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Review – Babcock

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April 6, 2012
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Today I’m reviewing Babcock by Joe Cottonwood. I don’t read/listen to a lot of straight up fiction, but the review at View From Valhalla convinced me to give it a whirl.

Synopsis:A fat boy with the blues. A skinny girl who runs marathons. And a con man on the lam. If you liked Clear Heart, or if you liked Boone Barnaby, you’ll like this one, too. The themes are a bit more grown up than Boone Barnaby, but it’s still family-friendly for reading. For any age it’s my brand of writing: humane, down to earth, good-natured, sometimes funny and sometimes sad.

In short, it’s about character. About making music. About family, hard work, about love and loss. Sometimes there’s laughter. Sometimes the lights are off in the kitchen; papa’s got blues. But always life is rich and deeply moving…

Babcock is part of the San Puerco trilogy, which makes it a companion book to Boone Barnaby: same characters (plus a few new ones) and more adventures in the scrappy little town of San Puerco. The book won awards as a novel for children, but it has many adult fans, too. Most of the issues appeal to an adult perspective as well as a child’s, though with different understanding. Other issues, of course, only a young person can understand. That’s life. That’s rock and roll.

Production: Excellent audio quality. A great use of music that was apparently composed just for the book.

Grade: A

Cast: Solid voice acting on the part of all involved. Joe does a few of the voices himself as well as the narration.

Grade: B

Story: Like I said up front, this isn’t usually my literary cuppa tea. Still I’m glad I took the leap. It’s well crafted, touching, engaging, and hits every note.

Grade: A

Verdict: I will definitely be seeking out the rest of his works. I’ll probably even get my twelve year old to listen. There are one or two instances of strong words, but given the circumstances in the story I don’t have a problem with that.

Grade: A

Playground Showdown

By
October 1, 2009
fiction
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The latest News From Poughkeepsie prompt is “Western…on the schoolyard“:

Big Lucy’s Black Hats were the terror of recess. No snack cake was spared their greed, no shin spared their wrath. The teachers were useless. The Black Hats were the queens and kings of Tombstone Elementary, and they knew no one could challenge them.

No one, that is, until the new girl arrived. Her name was Marshal, and she wore a white hat…

Marshal Dillan, yes her parents were well aware of the pain that bearing such a name might cause, moved to town in the middle of the school year. Her Dad got a new job as an English professor at the local university that he just couldn’t turn down and though she would miss her friends, she was always up for an adventure.

She would remember the first day that she sat foot, clad in a size eight white Converse, on the dusty playground at Tombstone Elementary for the rest of her life. The wind whipped up grit into her face, nearly blowing the white Yankees ball cap off of her head. A present from her Grandma, she clutched at it with her left hand and eyed the level playing field through squinted blue eyes.

A group of what looked to be three fifth graders, judging by their size and attitude, were ganging up on a a smaller kid by the swings. She spotted a few others here and there, all wearing similar black hats and all taking part in what Dad would call “dubious behaviors”. A few of them were just looking out for teachers to ensure that their friends wouldn’t get caught and no one was turning them in.

Satisfied that her cap would stay in place over her tomboy-cut, auburn hair, she lowered her hands to her hips and set her jaw. There wasn’t anything she hated more in this world than unfairness.