|
 What
Would Joey Do (2002)
by Jack Gantos
“Sure, maybe a reader will finish
Joey Pigza Loses Control with a new perspective on hyperactivity or a better understanding of what the kid squirming in the next desk is really up to. Most likely, though, Jack Gantos’s readers will finish this book and wonder how long they’ll have to wait for another book about a great kid who is funny and thoughtful and, yes, wired.”
—Linnea Lannon, The New York Times Book Review, November 19, 2000
The wait is finally over. This fall, Joey Pigza, the hyperactive hero of the National Book Award-nominated
Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key and the Newbery Honor Book
Joey Pigza Loses Control, returns in
What Would Joey Do? (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / October 2002 / $16.00), acclaimed author Jack Gantos’ conclusion to this tragicomic trilogy. As Gantos has said, “I wasn’t finished with Joey – I wanted to write a book and let the reader know Joey walks away standing solidly on his own two feet.”
In this final “Joey” installment, readers will find Joey still working to keep his Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in check, but with a burgeoning sense of autonomy and self-reliance. As Joey faces his ongoing family saga, he begins to develop—and eventually accept—a sense of self-awareness and individuality that helps him survive the turmoil of the Pigza clan. In
What Would Joey Do?,Jack Gantos takes readers on another roller coaster ride with Joey and his eccentric family, testing the strength of family bonds with humor and sorrow in a gritty and realistic portrayal of a boy who prides himself on being “Mr. Helpful,” but who must learn to consider putting himself first. As Gantos stated in an interview with the Riverbank Review, [in Joey Pigza] there is a “cycle from violation to redemption. And there’s a process of discovery in that.”
Joey is well on his way to reaching a point of self-actualization, where he more readily separates himself from the chaos around him, differentiating the external mess surrounding him from the internal confusion he faces with ADHD. However, before he may take steps to declare his selfhood, he must come to terms with the fact that he exists separately from his dysfunctional and self-involved family members. He must ask himself “What Would Joey Do?,” a question of what it actually means to be Joey, to walk in his shoes, to be true to himself, to lose the burden of responsibility for the actions and words of those around him, and to appreciate knowing what it means to be him—to be Joey
Pigza.
Jack Gantos is the author of more than thirty books for children. In March 2002 he published his young adult memoir,
Hole in My Life, which Tom Bodett declared in The New York Times Book Review, “A powerful cautionary tale from a man who knows what he’s talking about.” Gantos resides in Boston, Massachusetts.
# # #
What Would Joey Do?
by Jack Gantos
October 2002
Ages 10 up
$16.00
0-374-39986-7
|
