I just began reading this Newbery Award winner and so far it is hysterically funny. The author is the main character, and I suspect there may be a lot of truth about the trouble that he gets into, having heard the author, Jack Gantos, speak at a conference about his formative years. The story begins in a small town in Pennsylvania called Norvelt, where the author did in fact grow up, and the action commences with Jack firing his dad’s WWII Japanese rifle. He’s aiming to hit the Japanese soldiers on a drive-in movie screen off in the distance, but what he doesn’t know is that there are bullets in the rifle. As an ambulance pulls up to his neighbor’s house, he is worried if he shot Miss Volker in the head, his mother will never believe it was an accident, since he has to help Miss Volker with some chores the next day. Jack also relates that his father will sentence him to death by a firing squad for using the rifle in the first place. If the rest of the book is as good as the beginning, it promises to be a great read…
