Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Skinnybones

I hated school picture day growing up, but not for the usual reasons. I wasn't worried about my outfit or anything, even though one year I chose to wear pleated, acid-washed jeans. I didn't care that much about how the picture turned out, since they were all kind of the same. The reason I dreaded our class's turn in the school gym was the yearly "lining up" ritual. We lined up according to height because it expedited the process of arranging the class picture. The tallest kids would line up first and be on the top risers, while the shortest kids lined up last, and were in the front row.

You might not think this would be traumatizing, but every year, I was the shortest kid in the class. And not just by a little. Usually it was by a legitimate couple of inches. When it was my turn to join the line up, I knew where to go: right to the end. My classmates used to laugh about how little effort I had to put into finding my proper place in line. It probably was kind of funny, since the rest of the medium kids were busy standing back to back and switching places. As an eight-year-old, I had never met a children's book character I identified with more than Alexander Bell Frankovitch, also known as "Skinnybones."

Alex is the smallest kid in his class, too. He's nothing but a "skinny bag of bones," according to his nemesis, T.J. Stoner. Alex just says, "Nice, huh?" Alex doesn't dread school picture day, but he hates ordering his baseball uniform, and having to shout out "small" in front of all of his teammates. He decides to just order a large to avoid the embarrassment. His coach calls Alex a bubblehead and orders him a small, anyway. That's just one of the things I love about Skinnybones--the adults are far from perfect. They get frustrated and annoyed with Alex, and are generally depicted realistically. In many children's books, adults are either absent or overly simplified characters with no real personalities.

To compensate for his size, Alex tries to be funny. And he succeeds. His observations are kind of junior Catcher in the Rye-esque:

"One time I asked the gym teacher, Mr. McGuinsky, if he ever thought about starting a school square dancing team. I told him that if he did, I would like to volunteer to be the team captain. He must have thought I was making a joke. He told me to sit my tail down and shut up. Gym teachers like to say 'tail' a lot." (20)

"My arm was a goner. It just hung limp at my side like it had croaked or something. I checked it out to see if it was bleeding, but no such luck. I hate that. When something hurts as bad as my arm did, the least it could do is bleed a little." (50)

"All my mother did was tell me that I should try to ignore him. She's always giving me great advice like that. Then she hands me my lunch, shoves me out the door, and her problems are over for the day. Mine are just beginning." (19)

Indeed, things often seem unfair for Alex. His small baseball uniform is still way too big. The name of his team is the lame "Fran and Ethel's Cleaning Service." They lose every game. He humiliates himself by opening his big mouth at the wrong time, over and over again ("Sometimes, when you're caught doing something dumb, you feel too embarrassed to stop doing it right away.") He always wins the award for "Most Improved" on his Little League team, and recognizes that it really isn't an honor at all. In order to get Most Improved, he says, you have to be really bad to begin with.

Alex's sense of humor finally earns him a victory, when he wins an essay contest. This is the subject of the equally enjoyable sequel, Almost Starring Skinnybones. I read and reread several of Barbara Park's books, including The Kid in the Red Jacket, Don't Make Me Smile, My Mother Got Married (And Other Disasters), and Operation: Dump the Chump. She creates memorable, sympathetic characters, and handles some difficult issues without being saccharine or predictable. You really start to feel for Alex: he's funny, but he's constantly bullied, and I think we can all remember how awful that really was.

Skinnybones is still very much in print, and was recently updated for a modern audience. I had the Bullseye edition seen above, complete with the now dated references to Steve Garvey.

Up Next: The Bears' House by Marilyn Sachs, if I can find it, and probably Mary Stolz's The Noonday Friends if I can't.

3 comments:

Samantha said...

I am amazed by how vividly you remember elementary school! Keep it coming!

Josh said...

Looks like a great book, and another one I hadn't heard of. I suspect that'll be the case with all too many of the books you choose (due entirely to my ignorance, I should hasten to add).

Also, you did something no one had ever made me do before, which is get my own blogspot :p.

Anne said...

I clearly did not read enough books with male protagonists. Why? I now regret it.

Great entry, btw.