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Joey Pigza
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From: Dean Schneider <schneiderd>
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 21:33:59 -0600
I was happy to see Nick, Christine, and Preston get the discussion back to the actual books. I, too, loved Joey Pigza Loses Control, and it was my pick for the Newbery Medal, though I enjoyed A Year Down Yonder a lot, too. Both books are excellent on audiotape, too, though it's a special treat to hear Jack Gantos himself read it on the tape. He's visiting my school tomorrow
(Thursday and Friday), so I look forward to his storytelling with my students. He was such a big hit here last year that he has become a regular guest at Ensworth.
I've read Joey twice now,listened to the tape twice, and read aloud scenes with my 7th graders, and two-thirds of my students have read either or both of the Joey books. All it takes is reading the nose-cutting scene aloud or the trip to the Amish community in JP Swallowed the Key and kids will grab the books up to read for themselves. I remember listening to it on tape last summer on our drive to New England, and my wife was laughing so hard she was crying, and she had read and heard the book before!
Joey Pigza Loses Control doesn't have the episodes of high humor and horror of Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, but it is a richer novel -- still written with a great deal of humor, and the characterization and story development is wonderfully strong. When Storybook Land becomes Scary-Book Land and the wolf and the giant are loose in Joey's life, you really feel for Joey when he knows his dad is leading him down the wrong path and he can't do anything about it. He says, "All I could imagine was the worst part of me getting on a train a long ways off. That old Joey was coming to get me and I couldn't do anything about it." And for the rest of the novel, we watch Joey's old self, his wired self, return, at first in little behaviors and gradually in more outrageous behaviors. The allusion to Invasion of the Body Snatchers is excellent, as are the many allusions to fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Joey doesn't want to be a broken egg like Humpty Dumpty, and he knows he can't be perfect like the department store mannequin he pretends to be for a while. Joey realizes that he got better with help from a lot of people, and he has had to learn the hard way that he and his dad are not going to work things out. But he does come to know that his place in the world is with his mom. It is a rich, funny, and poignant novel.
Dean Schneider Ensworth School Nashville, TN
Received on Tue 30 Jan 2001 09:33:59 PM CST
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 21:33:59 -0600
I was happy to see Nick, Christine, and Preston get the discussion back to the actual books. I, too, loved Joey Pigza Loses Control, and it was my pick for the Newbery Medal, though I enjoyed A Year Down Yonder a lot, too. Both books are excellent on audiotape, too, though it's a special treat to hear Jack Gantos himself read it on the tape. He's visiting my school tomorrow
(Thursday and Friday), so I look forward to his storytelling with my students. He was such a big hit here last year that he has become a regular guest at Ensworth.
I've read Joey twice now,listened to the tape twice, and read aloud scenes with my 7th graders, and two-thirds of my students have read either or both of the Joey books. All it takes is reading the nose-cutting scene aloud or the trip to the Amish community in JP Swallowed the Key and kids will grab the books up to read for themselves. I remember listening to it on tape last summer on our drive to New England, and my wife was laughing so hard she was crying, and she had read and heard the book before!
Joey Pigza Loses Control doesn't have the episodes of high humor and horror of Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, but it is a richer novel -- still written with a great deal of humor, and the characterization and story development is wonderfully strong. When Storybook Land becomes Scary-Book Land and the wolf and the giant are loose in Joey's life, you really feel for Joey when he knows his dad is leading him down the wrong path and he can't do anything about it. He says, "All I could imagine was the worst part of me getting on a train a long ways off. That old Joey was coming to get me and I couldn't do anything about it." And for the rest of the novel, we watch Joey's old self, his wired self, return, at first in little behaviors and gradually in more outrageous behaviors. The allusion to Invasion of the Body Snatchers is excellent, as are the many allusions to fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Joey doesn't want to be a broken egg like Humpty Dumpty, and he knows he can't be perfect like the department store mannequin he pretends to be for a while. Joey realizes that he got better with help from a lot of people, and he has had to learn the hard way that he and his dad are not going to work things out. But he does come to know that his place in the world is with his mom. It is a rich, funny, and poignant novel.
Dean Schneider Ensworth School Nashville, TN
Received on Tue 30 Jan 2001 09:33:59 PM CST
