HERB SEASONING

by Julian Thompson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1990

A wacky, challenging story in which a high-school senior wondering what to do with his life gets to preview some choices. Referred by his guidance counselor to ""Castles in the Air,"" Herbie Hertzman meets the more-than-mortal Sesame DeBarque, who invites him to spin a wheel of career fields. When the wheel stops on ""Crime,"" she packs him into her ""Upwardli-mobile"" and dispatches him to Prince Edward Island, where he joins a merry gang turning Mexicans into faux yuppies and inserting them into US corporations. Not sneaky enough to succeed here, Herbie returns to the castle to spin the wheel again--and again. Though Thompson leaves plenty of ambiguity, unfinished business, and unexploited conceits (e.g., Private Road, who complains about his superiors Corporal Punishment and General Nuisance), he salts his narrative with entertaining word- and horse-play and creates in Herbie a decent-hearted, cleareyed character, fortunate enough to have options and wise enough not to limit them. In the end, after rejecting a spiritual leader's happiness drug, Herbie returns, virginity lost but sense of humor intact, to find himself with the girlfriend whose alter egos have guided him along the way--literally and metaphorically approaching a crossroads. Readers may find this hard to swallow, but they'll enjoy chewing on it first.

Pub Date: March 1, 1990

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1990

Categories: CHILDREN'S