which turned out to be a great decision).
He married art dealer Anne A. Lower on November 11, 1989. The couple has one child, Mabel, and they live in Boston, Massachusetts.
www.jackgantos.com
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
August 11, 2009
I've read plenty of Gantos's Rotten Ralphs and several in the Joey Pigza series but the Jack Henry books slipped by me. I loved this one! Very funny and spot-on in terms of family dynamics, the 9 stories will appeal to just about everyone in grade 4 and up. I will recommend this one to my reluctant readers, and the too-old for Captain Underpants set.
October 27, 2008
I use this book as a read aloud with my students. It gives us a secret to keep, as some of the stuff is "not appropriate" The kids beg for read aloud each day when this is on the menu
April 20, 2012
This book was hilarious. However, there were really gross boy moments, and really sad moments throughout.
December 21, 2021
Tracks is the hilarious second entry in Jack Gantos’s Jack Henry Adventures. A year older than he was in Jack Adrift, Henry once again finds himself navigating both the hilarious and harrowing.
Gantos divides this novel into nine chapters, each presenting distinct lessons. Gantos has a gift for wrapping wisdom in a jester’s cloak, offering readers plenty to ponder as they laugh, and it is a testament to his nimbleness as a storyteller that these lessons never become sermons for wayward youth.
In Belling the Cat, Henry tries to stop his cat’s murderous ways by strapping a copper bell to its neck. This brings Miss Kitty’s murderous reign to an end. It also brings an end to Miss Kitty, who is so burdened by the bell she is unable to escape an oncoming train (cat lovers may want to find something else to read, as Miss Kitty’s replacements -- MIss Kitty II and Miss Kitty III -- meet similar fates).
In Bottom Line, an escalating battle with his older sister Betsey leaves Henry trapped outdoors naked. Henry tries to snag something to cover himself with from his neighbor’s clothesline, but he is caught in the act and ends up grabbing only a pair of women’s underwear before darting away.
Explaining why he’s outside in a pair of panties, Henry lays the blame on Betsy. Henry’s father, however, offers some life advice:
“Being or not being the victim is not the point in this case,” he stressed. “If you want to be known as a serious person on this planet you have to draw the line somewhere with what you will or will not do. And wearing women’s underwear around the neighborhood is way, way below that line...In life you set high standards for yourself. You live by those standards and you never sink below them. This is the bottom line.”
Central to the novel is Henry’s growing awareness of himself as someone who both enjoys beauty and “gross, filthy, disgusting things”. He is stung when his teacher divides the room between girls (who are sugar and spice and everything nice) and boys (who are little more than mouthbreathing hooligans). But his attempts to demonstrate a more feminine, refined sense of taste go awry when he horrifies his teacher with a story detailing how his friend Tack pretended to slurp up a whole plate of worms. In the closing chapter, Henry finds solace in recognizing that even beautiful art is full of chips and cracks and claws. Beauty and ugliness, he realizes, can coexist.
Gantos has acknowledged that the Jack Henry novels are rooted in the diaries he kept as a boy, and one wonders how much he struggled to accept his interest in gross, filthy, disgusting things. His books are filled with the wacky, the macabre, the horrific, the crude, all of which exist alongside beautifully crafted sentences, cleverly designed stories, and startling insights into the human condition.
There are many out there – schoolmarms and holly rollers – who would prefer libraries filled with nothing but good clean books crammed with good clean tales told in good clean language. But as John Irving once noted, if you can’t love crudeness, how can you truly love mankind?
To read Gantos’s work is to see the beauty in tales filled with the crude realities of life. And love them all the same.
Gantos divides this novel into nine chapters, each presenting distinct lessons. Gantos has a gift for wrapping wisdom in a jester’s cloak, offering readers plenty to ponder as they laugh, and it is a testament to his nimbleness as a storyteller that these lessons never become sermons for wayward youth.
