Carpe Diem
Autumn Cornwell

Annotation:

Vassar Spore has her life planned out and she has some very ambitious goals. It seems that all life depends on her achieving these goals and meeting up to her parent’s expectations. Everything seemed to be in order and going as planned until Grandma Gerd called from one of her adventures overseas. Vassar’s parents are blackmailed into having Vassar go spend the summer with her Grandma overseas in Southeast Asia. This of course ruins Vassar’s plans of AP Camps and becoming closer to reaching her goal of valedictorian. Vassar is so used to be in her little planned out world that she pretty much does not know how to live in the real world let alone in another country! Vassar has many adventures with her Asian cowboy bodyguard, her eccentric Grandma and the Natives that she encounters. But most of all Vassar learns how to live in the moment and she finds a new sense of contentment and adventure in it.

Story Line:

• Vassar is at home in Washington with her parents planning out her life
• Vassar’s Grandma Gerd calls and disrupts things by inviting Vassar to spend the summer with her in Asia
• Vassar’s parents seem very distraught after Grandma Gerd seemingly blackmails them into letting her go
• Within two weeks Vassar is on a plane to meet up with her Grandma
• She arrives in Malaysia and finds it be as she had feared and her Grandma is no where to be found
• Once her Grandma shows up Vassar is reminded just how much of an adventure this will be
• Grandma Gerd got rid of most all of Vassar’s belongings and hid her passport forcing her to “LIM” (live in the moment) more
• Vassar reaches the next destination, Cambodia, to which Grandma had purposefully missed the plane
• Vassar has an interesting time rooming with Hanks
• They visit some ruins where Grandma Gerd steals an artifact
• While trying to right her Grandma’s wrong Vassar is falsely arrested
• All the while Vassar is trying to figure out the family secret that caused her parents to get blackmailed
• Vassar sickens several people with a “sanitizing food spray” that she had bought off the street
• Vassar frees some cows that were about to be shot and blown up
• They begin a trek into the back country to find a special beetle
• There are many adventures in the back country
• Vassar sleeps “wrong” and the natives arrest her and keep her for ransom because she upset the spirits
• Vassar discovers that her Grandma is really her Mom
• Vassar nearly dies waiting to get rescues. She escapes and is later rescued
• Vassar discovers that she is not the same person as she was at the beginning of the book.

Relation

This would be a good book for adolescents growing up today to read. In our society there is so much pressure put on kids to succeed and in many ways they lose part of their childhood doing so. This book is a good reminder to enjoy the little things in life, live in the moment, and shows a families love. The many settings and situations that Vassar is in can also help open the reader’s eyes to different cultures and how their differences do not make them better/worse than us…simply different. - JK