Mary Jane Auch
Cry Uncle!
Hardcover
(Holiday House March 15, 1987)
From School Library Journal: Grade 4-6 How many ``problems'' should a character face in one novel? Sixth-grader Davey Anderson has several. Small for his age and newly arrived from the city to live on a farm, he must make new friends while fighting off bullying neighbors. His older brother doesn't seem to care about him, and his mother serves endless variations of cooked zucchini for dinner. But the biggest problem is Great Uncle Will, who comes to live with the Andersons. Davey tells readers of the conflicting emotions within him: resentment at having to give up his room and move in with his brother, happy memories of time spent with Uncle Will years ago, fear that his uncle's erratic behavior will embarrass him in front of new friends, pleasure when he and Will can work together. Problems are solved unrealistically easily. Davey and his new friend Sarah intimidate the bullies through some karate moves. A school bus driver and Uncle Will decide to marry after a doctor rules out Alzheimer's disease. Davey's first-person narration has humor, realism, and excitement, but his descriptions of the other characters ring true only at times and then seem to go out of focus. Cry Uncle! is a strangely unsatisfying mixture. For other more consistently written treatments of a similar subject, direct readers to Carol Benjamin's Nobody's Baby Now (Macmillan, 1984) or younger readers to Robert Kimmel Smith's The War with Grandpa (Delacorte, 1984). Sylvia S. Marantz, Wellington School, Columbus, Ohio Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Pages
- 212
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