In Belling the Cat, Henry tries to stop his cat’s murderous ways by strapping a copper bell to its neck. This brings Miss Kitty’s murderous reign to an end. It also brings an end to Miss Kitty, who is so burdened by the bell she is unable to escape an oncoming train (cat lovers may want to find something else to read, as Miss Kitty’s replacements -- MIss Kitty II and Miss Kitty III -- meet similar fates).
In Bottom Line, an escalating battle with his older sister Betsey leaves Henry trapped outdoors naked. Henry tries to snag something to cover himself with from his neighbor’s clothesline, but he is caught in the act and ends up grabbing only a pair of women’s underwear before darting away.
Explaining why he’s outside in a pair of panties, Henry lays the blame on Betsy. Henry’s father, however, offers some life advice:
“Being or not being the victim is not the point in this case,” he stressed. “If you want to be known as a serious person on this planet you have to draw the line somewhere with what you will or will not do. And wearing women’s underwear around the neighborhood is way, way below that line...In life you set high standards for yourself. You live by those standards and you never sink below them. This is the bottom line.”
Central to the novel is Henry’s growing awareness of himself as someone who both enjoys beauty and “gross, filthy, disgusting things”. He is stung when his teacher divides the room between girls (who are sugar and spice and everything nice) and boys (who are little more than mouthbreathing hooligans). But his attempts to demonstrate a more feminine, refined sense of taste go awry when he horrifies his teacher with a story detailing how his friend Tack pretended to slurp up a whole plate of worms. In the closing chapter, Henry finds solace in recognizing that even beautiful art is full of chips and cracks and claws. Beauty and ugliness, he realizes, can coexist.
Gantos has acknowledged that the Jack Henry novels are rooted in the diaries he kept as a boy, and one wonders how much he struggled to accept his interest in gross, filthy, disgusting things. His books are filled with the wacky, the macabre, the horrific, the crude, all of which exist alongside beautifully crafted sentences, cleverly designed stories, and startling insights into the human condition.
There are many out there – schoolmarms and holly rollers – who would prefer libraries filled with nothing but good clean books crammed with good clean tales told in good clean language. But as John Irving once noted, if you can’t love crudeness, how can you truly love mankind?
To read Gantos’s work is to see the beauty in tales filled with the crude realities of life. And love them all the same.
September 17, 2017
This book is written from stories Jack Gantos experienced as a fifth grader. Jack writes in a diary and explains all his worries about his new life when moving to Miami. This book has nine stories and each one sends you on a crazy adventure.
November 27, 2018
Hilarious and gross---the combination of choice for many young fellas and occasional girls.
June 3, 2022
This book was assigned by my sons teachers. It talks about porno mags, suicide, and the main character kills his cat three times. Not very uplifting. Not even a great life lesson to learn.
October 19, 2023
I'd give it a higher rating, but Jack's father, sister, and teacher are just too awful, and Jack with his smug vegetarianism isn't much better.
Want to read
June 15, 2025Look at Bottom Line
Gantos, Jack
Gantos, Jack
Read
June 1, 2009This book was absolutely HORRIBLE! It's a bad example for any kids out there and completely gross.
Jack and his family are moving, so when he and his father need money for gas and need something to eat his Dad takes a huge gamble. Eating a 72oz steak in 30 minutes. It cost 50 dollars and if he did complete the feat he gets the 50 dollars back, but if he didn't... Well too bad for him, that was gas money to get back to his new home. This is one of the MANY bad examples that is in this book. So be wise and don't read it, but if you must know a few of the bad examples this is it... Tapeworm being beaten out by an ink pen, lying down infront of a train, segregation of boys and girls, and pretending to be badly hurt by squirting ketchup all over one's face.
Jack and his family are moving, so when he and his father need money for gas and need something to eat his Dad takes a huge gamble. Eating a 72oz steak in 30 minutes. It cost 50 dollars and if he did complete the feat he gets the 50 dollars back, but if he didn't... Well too bad for him, that was gas money to get back to his new home. This is one of the MANY bad examples that is in this book. So be wise and don't read it, but if you must know a few of the bad examples this is it... Tapeworm being beaten out by an ink pen, lying down infront of a train, segregation of boys and girls, and pretending to be badly hurt by squirting ketchup all over one's face.
