OH, BROTHER!

Stark and his brother Phil make the most of their straitened circumstances in this memoir of growing up in the Midwest during the 1950s. The boys were happy to move to the country from their house in town, even if the one in town “did have a bathroom.” They “couldn’t afford extra stuff like a phone, car, or TV,” but they did have the hen house roof to jump from, a hill of corncobs to wrestle atop in the autumn, plenty of snow, lightning storms that raised the hair on their necks, as well as books and magazines, the radio, stuff to draw with, and even an occasional offering from the ice-cream man. In short, they had their imagination and a bunch of raw materials with which to keep them not simply occupied, but alive, mind and soul. They also had their curiosity, like how that old wringer washer worked and what would happen if you stuck your finger in the rollers. The story will come as a surprise to many readers, an alien life form with its lack of material comforts, its slow pacing, and a ten-year-old figuring “we were big enough to mow the yard so Mom wouldn’t have to pay someone.” But Stark refuses to grind the poorness of his family in the reader’s face nor traffic in easy sentiments. His scenes are Norman Rockwell–Americana, his palette ripe with color and adventure. A chewy contribution that ought to turn the heads of a few young readers. (Picture book. 5-8)