Are they flirting or fighting? This is Joey Pigza's question when the fireworks suddenly start to explode between his long-separated mom and dad. The more out of control his parents get, the less in control Joey feels and the more he wants to help make things better. But Joey's ailing, tell-it-like-it-is grandmother wants her grandson to see it like it is with his unpredictable parents. Knowing that she is fading fast, Joey must show her that he can break the Pigza family mold by making a friend in the outside world. The only potential candidate, however, is Olivia Lapp—Joey's blind home schooling partner, who brags that she is "blind as a brat" and gets meaner to Joey the more desperate he gets for her friendship.
In the two previous Joey Pigza books, Jack Gantos's frenetic writing style brilliantly mirrored Joey's "wired" behavior. But in this last in the trilogy, Joey's the one who has himself under control while wacky things happen all around him, and he desperately tries to help everyone from his ailing Grandma to his missing dog, his belligerent homeschooling partner, and his warring parents. Joey has never been more engaging, and while there are lots of laugh-out-loud moments, there's poignancy, too. The story is told from Joey's first-person perspective, and Gantos is the perfect voice for him. He doesn't sound like a kid; he sounds like Joey. His low-key but inflected reading makes the antics that much more plausible. Fans will be sorry to see Joey go but can be assured, as Gantos says in an afterword, that Joey IS a good kid and will be a great success. J.M.D. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine
Digital Rights Information
OverDrive WMA Audiobook
Burn to CD:
Not permitted
Transfer to device:
Permitted (3 times)
Transfer to Apple® device:
Permitted
Public performance:
Not permitted
File-sharing:
Not permitted
Peer-to-peer usage:
Not permitted
All copies of this title, including those transferred to portable devices and other media, must be deleted/destroyed at the end of the lending period.
...
