Posts tagged with: mothers

The Castaways by Rob Vollmar

It is the height of the Depression, and thirteen-year-old Tucker Freeman’s father is gone for good. To survive, he and his family move in with the Widow, his father’s humorless and ultra-religious older sister. Convinced by the Widow that he isn’t pulling his weight on her farm, she hands him fifteen cents and tells him …read more…

I Am Not Joey Pigza by Jack Gantos

If you’ve been following this blog, then you know how much I love the Joey Pigza books and how accurately they depict the life of a young boy with ADHD. You also know that this is a series that many young people, especially boys, really seem to connect with. So I was a little reserved …read more…

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Update as of 26 October 2011: This book continues to be controversial. Only this past spring, I was asked to help fight a push to not just remove this book from the twelfth grade curriculum of a public high school, but to remove the book from the school library, as well. The irony is that …read more…

By the River by Steven Herrick

The year is 1962, and fourteen-year-old Harry Hodby lives in a small town in Australia. His mother died when he was seven, his friend (and potential girlfriend) Linda was swept away in a flood, and he, along with his father and younger brother Keith, are left to sort out their hardscrabble lives, coping with poverty, …read more…

Every Man for Himself: Ten Short Stories About Being a Guy edited by Nancy Mercado

I don’t know how I missed this one, but I did. And I’m a bit upset about that, because there are some fine stories in here. I warmed to this book from the very beginning, because Nancy Mercado tells us …what these stories are not. They are not stories about your voice changing, learning how …read more…

What Would Joey Do? by Jack Gantos

If you’ve already read what I’ve written about the first two books in this series (Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key and Joey Pigza Loses Control) you can guess pretty easily that I love this book as well and heartily recommend it to you. And you would be right. There really is no such thing as …read more…

Joey Pigza Loses Control by Jack Gantos

At the end of Joey Pigza swallowed the Key, Joey finally had it together. He was living with his working mom in a more stable home, he was on the right meds, and he had gained enough self-control to get a dog, a dachshund/Chihuahua cross he christens Pablo. Alas, nothing good can ever last. Joey’s …read more…