Coming Home

All the children freeze in place.  It floats through the neighborhood like fog, soft and sure, until the final note fades away.  Glances are silently exchanged before everyone takes off running.  It's dinnertime and the call to come home has sounded.

It may be the resonating ring of a bell or the familiar tinging of a triangle.  Each parent's signal is unique.  In Mama Seeton's Whistle (Little, Brown and Company, April 14, 2015) written by Jerry Spinelli with illustrations by LeUyen Pham four siblings race toward a promise.

The first whistle happened one day when Skippy Seeton was two years old.  

Mama Seeton was surprised when Skippy was nowhere in sight.  She had been watching him play in the backyard.  After several unanswered calls, worry made its way to her lips.  She gave a whistle.  Like a bee to honey, that boy came to his mother.  He had been hiding nearby.

When brothers Sheldon and Stewart and sister Sophie were born and finally able to move on their own, Mama Seeton's whistle worked its magic on them too.  It did not matter where they were in the neighborhood, when they heard it, they headed for home.  They knew it was time for dinner and a piece of their mother's chocolate cake.  Every single day it was the same.

As the brothers and sisters grew up they wandered farther from home to the ends of the neighborhood to play but never too far to miss hearing the whistle.  When they got even older they could be seen in town doing those things they loved best; climbing a favorite tree, visiting Papa Seeton at the cab company, watching the monkeys at the zoo or simply running for the sheer joy of it.  The clear notes of their mother's song never failed to bring them home.

When Skippy, Sheldon, Stewart and Sophie became adults and left home to continue doing what they loved best, Mama Seeton no longer whistled.  Her children were too far away to hear.  Her cake baking was less frequent.

One day Papa Seeton had an idea.  Mama Seeton thought he was a little loony.  Two light, smooth tones traveled.  Promises were kept.  A legacy was born.


In the masterful hands of author Jerry Spinelli a childhood memory becomes a story for generations to enjoy.  It's as if we are gathered around a campfire listening intently.  His pairing of words, like the names of the children, creates a cadence.  His description of the whistle repeated several times binds us to the tale.  His easy similar sentences flow through time taking us with them.  Here is a sample passage.

As the Seeton kids got older, they played farther and farther from their own backyard.
They played in the alley.
They played to the end of the block.
They played all the way to Stony Creek.
Then across the creek and into the park. ...


A warm and welcoming palette on the matching dust jacket and book case rendered, as are all the illustrations, in ink and watercolor by LeUyen Pham creates a feeling of family and home.  There is a cheerful, lilting quality about framing the Seeton parents and children in meaningful moments on both the front and the back.  The tiny notes of the whistle wrap around Mama Seeton and her children like love.  On the opening and closing endpapers a soft white background features each of the children coming home on their bike, scooter, skateboard or at a fast walk with the whistle like a ribbon overhead.  On the initial title page a chocolate cake sits beneath the text.  On the formal title page Pham pictures Mama Seeton in a chair holding a newborn Skippy with the dog, a pup, in the basket next to her.  Her whistle frames the words.

As a charming, lovely complement to the story Pham alternates her image sizes from two pages, to single pages and then to smaller visuals with the text and whistle weaving around them.  She generates a feeling of constant connection.  As time passes we see its evidence in the clothing, vehicles and hair styles.  Readers will want to pause at each picture noticing the tiny details.  At one point Sophie mails home one of her medals to Mama Seeton.  In a later illustration we see it hanging on the wall of the Seeton home.

One of my favorite pictures is the two-page span for the partial passage noted above.  We are given a bird's eye view of the neighborhood.  The Seeton home is framed in rosy red rays at the top left as the notes travel to the children.  Pham shows us the change of seasons as we follow the whistle to the far right, beginning with spring or summer, moving to autumn and then to winter.


Heartwarming from beginning to end, Mama Seeton's Whistle written by Jerry Spinelli with illustrations by LeUyen Pham is a trip through time worth taking again and again.  It demonstrates the value of family, the promises held in our homes and significance of tradition.  You will have a hard time not beginning your reading with the words, Once upon a time.  In the author's note at the end Jerry Spinelli speaks about the real Mama Seeton who was his childhood neighbor.  LeUyen talks about her artistic process in her illustrator's note.

