Dead End in Norvelt

Winner of the 2012 Newbery Medal

Small-town life has never been funnier than in Jack Gantos’ Dead End in Norvelt. The 11-year-old main character, who suffers from profuse nosebleeds, also happens to be named Jack Gantos. Jack is enduring the summer in his hometown of Norvelt, Pennsylvania, a model community created during the Great Depression and renamed to honor Eleanor Roosevelt. While not strictly autobiographical, the story’s gothic humor is classic Gantos.