Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Good Day for Climbing Trees
    A Good Day for Climbing Trees
    A Good Day for Climbing Trees
    Ebook147 pages1 hour

    A Good Day for Climbing Trees

    By Jaco Jacobs

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    *Nominated for the 2019 CILIP Carnegie Medal*

    *Spectator Best Books of the Year selection*

    Two unlikely heroes inspire a whole town by fighting to save a tree


    Sometimes, in the blink of an eye, you do something that changes your life forever.

    Like climbing a tree with a girl you don't know.

    Marnus is tired of feeling invisible, living in the shadow of his two brothers.

    His older brother is good at breaking swimming records and girls’ hearts. His younger brother is already a crafty entrepreneur who has tricked him into doing the dishes all summer.

    But when a girl called Leila turns up on their doorstep one morning with a petition, it’s the start of an unexpected adventure.

    And finally, Marnus gets the chance to be noticed...
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRock the Boat
    Release dateApr 12, 2018
    ISBN9781786073181
    A Good Day for Climbing Trees
    Author

    Jaco Jacobs

    Jaco Jacobs is the author of more than 260 books and more than a million copies of his books have been sold. His work has been awarded 46 times. His books have been translated into English, Dutch, Italian and Portuguese. He has been nominated for the Carnegie Medal twice and two of his books have been adapted to film. Jaco lives in Bloemfontein with his wife, Elize, their daughters, Mia and Emma, three dogs, a cat and a pet python.

    Read more from Jaco Jacobs

    Related to A Good Day for Climbing Trees

    Related ebooks

    Children's Action & Adventure For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Sun, The Wind And The Moon

      Sep 8, 2021

      One day, she called for her children and told them some thrilling news. “Your uncle and aunt, Thunder and Lightning, have invited you to dinner! Be polite, and remember your table manners!” The Sun, the Moon and the Wind were most excited. Thunder an

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Boy With The Long Name

      Nov 2, 2022

      The Boy With The Long Name
      3 min read

    • Article

      Lineal Gaps

      Apr 6, 2021

      Lineal Gaps
      15 min read

    • Article

      The DATING GAME

      Apr 2, 2024

      The DATING GAME
      8 min read

    • Article

      The DATING GAME

      Aug 3, 2022

      The DATING GAME
      8 min read

    • Article

      Friends FOREVER

      Jul 25, 2023

      Friends FOREVER
      9 min read

    • Article

      My Story The Secrets We Keep

      Oct 7, 2020

      My Story The Secrets We Keep
      4 min read

    • Article

      Friends FOREVER

      Mar 31, 2021

      Friends FOREVER
      9 min read

    • Article

      My Best Friend

      Oct 1, 2020

      My Best Friend
      6 min read

    • Article

      My Story The Secrets We Keep

      Oct 7, 2020

      My Story The Secrets We Keep
      4 min read

    • Article

      Kıds & Angles

      Jun 24, 2023

      Kıds & Angles
      4 min read

    • Article

      What’s In A Name?

      Dec 22, 2021

      What’s In A Name?
      9 min read

    • Article

      Better

      Aug 12, 2019

      Better
      18 min read

    • Article

      Guests

      Jun 15, 2019

      The month after our mother died, our father began bringing women home. It felt like a behind-her-back kind of operation. “I’m going to have a guest over tonight,” is what he would say. David and I stayed out in the living room, turned up cartoons, bu

      11 min read

    • Article

      Tomorrows

      Mar 15, 2022

      The night, as most nights, was like a dream. At ten, once I’d fed the dog the last scraps off the stove. Once I’d cursed the cat for scratching up my mama’s antique furniture, then welcomed him back into my arms. Once I’d slicked my hair into a ponyt

      26 min read

    • Article

      Dark DEEDS

      Jan 13, 2021

      Dark DEEDS
      9 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jul 1, 2023

      I The teenaged girl is searching for a placethat goes through, the holeto put the tampon inside. When she finds itshe asks her mother, Is this where the penis would go?Yes, her mother explains.Then I will never have sex. II Sweltering New York City.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Little House

