From: Caroline Parr <cparr>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 09:09:16 -0500

Judith, I'm so glad you mentioned Joey Pigza. It's interesting that Gantos chose a first person point of view here, so that readers feel and see events as intensely
(and sometimes as askew) as Joey does. Interesting to contrast this with Harry Mazer's " The Wild Kid," another book about a child with (very different) special needs; here we see Sammy's point of view but the voice is third person.

In the Gantos book, we're so close to Joey that it's almost too much to take, and it's hard to see the action from another point of view -- after all, that's what it must feel like to be Joey. But Sammy's story gives the reader some distance and perspect ive on events; Sammy's comments allow us to understand his family almost better than he does. How different these stories would have been had their voices been switched.

While we're thinking about multiple points of view, Anne Isaac's "Cat Up a Tree"
(not the picture book by John Hassett of the same name) offers multiple viewpoints, through poems, on a cat who's up a tree -- how the cat, the cat catcher, a little girl, a bird and others see the situation. I found it very intriguing.

Caroline

Judith O'Malley wrote:

 are with Joey in the moment, when he is unable not to act out his attention deficit disorder, and we share his concern about how others see him and how he views himself. In this book, the point of view allows for self-awareness that increases empathy wit h the protagonist, as well as understanding of his problems.



-Caroline S. Parr Coordinator of Children's Services Central Rappahannock (VA) Regional Library cparr at crrl.org
Received on Tue 17 Nov 1998 08:09:16 AM CST