To discover more about Jerry Spinelli and LeUyen Pham please visit their websites by following the links attached to their names.

Put Your Right Heart In

As I've stated here before, in my review of Jake and Lily, if Jerry Spinelli writes them, I read them.  I've laughed out loud during a wrestling match.  I've agonized with a boy dreading his tenth birthday.  I've been the girl who doesn't fit the mold, marching to more than her own drummer, eyes focused on a special star. I've run alongside Maniac and Penn racing for all their worth.

With his newest title Spinelli takes me to a place every reader visits and leaves, never staying.  In Hokey Pokey (Alfred A. Knopf) childhood is described so uniquely readers (myself included) are caught by surprise before being astounded by its brilliance.  In one day the marvelous, fantastical fun of this land is laid before us in all its innocent glory.


All night long Seven Sisters whisper and giggle and then, all together, they rush Orion the Hunter and tickle him, and Orion the Hunter laughs so hard he shakes every star in the sky, not to mention Mooncow, who looses her balance and falls--puh-loop!--into Big Dipper, which tip-tip-tips and dumps Mooncow into Milky Way...

Celestial antics begin the story of Jack as a teeny, tiny remnant of the night lands on his nose whispering it's...time.  He awakens with the belief the world as he knows it, has shifted.  Immediately he realizes his beloved bike, Scramjet, is missing.

Not only has his bike been stolen but it's now in the possession of his worst nightmare, a girl by the name of Jubilee. Sending the mightiest of his Tarzan yells over the land of Hokey Pokey he calls his amigos, LaJo and Dusty.  They quickly mount up and ride to his assistance, united in their determination to reclaim his black and silver stallion, as the day, the quest, the adventure unfolds.

In short chapters Spinelli alternates perspectives between Jack, his friends, Jubilee, a pint-sized bully named Destroyer and brief nods to characters important to Jack's life.  For this is not only a quest but through these chapters we are introduced to a world that never changes, day in and day out it remains the same; a world of dust, a herd of mustang-like bikes, tumbleweed-tossed plains, hills and valleys and places with names like Trucks, Doll Farm, Tantrums, Thousand Puddles, Gorilla Hill or Snuggle Stop.  We meet children of all ages, Newbies, Snotsippers, Gappergums, Sillynillies, Longspitters, Groundhog Chasers, and Big Kids whose lives revolve around all the playful possibilities in Hokey Pokey.  Oh, and one more thing...there are no adults in Hokey Pokey...well, except for the appearance of the Hokey Pokey man at noon every single day, providing each child a snow cone treat of their favorite flavor.

What also becomes readily apparent is this day is not really about reclaiming stolen property, it's about disappearing tattoos, walnut shells that tell stories, a small hut no one can enter, and a track with no train.  Jack's life on this day is topsy-turvy shrouded in mystery; being scared but excited, hanging on but letting go.  No one will admit to the truth of what is happening, whatever that is.  In a final stroke of genius, Spinelli ends the story as it began with whoop and a holler in the starry heavens.


As surely as he is the champion fisherman and we the hungry catch of the day, Jerry Spinelli moves the bait past us, closer and closer each time, until we bite.  He reels us deeper and deeper into the story depths until we are completely hooked. His poetic, descriptive writing, full of nostalgia and true-to-life dialogue, is the irresistible lure.

Here are a couple of passages.

Dusty cries, "She's coming!"
"Off the trail!" barks LaJo.
They cannot see yet but they can hear:  the chittering chain and axles, 
the stone-pocked crunch of rubber, the thief's crazed scream unfurling.  
They can feel the speed, feel it accelerate with every wheelturn, feel the
hill snuffle and grin and stiffen its spine, feel the air split like a snapped
stick as into the bow-bend they lean.
"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee---"

Ana Mae goes bananas, apples, kumquats.  She screams, twirls, cartwheels.
This is what Jubilee loves most about bestfriendship:  when something great happens
to one, it happens to both.  She kickstands Hazel and joins the celebration.  
They do their special fingermess handslap, their special shimmyshakejive buttbump.
Ana Mae thrusts her arms toward the bike:
"Yellow?"
"Albert did it!"
More howls.  The girls drop to their knees and bow grandly to the bike as if to
a Supreme Sultan of All.