      Jun 5, 2023

      On Monday nights our mother made popcorn and served it to us in mugs with milk poured over. My younger sister and I carried our mugs into the family room and ate the popcorn with spoons, like cereal. We were five and seven. Until we were allowed to s

      21 min read

    • Article

      Diary of My Leg Hair

      Dec 8, 2022

      Diary of My Leg Hair
      21 min read

    • Article

      Happy

      Jan 1, 2023

      Happy
      4 min read

    • Article

      When The News Runs Out

      Jan 6, 2021

      TOWARDS the tail end of last year, I had two fairly Grinch-y telephone conversations. Both began with the usual topics: testing kits, old people, young people and the ramifications of these mixing. Then I ask the friend for her postcode, as I had res

      2 min read

    • Article

      My First Pet

      Feb 2, 2020

      My First Pet
      9 min read

    • Article

      LETTER FROM Windhoek

      Sep 16, 2019

      My phone rang the other day. I’m lying – it wasn’t the other day; it was back in May, the month when winter starts to put out its feelers and summer has its boarding pass in hand. It was a Saturday morning and I was at home, sipping my fourth cup of

      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Good Day for Climbing Trees

    3.5/5

    23 ratings9 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      This is an enchanting story about a boy who meets a girl who wants to save a tree. Told over the course of 3 days, it is a fun tale and shows that you never know when someone will come along and change your life.***I received this book through LibraryThing Member Giveaway. The opinion is solely my own.***
    • 4/5
      A very sweetly told story of a middle child figuring out his place in his family. Along the way he inadvertently becomes an eco-warrior. Enjoyed the illlustrations, the contemporary setting, the first person narration, and the adults along the way who help the main character and a girl try to save a tree.I am not adding this to my school library (elementary), but will send up to middle school. There is nothing objectionable in it for elementary, but I think middle grades could relate more to the age of the main character and the themes of family dynamics and first love.All in all, an enjoyable read with strong characters.
    • 3/5
      Marnus' oldest brother Donovan is a swimming star who offers kissing lessons to neighborhood girls when his parents are at work. His younger brother Adrian has been scheming to make money since he was out of diapers. Marnus, in the middle, spends his Christmas vacation washing dishes to pay Adrian back for a new game system.When Leila rang the doorbell, Marnus figured it was another girl who wanted kissing lessons from Donovan, but Leila didn't know what he was talking about. She wanted him to sign a petition to save the Tree at the Center of the Universe, a beautiful tree in the middle of a city park slated to be removed.Leila won't allow it and climbs the tree, planting herself right in its branches so that the men from the city can't cut it down. Marnus climbs up too, still holding his dishcloth. It's strange, but maybe this is a way he can be heard. That he won't be in the middle anymore.Jaco Jacobs has written a short tale of a boy finding his place in the world and learning to stand up for himself. The translation and printing are occasionally odd, but the story was sweet and satisfying.
    • 4/5
      Thirteen year old Marnus expects the holiday season to be uneventful with his month involved in An Important Case and his dad making ends meet at his business. but a girl called Leila appears on his doorstep and everything changes.This was really a heart warming adventure. I absolutely adored Marnus and identified with his being a middle child. His uncertainty about saving the tree with Leila made sense for his character. How he made friends with those older than him along the way was a lot of fun.The story is the perfect example of finding adventure in small things. The plot moves at a quick pace, but leaves enough time for the emotional moments to make an impact.For younger readers looking for an everyday adventure, I would absolutely recommend this.I received a free copy from the publisher and author for reviewing purposes.
    • 3/5
      I read this before handing it over to my ten year old niece. As an adult reader, I thought it was a cute story with a nice message, but a little on the mild side. There were a couple of poignant moments and the feelings were there, just not enough depth even for an early middle-grades book for me. My niece didn't finish it. I think it is in the same vein age-level wise as other things she's reading now, but when I asked her why she quit reading it she said it was because she forgot to finish it. She's already a pretty avid reader, so I took that to mean she just didn't find it appealing enough to keep her attention.
    • 4/5
      This is a short, interesting book about two kids who take a stand for a tree for different reasons. It is enjoyable, and gives the idea that even if there doesn't seem to be anything particularly special about you, you can do things that matter. And even if those things don't turn out the way you expected, it still mattered.
    • 3/5
      A Good Day for Climbing Trees is a coming-of-age story of a boy learning what it will take to be a teenager, of finding his sense of self in a difficult situation and putting himself out there. The characters are relatable for the middle school aged reader who loves adventure and has the added bonus of the story being set in Africa exposing readers to another culture from a youthful perspective.
    • 3/5
      13 year old boy, middle child, originally written in Afrikaans. Feels like it would be good for middle schoolers -- just getting into boy-girl romance, hitting the awkward pretty hard. Some environmental awareness (tree sitting protest), some humor, and in general a nice snapshot of contemporary life for tweens in Africa as opposed to an American perspective. There's a lot of jerk behavior from Marnus' brothers, and kindness from the community. On the whole, an enjoyable read, if not a fast paced one.
    • 3/5
      Marnus' oldest brother Donovan is a swimming star who offers kissing lessons to neighborhood girls when his parents are at work. His younger brother Adrian has been scheming to make money since he was out of diapers. Marnus, in the middle, spends his Christmas vacation washing dishes to pay Adrian back for a new game system.When Leila rang the doorbell, Marnus figured it was another girl who wanted kissing lessons from Donovan, but Leila didn't know what he was talking about. She wanted him to sign a petition to save the Tree at the Center of the Universe, a beautiful tree in the middle of a city park slated to be removed.Leila won't allow it and climbs the tree, planting herself right in its branches so that the men from the city can't cut it down. Marnus climbs up too, still holding his dishcloth. It's strange, but maybe this is a way he can be heard. That he won't be in the middle anymore.Jaco Jacobs has written a short tale of a boy finding his place in the world and learning to stand up for himself. The translation and printing are occasionally odd, but the story was sweet and satisfying.