June 18, 2014
This is one of my sons' summer reading books; my sons are 10 and will enter fifth grade in the fall. Although I like the book a lot, I wish my boys (who aren't the most mature kids around) were reading it in a year or two. I say that because the book has surprisingly mature content, including references to pornography and suicide. The book also talks about Santa Claus being make-believe -- one of my pet peeves in kids' books, since kids come to terms with Santa Claus at a variety of ages. Nevertheless, I do think the book is well written, highly entertaining, very funny at times, and thought provoking in a positive way.
September 27, 2014
I got these over the summer since my son was moving from 5th to 6th grade. I thought he would read them on his own, but he never did, so we picked it up for bedtime reading after finishing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Each chapter is a stand-alone event in the life of Jack Henry, allegedly loosely based on the author. There is a lot of humor in the book, some gross-out moments (perfect for many boys of this age), and some deeper wisdom thrown in there. Not sure how much of the wisdom will stick in my son's head, but we enjoyed it.
June 13, 2014
This is clearly a lesson in never judge a book by its cover. My students selected this book out of several options. I am so disappointed to have to spend time editing my read-aloud time to avoid sections that weren't appropriate for the ears of my students.
Overall, I do not believe this to be a 9-10 year old age sort of book.
Overall, I do not believe this to be a 9-10 year old age sort of book.
August 26, 2014
Usually a fan of these lighthearted, fun to read books, but, this one fell flat. Jack is an attention deficit hyperactive young man who seems to draw trouble to himself.
Normally well written and humorous, these stories seemed to be trite and corny. With the exception of a few short stories, I wouldn't recommend this one.
Normally well written and humorous, these stories seemed to be trite and corny. With the exception of a few short stories, I wouldn't recommend this one.
June 3, 2016
AR BOOK L 5.1/6.0 PTS
This was a very funny book that boys will love. Being the middle kid with a mean sister isn't the best situation to be in. Great story of a boy who is trying to figure out who he is and realizes it's better to be a kid and let nature take its course in life. His adventures had me laughing. I felt sorry for him at times. Too funny.
This was a very funny book that boys will love. Being the middle kid with a mean sister isn't the best situation to be in. Great story of a boy who is trying to figure out who he is and realizes it's better to be a kid and let nature take its course in life. His adventures had me laughing. I felt sorry for him at times. Too funny.
June 20, 2012
I thought this would be a funny and light read and was therefore totally surprised to discover how many tough issues it tackles. The gross and yuck factor will appeal especially to boys. Due to some of the issues addressed, I would only recommend this book to mature middle school readers.
July 17, 2013
In Jack on the Tracks, fifth-grader Jack Henry is hoping for fresh adventure when he moves to a new home in Miami with his family, but he can’t escape his old worrying ways. He worries about being fascinated with all things gross and dis.
August 22, 2008
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STORIES FROM THE AUTHOR OF JOEY PIGZA.
August 17, 2012
Nine interrelated stories that seem to be semi-autobiographical but are about fictional Jack Henry a fifth grader who moves to Miami and shares his growing up tips, which are hilarious yet serious.
September 11, 2012
Hilarious! And sad, too, and sweet. I'm a sucker for humor, for boys who cry, and for interconnected stories that set out in all different directions but keep coming back to similar themes.
Read
August 29, 2013Good ad funny
December 26, 2013
Very funny! Will definitely recommend to students and add others in "series" to my to read list.
June 29, 2015
I only found out that this was the 4th book out of 4, so now I need to get the others.
October 1, 2015
This book is exciting, and funny, ( i don't know the reading level for this.)
April 13, 2016
It was cool
Read
January 9, 2017Not that good, maybe fine at least.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 3, 2011
Great stories. If you liked Joey, you'll like these even more.
September 25, 2011
Hilarious!
June 22, 2014
Hilarious!!
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews