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The Indian in the Cupboard Hardcover – April 5, 1985
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It's Omri's birthday, but all he gets from his best friend, Patrick, is a little plastic warrior figure. Trying to hide his disappointment, Omri puts his present in a metal cupboard and locks the door with a mysterious skeleton key that once belonged to his great-grandmother. Little does Omri know that by turning the key, he will transform his ordinary plastic toy into a real live man from an altogether different time and place! Omri and the tiny warrior called Little Bear could hardly be more different, yet soon the two forge a very special friendship. Will Omri be able to keep Little Bear without anyone finding out and taking his new friend away?
- Print length192 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Grade level3 - 7
- Lexile measure780L
- Dimensions5.75 x 0.79 x 8.56 inches
- PublisherDoubleday Books for Young Readers
- Publication dateApril 5, 1985
- ISBN-100385170513
- ISBN-13978-0385170512
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Best novel of the year (1981)."--The New York Times.
Rebecca Caudill Young Reader's Book Award, California Young Reader Medal, Pacific Northwest Young Readers Choice Award, A Virginia Young Readers Award.
From the Publisher
"Best novel of the year (1981)."--The New York Times.
Rebecca Caudill Young Reader's Book Award, California Young Reader Medal, Pacific Northwest Young Readers Choice Award, A Virginia Young Readers Award.
From the Inside Flap
From the Back Cover
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Birthday Presents
It was not that Omri didn't appreciate Patrick's birthday present to him. Far from it. He was really very grateful--sort of. It was, without a doubt, very kind of Patrick to give Omri anything at all, let alone a secondhand plastic Indian that he himself had finished with.
The trouble was, though, that Omri was getting a little fed up with small plastic figures, of which he had loads. Biscuit tinsful, probably three or four if they were all put away at the same time, which they never were because most of the time they were scattered about in the bathroom, the loft, the kitchen, the breakfast room, not to mention Omri's bedroom and the garden. The compost heap was full of soldiers which, over several autumns, had been raked up with the leaves by Omri's mother, who was rather careless about such things.
Omri and Patrick had spent many hours together playing with their joint collections of plastic toys. But now they'd had about enough of them, at least for the moment, and that was why, when Patrick brought his present to school on Omri's birthday, Omri was disappointed. He tried not to show it, but he was.
"Do you really like him?" asked Patrick as Omri stood silently with the Indian in his hand.
"Yes, he's fantastic," said Omri in only a slightly flattish voice. "I haven't got an Indian."
"I know."
"I haven't got any cowboys either."
"Nor have I. That's why I couldn't play anything with him."
Omri opened his mouth to say, "I won't be able to either," but, thinking that might hurt Patrick's feelings, he said nothing, put the Indian in his pocket, and forgot about it.
After school there was a family tea, and all the excitement of his presents from his parents and his two older brothers. He got his dearest wish--a skateboard complete with kickboard and kryptonic wheels from his mum and dad, and from his eldest brother, Adiel, a helmet. Gillon, his other brother, hadn't bought him anything because he had no money (his pocket money had been stopped some time ago in connection with a very unfortunate accident involving their father's bicycle). So when Gillon's turn came to give Omri a present, Omri was very surprised when a large parcel was put before him, untidily wrapped in brown paper and string.
"What is it?"
"Have a look. I found it in the alley."
The alley was a narrow passage that ran along the bottom of the garden where the dustbins stood. The three boys used to play there sometimes, and occasionally found treasures that other--perhaps richer--neighbors had thrown away. So Omri was quite excitedas he tore off the paper.
Inside was a small white metal cupboard with a mirror in the door, the kind you see over the basin in old-fashioned bathrooms.
You might suppose Omri would get another disappointment about this because the cupboard was fairly plain and, except for a shelf, completely empty, but oddly enough he was very pleased with it. He loved cupboards of any sort because of the fun of keeping things in them. He was not a very tidy boy in general, but he did like arranging things in cupboards and drawers and then opening them later and finding them just as he'd left them.
"I do wish it locked," he said.
"You might say thank you before you start complaining," said Gillon.
"It's got a keyhole," said their mother. "And I've got a whole boxful of keys. Why don't you try all the smaller ones and see if any of them fit?"
Most of the keys were much too big, but there were half a dozen that were about the right size. All but one of these were very ordinary. The unordinary one was the most interesting key in the whole collection, small with a complicated lock part and a fancytop. A narrow strip of red satin ribbon was looped through one of its curly openings. Omri saved that key to the last.
None of the others fitted, and at last he picked up the curly-topped key and carefully put it in the keyhole on the cupboard door, just below the knob. He did hope very much that it would turn, and regretted wasting his birthday-cake-cutting wish on something so silly (or rather, unlikely) as that he might pass his spelling test next day, which it would take real magic to bring about as he hadn't even looked at the words since they'd been given out four days ago. Now he closed his eyes and unwished the test pass and wished instead that this little twisty key would turn Gillon's present into a secret cupboard.
The key turned smoothly in the lock. The door wouldn't open.
"Hey! Mum! I've found one!"
"Have you, darling? Which one?" His mother came to look. "Oh that one! How very odd. That was the key to my grandmother's jewel box, that she got from Florence. It was made of red leather and it fell to bits at last, but she kept the key and gave it tome. She was most terribly poor when she died, poor old sweetie, and kept crying because she had nothing to leave me, so in the end I said I'd rather have this little key than all the jewels in the world. I threaded it on that bit of ribbon--it was much longer then--and hung it around my neck and told her I'd always wear it and remember her. And I did for a long time. But then the ribbon broke and I nearly lost it."