    Book preview

    A Good Day for Climbing Trees - Jaco Jacobs

    1

    Doing the Dishes

    ‘Hey, you deaf doofus, didn’t you hear the doorbell?’

    I clenched my teeth and squirted a green blob of Sunlight liquid into the kitchen sink.

    When someone shouts at you like that, there are a few things you can do.

    Option one: you can pretend to be deaf and ignore it. Which isn’t a good idea if your older brother is the one shouting at you. In any case, not if you have an older brother like Donovan.

    Option two: you can threaten to break the shouter’s nose if he calls you a doofus again. But in this case that would be plain stupid. Donovan had provincial colours in swimming, lifted weights every day and drank those protein shakes that give you humongous muscles. To top it all, at the age of fifteen he had perfected the art of the wedgie. All the underpants in my cupboard were stretched out.

    Option three: you can point out to him, in a very friendly manner, that the person who rang the bell definitely isn’t looking for you, seeing that your best (and only) friend has gone to America with his parents for the December holidays. But, once again, you stand a good chance of getting a wedgie for your trouble.

    Option four: you can make use of the normal pecking order and tell your little brother to open the door. But in our case the normal pecking order no longer existed. Adrian was only nine years old but he’d bought himself a position above mine. Long story short: I was currently my little brother’s personal slave. If I wanted any pocket money during the holidays, I’d better make sure I didn’t rub him up the wrong way.

    Option five: you can leave the dishes, dry your hands and go and open the door.

    Guess which option I chose.

    The girl on our porch looked a little older than me. She was wearing faded blue jeans and her brown hair was tied in a ponytail. Her braces flashed in the sunshine as she smiled nervously.

    ‘Hello? Erm…I’m looking for Donovan? Adrian…erm…invited me?’ She spoke in question marks.

    I sighed and called over my shoulder, ‘Donovan, you have another client!’

    The girl shuffled her feet awkwardly and her face turned bright red.

    If my mum and dad were ever to find out what was happening in this house in broad daylight, they would need serious therapy. Fortunately they both worked during the day and were blissfully unaware of the fact that their youngest son was renting out their eldest son to schoolgirls. There’s a word for that. And it’s illegal.