What Jerry Spinelli has given readers in Hokey Pokey is a gift; the gift of going back in splendid remembrance or of seeing their place in life with greater gratitude.  His use of words is an example to readers of all ages of the potential power of creating a sensory vividness within a story.  I think I'll go bike shopping next week.  And when I find the perfect one, I'm naming it Scramjet.

Follow the link embedded in Jerry Spinelli's name above to his website.  This link is to an interview in which he speaks about Hokey Pokey.

Two, Twice, Twins

He writes them, I read them.  There are not many titles penned by Jerry Spinelli which I have not consumed eagerly and repeatedly.  Maniac Magee, There's a Girl in My Hammerlock, Crash, Wringer, Stargirl, Loser, and Love, Stargirl are a few of my very favorites.  What sets the writing of Jerry Spinelli apart is his keen perception of human nature.

In his most recent title, Jake and Lily (Balzar + Bray), he tells a tale of twindom with total clarity, wit and wisdom. Giving voice to the brother and sister in alternating chapters, we are privy to their very special connection and individual personalities.   In the summer before sixth grade their togetherness shifts, changes, in a way that neither expects.

When Jake and Lily were six-years-old on their birthday after having a dream, the same dream, they found themselves at the town train station; having sleepwalked there.  This experience cemented what they already knew to be true, they can sense when the other might be in trouble even if they are miles away.  Why the train station you may ask?  The twins were born on a train, earlier than anticipated, when their parents were returning home from a wedding. 

The two give this ability a name, goombla, keeping it secret from everyone until this summer, telling Poppy, their grandfather.  Jake and Lily have always been each other's best friend even sharing a single room with bunkbeds.  Their parents announce one morning they are now old enough to have their own rooms; Jake is excited, Lily is distraught.

It's as if the switch in their sleeping arrangement signals a change in how they spend their time and the people with whom they spend it.  Jake bands with a bunch of neighborhood boys, the Death Rays, looking for goobers.  Lily is sad, mad and lonely having lost the other half of herself.

As the days of summer unfold the paths they follow are somewhat bumpy.  How do you find your true self?  What do you do if a friend does something wrong?  Who is the best kind of friend?  Jake and Lily find answers to questions they've never had before.

In Jake and Lily Jerry Spinelli creates genuinely likable characters whose dialogue and situations are true-to-life with no punches pulled.  His secondary characters, parents who have a construction business, Poppy, Ernie the goober and Sydney and Devon, Lily's newest friends, all play significant roles in re-shaping Jake's and Lily's world and their respective places in it.  Spinelli's writing allows readers to believe as the characters do; trusting in similarities to carry you through the growth of celebrating differences.

Many times when I'm reading I will mark passages, a particular sentence, with small sticky notes signifying their importance to me.  In reading Jake and Lily I wanted to highlight whole pages with a yellow marker.  Here is a part of one of the most amazing passages.

"But you know what got to me most?" We were both too mesmerized to ask.  "It wasn't the sense of the vast endlessness of it all.  It was just the opposite.  It wasn't that it was all too much for me to comprehend.  It was that no matter how big and unimaginable it was, it was my home.  My ultimate neighborhood.  My hometown.  It was where I belonged.  And---here was the best part---so did everybody else belong.  Everybody who is and everybody who ever was.  I wasn't alone after all.  I was connected to it all.  That star there"---he pointed---"it's my neighbor...and that one...and that one...And Grandma.  For the first time in ten years I sensed her presence in something that wasn't a picture or a memory...."

Jerry Spinelli, you are a hero for writing your wonderful books like Jake and Lily; for helping us to not just look but to see.  Readers are given a chance to be the best they can be through your characters.  I highly recommend this title for an individual read or as a read aloud.