"You could have got a chain for it," said Omri.
She looked at him. "You're right," she said. "I should have done just that. But I didn't. And now it's your cupboard key. Please don't lose it, Omri, will you?"
Omri put the cupboard on his bedside table, and opening it, looked inside thoughtfully. What would he put in it? "It's supposed to be for medicines," said Gillon. "You could keep your nose drops in it."
"No! That's just wasting it. Besides, I haven't any other medicines."
"Why don't you pop this in?" his mother suggested, and opened her hand. In it was Patrick's Indian. "I found it when I was putting your trousers in the washing machine."
Omri carefully stood the Indian on the shelf.
"Are you going to shut the door?" asked his mother.
"Yes. And lock it." He did this and then kissed his mother and she turned the light out and he lay down on his side looking at the cupboard. He felt very content. Just as he was dropping off to sleep his eyes snapped open. He had thought he heard a little noise . . . but no. All was quiet. His eyes closed again.
In the morning there was no doubt about it. The noise actually woke him.
He lay perfectly still in the dawn light staring at the cupboard, from which was now coming a most extraordinary series of sounds. A pattering; a tapping; a scrabbling; and--surely?--a high-pitched noise like--well, almost like a tiny voice. To be truthful, Omri was petrified. Who wouldn't be? Undoubtedly there was something alive in that cupboard. At last, he put out his hand and touched it. He pulled very carefully. The door was shut tight. But as he pulled, the cupboard moved, just slightly.The noise from inside instantly stopped. He lay still for a long time, wondering. Had he imagined it? The noise did not start again. At last he cautiously turned the key and opened the cupboard door.
The Indian was gone.
Product details
- Publisher : Doubleday Books for Young Readers; Reissue edition (April 5, 1985)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 192 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0385170513
- ISBN-13 : 978-0385170512
- Reading age : 8 - 10 years, from customers
- Lexile measure : 780L
- Grade level : 3 - 7
- Item Weight : 10.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.75 x 0.79 x 8.56 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #103,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #297 in Teen & Young Adult Classic Literature
- #1,392 in Teen & Young Adult Social & Family Issue Fiction
- #3,042 in Teen & Young Adult Fantasy
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Brock Cole (born May 29, 1938) is an American children's author and illustrator. He is an award-winning author and illustrator of pictures books for children as well as a writer of novels and novellas for young adult readers. The subject matter of his juvenile fiction is perhaps more controversial than that of his peers, landing him on the ALA 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books 1990-2000. Though some of his books have been challenged for content, he has become well known for his style and form.
Born in Charlotte, Michigan Cole spent most of his childhood moving around the Midwest with his family, as his father was a dentist in the army during World War II. Cole attended Kenyon College where he earned a Bachelor's degree in English in 1960 and then the University of Minnesota where he earned a PhD in Philosophy in 1972. Before becoming an author Cole was a philosophy professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Cole is married to the Classicist Susan Guettel Cole, who taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 1975-1992 and the University at Buffalo from 1992-2008. The Coles reside in Buffalo, New York and have two children and two grandchildren.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Lynne Reid Banks is a best-selling author for children and adults. Her classic children's novel 'The Indian in the Cupboard' has sold nearly six million copies worldwide. She was born in London in 1929 and worked as an actress, writer and TV news reporter. Lynne has written thirty books: her first, 'The L-Shaped Room', was published in 1960. She now lives in Dorset, where she continues to write. Lynne says that writing for children comes much more easily than writing for adults. Tony Ross was born in London in 1938. He has worked as an art director at an advertising agency, a graphic designer, a cartoonist, a teacher, a film maker and as a Senior Lecturer in Art at Manchester Polytechnic.
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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For another patrick just makes the story confusing
The story of the beloved children's classic is familiar to all. An English boy named Omri recieves an old cupboard and key from his brother and mom respectively for his birthday. While using the cupboard to display his tiny plastic figures, Omri discovers that something about the cupboard and/or key seems to bring them to life. What a discovery to make! He is stunned and thrilled to have his "own" little person, the Indian Little Bear.
Eventually, Omri discovers that this is not magically turning plastic to life, but somehow snatching, by magic, real people and substituting them for the plastic figures in the cupboard. With this realization, Omri (and later, his best friend Patrick) come to understand the awesome responsibility for caring for very much real, however tiny, people.
Overall, the book stood up well over time. Some of the behavior of the boys was understandable for their age group, but instead of just passing over it, I got aggravated with how silly they were acting. That and the plot being much shorter (or seeming that way now versus when I was eleven years old) made it not as much fun as it was when I first read it.
Overall, though, the story was impressive since it was so much more than about the magic of bringing these figures to life as little people. Little Bear, Boone the Cowboy, other figures, Omri, Patrick, so on, all had real lives and cultural differences that had to be bridged to be understood. Forcing others to accept your culture, forcing cultures together, treating people as less than human, all are bad ideas, as Omri and Patrick learned.
Despite some creative license to make the story more enjoyable for the reader, Lynne Reid Banks kept the historical information overall quite accurate, which was another good thing.
This was a fun fantasy romp that also acted as a story on learning important lessons of responsibility and cultural awareness. I highly recommend it.
Top reviews from other countries
It's a magical gripping tale about Indian cowboy toys coming to life. I recommend this book because of its innovativeness and wittiness. While reading I felt like I was standing there and watching it all happen.