Newbery Honor Book 2: Joey Pigza Loses Control by Jack Gantos

Joey Pigza Loses Control by Jack Gantos is a wonderful book for children due in part to its really realistic nature. It was named a Newbery Honor Book in 2001, and while it claims to be for children between the ages of 12-14, I think that a much older audience would also enjoy it. Joey Pigza is a typical boy who has, until now, been without a father. He is on medication for Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, also. I know many children that fit this profile. His father is an alcoholic, and while he is anxious to get to know him, he is scared. He is afraid that his father, Carter, and his grandmother won’t like his Chihuahua, Pablo, that they won’t like pizza, and that his grandmother will try to put him in the refrigerator. It turns out that Carter made a conscious effort to change his son’s perception about him, and Joey tries to stop taking his meds. He tries to help the baseball team that his father coaches win the championship, but when he fails to take his meds, he makes them lose (at least that’s what everyone says) by wandering away to find his mom, and his father becomes really angry. Unfortunately, Joey realizes that he is similar to his father but that his father will not change, and so he is ready to go back to live with his mother.

I adored this book. Children have several hundred books at their disposal, but books that they can actually apply to their life experiences are fewer. This book takes children into the life of a character with whom they can identify. I know several children who have these problems, and my parents were divorced, also. I can really identify with this character, and I know that children do. I also loved the dog in the book and Joey’s relationship with him.

Jack Gantos is also the author of Joey Pigza Swallows the Key, The Jack Henry Series, about his alter ego, and The Rotten Ralph series. The Rotten Ralph Series is for a younger audience, and each of these three sets of series books feature the same characters throughout.

Children’s literature is meant for entertainment and often times to teach. In this particular book, we learn that children every where face the same obstacles. I would really recommend this book for children who struggle with A.D.H.D. and even to the ones who do not to become more associated with the disorder. I would also recommend the book to students whose parents are divorced especially if they want them to get back together. Adult struggles become those of the children involved, and they need to understand that while they feel powerless, sometimes there is really nothing that they can do to help.

References

Gantos, Jack. (2000). Joey Pigza loses control. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Newbery Honor Book 1: Everything on a Waffle by Polly Horvath

Everything on a Waffle by Polly Horvath is a story about a curious little girl who ends up finding peace and resolve. The book was named a Newbery Honor Book in 2002 and is appropriate for children between the ages of 12 and 14. Primrose Squarp is an orphan whose parents supposedly perished at sea, and despite her overwhelming suspicions, nobody in Coal Harbor believes that she is right to be suspicious. The town doesn’t want to pay Miss Perfidy wages to baby-sit her anymore, so she is relocated to her Uncle Jack’s home. Neither Primrose nor Uncle Jack is happy about this, and she is disturbed by noises in his home at night. She enjoys a restaurant called The Girl on the Red Swing where one can find everything served on a waffle. She finds solace in Miss Bowzer, the manager of the restaurant, and later learns that her missing parents were located at Comox Hospital. Happy to have met the people that she did and had the adventures that she had, she is relieved to find her parents, but also grateful for the experience.

The experience while reading this book was a flight of the imagination. It was philosophical, unique, humorous, and heartwarming. I very much enjoyed Primrose Squarp and the characters that she met along her journey. I also thought that the ending of the book was very charming as Squarp told her readers how to make waffles and then added to eat them with butter and syrup, but if you are at her favorite restaurant, everything goes on waffles.

In this world, everyone has secrets and we long for certain questions to be answered. This little girl deserved one and refused to stop until she had it, and this is what makes Squarp’s character so admirable. I think that a lot of school-aged children could relate to this book. Being in the school system, we realize that many children have lost their parents and adopters are not always begging for them. They are often even mistreated. A lot of children will find peace in this story.

This is the first book that I have read by Polly Horvath, but she is the author of The Trolls, An Occasional Cow, The Happy Yellow Car, and When the Circus Came to Town. According to the book jacket for Everything on a Waffle, The Trolls is also a very adventurous story with entertaining characters. It seems that Hovarth’s books have a common theme; they are all adventurous in nature and feature characters on a quest for truth through unlikely, humorous tales.

From this book, I gathered that not all realistic fiction in children’s literature has to be plausible and that ridiculous elements, coupled with realistic ones, can make a grand story. With this in mind, the story absolutely would not have been the same without Miss Bowzer, her cleverness, and her waffles.

References

Horvath, P. (2001). Everything on a waffle. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.