    Adrian said I was being dumb – it was just an innocent self-esteem workshop.

    He was the kind of nine-year-old who knew words like ‘self-esteem’. My dad said he would be either a millionaire by the time he turned eighteen, or serving his first prison sentence. My little brother was the richest nine-year-old I knew. He started his money-making schemes in nursery school – during the rugby season he got his little friends to bet on the weekend games. By the time a furious mother found out about it, he had made quite a bit of money already. Adrian was also the only child I knew who had been expelled from nursery school. Not even the fact that my mum was a lawyer could save him. Since going to primary school, he had been making most of his money by supplying the tuck shop with cheap sweets. At least, we suspected that that was how he made most of his money.

    Adrian was constantly hatching all kinds of mysterious plans to make money. Dad said he preferred not to know all the details. His latest plan (Adrian’s plan, not Dad’s) was to rent out Donovan for kissing lessons.

    Yep, girls like the one with the braces who was standing on our porch, blushing like mad, paid for the privilege to kiss my older brother.

    The year before, Donovan had started gelling his hair and lifting weights and had transformed into a girl magnet. At swimming training in the afternoons, a whole crowd of schoolgirls hung around the pool to see him in his Speedos. He had broken more girls’ hearts than Chad le Clos had swimming records. But it seemed the girls hadn’t wised up because at least three or four had come for kissing lessons since the beginning of the holidays. They would disappear with Donovan into the shaded lapa next to our pool for half an hour. When they reappeared, their hair was messed up, their lipstick smudged and they were smiling like mad. I had no idea how much Adrian charged for the kissing lessons and what percentage Donovan got. Maybe Donovan played along for the fun of it, because he seemed to have girls on the brain. And pool chlorine. No wonder he had scraped through Grade Nine by the skin of his Speedos.

    The girl on the porch cleared her throat and rubbed her jeans self-consciously. She looked like she wanted to run away.

    If Donovan spent as much time behind his schoolbooks as he spent in front of the mirror with his hair gel and comb, I bet he would’ve scored at least three As. He was taking his time but I didn’t invite the girl inside. My mum wasn’t a lawyer for nothing – I knew what ‘accomplice’ meant. I wanted no part whatsoever in those so-called ‘self-esteem workshops’ that Adrian and Donovan were running.

    Finally, Donovan showed up. His hair was gelled perfectly and he reeked of the expensive aftershave Mum had bought Dad for his birthday.

    ‘Hi.’ He greeted the girl with a broad smile and shoved me aside like a doorstop he didn’t want to trip over. ‘Let’s go and sit outside in the lapa.’

    The girl giggled nervously and turned a deeper shade of scarlet before they disappeared down the veranda.

    With a sigh, I closed the front door and walked back to the kitchen.

    Outside in the garden the pool pump was going chug-chug-chug.

    The fridge was humming like a purring cat.

    At the front gate Mr Bones was barking at the reverend’s wife, who was walking past with her German shepherd.

    A few minutes later, Adrian walked into the kitchen.

    ‘Are you done with the dishes yet, Marnus?’ he asked in a bossy voice while getting some orange juice from the fridge.

    The three of us were supposed to take turns to tidy up the kitchen. But at the start of the holidays I had begged for an advance on my pocket money and bought myself a second-hand PlayStation Portable from Adrian. He, in turn, had bought it from one of his friends. The stupid thing broke a week later but Adrian refused to give my money back, because he said I’d bought it without a guarantee or warranty. I wasn’t even sure what those words meant. The bottom line was: I had to do the dishes every day and clean the kitchen in exchange for pocket money from my nine-year-old brother.

    My life sucked.

    I was officially having the worst December holidays ever. I wished we could go for our usual holiday by the sea but my mum and dad had decided that we’d go to a game reserve for three weeks during the June holidays, so they didn’t want to take a lot of leave during December. Besides, my mum was working on a Very Important Court Case and my dad was hoping that this year’s Christmas spending would save his sports shop from going under, which meant that him taking leave now was out of the

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1