We discussed our picture book,
Brothers at Bat by Audrey Vernick first,
and thought it was an OK story (based on fact) of the 1930s New Jersey
family of the 12 Acerra brothers who had their own winning family
baseball team, and were ultimately recognized by the Baseball Hall of
Fame in Cooperstown, NY in 1997. Someone had said that the underlying
unifying theme of this story was Baseball, but we all disagreed, and
instead felt that it was Family. We thought it was well-told, in a
semi-journalistic fashion, and that the illustrations mostly fit the
story well. There was one problem, however, with a double-page spread of
the brothers in a large airliner flying over the '1939 World's Fair' in
New York. It showed a plane that was waaaayyy later than 1939 as well
as a globe image from the World's Fair which actually was from 1964, not
1939. Some liked the book more than others....but we all felt it was
well-done.
We were once again unanimous with varying degrees of positive thoughts
and feelings about
Paperboy by Vince Vawter. We all loved the voice of
'the paperboy' (whose name we did not know until almost the end) who
loved words but had a severe stuttering problem, and was therefore
typing his 1959 story on a typewriter -- with no commas and no quotation
marks! We thought that all of the characters were very vividly
described by the boy as he told about his day-to-day activities when he
took over his best friend's paper route for a week. We liked the way he
seriously thought things through, and his reactions to different
characters, even though some of his decisions led to very dangerous
experiences. We liked the relationship between him and 'Mam,' the
African-American housekeeper who took care of him since his parents,
though loving and supportive, were always busy doing other things. One
person objected to his parents' lack of input into his life and daily
activities. A few of us had a problem with the dialect that was
attributed to 'Mam' and thought the book would have been better without
it. One person was thrown off each time the boy was forced to talk
because it was written as "s-s-s-s...word...s-s-s-s" and she felt that
it interrupted the story. Others didn't mind that at all. We all agreed
that it was a good read that really explained what a stutterer
experiences, as well as an accurate picture of 1959 Memphis, TN and we
liked the Author's Note at the end where he explained that this was his
own memoir, but with some fictional additions, and he provided resources
for those who wanted to know more about stuttering.
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