BIBLIOGRAPHYGantos, Jack. 2000. JOEY PIGZA LOSES CONTROL. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
ISBN: 0-374-39989-1
PLOT SUMMARY
Joey’s on his “good-meds,” and with his faithful Chihuahua Pablo at his side, he’s on his way to visit his dad—for the first time in a long time. Joey has just one hope, “I just want him to love me a much as I already love him.” He arrives at his father’s house, also occupied by his chain-smoking grandmother, and immediately Joey recognizes that his dad is “wired.” Joey knows the symptoms and he realizes what his mother meant “when she said he was like me only bigger.”
As soon as his mother’s car turns the corner, Joey’s crazy grandmother chastises him. His father, Carter, drags him to visit Storybook Land Fun Park, where his “whole life turned around.” Carter uses the park as a temple of sorts—cracked concrete statues of Humpty Dumpty and Little Miss Muffet as gods.
Things go downhill quickly. Carter coaches a little league team and he pins all his hopes on Joey, a talented but erratic pitcher, for the championship. He tells Joey, “This is our goal, Joey—to be champions together.” Carter’s behavior becomes more and more unpredictable and his warped reasoning leads him to flush Joey’s ADHD medicine down the toilet. Joey knows that the meds help him be “normal” but Carter argues, “…the greatest thing I could do for you is to show you that you are a normal kid and don’t need this stuff.”
Other than his mother, the only sane, reasonable adult in the book is Carter’s girlfriend Leezy. She attempts to keep Carter from going over the deep end but she’s more an enabler than anything else.
In the final game for the championship, Joey “loses it” and is taken out of the game. He runs away and calls his mom who rescues him. In JOEY PIGZA LOSES CONTROL, Jack Gantos reveals a world where adults can’t always be relied on and children sometimes have to understand that.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
In the sequel to JOEY PIGZ A SWALLOWED THE KEY, Jack Gantos continues the story of Joey, a great kid that needs a little help to keep things together. Even when his “patch” is fully engaged, Joey has energy to spare and a quick wit and imagination that endears him to the reader. Always eager to please, Joey’s antics are easily forgiven.
The first-person narration, from Joey’s point of view, gives the reader a sense of the chaotic whirl of thoughts and emotions that confront a child with ADHD. JOEY PIGZA LOSES CONTROL also helps the reader understand that without guidance and intervention, the child with ADHD may grow into an adult that never overcomes the challenges of the disorder. Joey’s father Carter and grandmother struggle with nicotine and alcohol addictions and lead messy lives that are at once funny and terribly sad.
The book has been called a tragicomedy and that label fits accurately. At one moment the reader may laugh at Joey’s outrageous behavior (pretending to be a mannequin in a department store or locking his dog in the glove box of a car) and the next moment the reader might feel a wave of sadness when Joey tries so hard and fails. Like Joey’s young life, the book is a roller-coaster.
REVIEW EXCERPTS AND HONORS
NEWBERY HONOR BOOK
Review from SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, September 1, 2000
Readers will be drawn in immediately to the boy's gripping first-person narrative and be pulled pell-mell through episodes that are at once hilarious, harrowing, and ultimately heartening as Joey grows to understand himself and the people around him.-Starr LaTronica
Starred Review from BOOKLIST, October 1, 2000
Gantos has given Joey a remarkably vivid personality, and, blending irrepressible humor with a powerful depiction of a child's longing for normalcy, he has written a dead-on portrayal of a young person assessing the often self-serving behavior of the adults who control his life.-Susan Dove Lempke
Review from PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, August 11, 2000
Joey is torn between wanting to call his mom immediately and sticking with his father. "Even though I knew he was wrong," Joey says, "he was my dad, and I wanted him to be right." Like its predecessor, this high-voltage, honest novel mixes humor, pain, fear and courage with deceptive ease. Struggling to please everyone even as he sees himself hurtling toward disaster, Joey emerges as a sympathetic hero, and his heart of gold never loses its shine.
CONNECTIONS
Teach students about ADHD by using the exercise included in the activity described in this article:
http://escholarship.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1110&context=education/tecplus
Author’s website with teachers’ guides:
http://www.jackgantos.com/index.html
Use the book as an example of a personal narrative. Have students write a personal narrative about a summer in their lives.
Use the book to teach literary conflict. Identify the various conflicts: Joey vs. Carter, Joey vs. himself, etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment