2018 Katherine Tegen Books
336 pgs.
Mid Grades CRF
Finished 2/15/2018
Goodreads rating: 4.27 - 392 ratings
My rating: 4
First line/s: "Tell you what. I already know who stuffed this tee shirt into my locker. Matt Drinker did that. He took a Sharpie to it first. Fat black letters. He wrote STOOPID on it. Same way I spelled my word in the spelling bee on Friday morning."
My comments: This story is about bullying, friendship, love, and a sweet, sweet boy.
I don't understand bullying. I don't understand parents that allow it to happen,when they know it is happening. Both and the giving and receiving ends, as in this book.
I really enjoyed the story, but it didn't quite rate as a five to me. There were a few too many weaknesses. Shayleeen, for one. (They have so little money that they're selling off bits and pieces of their orchard to a developer and they take in a stray young adult - someone they don't even know - and let her spend all sorts of money - their money - on the shopping networks? Take her in, great, feed her and cloth her, that's more-than okay, too, but let her rule the roost?) And come one, Mason is being chased and abused by neighborhood kids and his grandmother and uncle either don't know about it (they should!) or don't do anything about it? It's not as if they don't love him and carae about him. And they are not oblivious people. It just doesn't make sense to me.
There ARE a couple of characters that do totally make sense to me - the wonderful counselor and friend to Mason at his school (oh what a wonderful, klutzy, classy, real person she is!) and the cop who is trying to figure out what is happening. They were believable.
I kept drawing comparisons to one of my all-time favorite books, Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick. There are a lot. That might even make and interesting paper/examination/comparison for me to write one day as I circumvent my journey towards a doctorate in children's literature, lol!
Goodreads synopsis: From the critically acclaimed author of Waiting for Normal and All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook, Leslie Connor, comes a deeply poignant and beautifully crafted story about self-reliance, redemption, and hope.
Mason Buttle is the biggest, sweatiest kid in his grade, and everyone knows he can barely read or write. Mason’s learning disabilities are compounded by grief. Fifteen months ago, Mason’s best friend, Benny Kilmartin, turned up dead in the Buttle family’s orchard. An investigation drags on, and Mason, honest as the day is long, can’t understand why Lieutenant Baird won’t believe the story Mason has told about that day.
Both Mason and his new friend, tiny Calvin Chumsky, are relentlessly bullied by the other boys in their neighborhood, so they create an underground club space for themselves. When Calvin goes missing, Mason finds himself in trouble again. He’s desperate to figure out what happened to Calvin, and eventually, Benny.
But will anyone believe him?
No comments:
Post a Comment