Reading Level: 10 and Up
Set in North Carolina, Surviving the Applewhites, is a comedy about Jake Semple, a juvenile delinquent, who is sent to be home schooled at the Applewhite's family creative academy. All of the Applewhites are artists. Randolph Applewhite, the head of the family, is a sculptor and theater director. His wife Sybil is a famous novelist who writes best-selling mysteries. she has a guru named Govindaswami who visits and cooks Indian food for them. Aunt Lucille is a poet. Daughter Cordelia is a dancer. There are various other family members with different talents. E.D. who is around Jake's age is studying butterflies. She eventually learns that her talents are suited to being a production manager. The goal of the Applewhite family is to turn Jake around to as they say, "find the good kid under the exterior". Lucille tells him that he is a radiant light being and not to let anyone tell him differently. He said his social worker would just sigh and shake her head at him a lot and that she never would have referred to him as a radiant light being. Eventually his time with the Applewhites does turn Jake around. As the family works on the musical, The Sound of Music, Jake surprisingly finds out that he is getting noticed as both a singer and an actor with talent.
Written by Karin Olsen.
