One of the Third Grade Thonkers - Softcover

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor PHYLLIS REYNOLDS NAYLOR is the author of sixty books for children and young adults. Her books include How I Came to Be a Writer (Golden Kite Award), A String of Chances (South Carolina Young Adult Book Award), The Solomon System (Child Study Award), Night Cry (1985 Edgar Allan Poe Best Juvenile Mystery), The Agony of Alice (ALA Notable Children's Book), The Keeper, and The Year of the Gopher, both YASD Best Books for Young Adults.

She is the mother of two grown sons and lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with her husband, Rex, and their two cats, Ulysses and Marco.

Grade 4-6 The Thonkers need to be promoted: these third graders speak and act much older than eight. Jimmy Novak establishes an exclusive club with two of his friends. Membership is dependent upon a display of macho bravery, revealed through a knee operation in Jimmy's case, a broken arm and a near-miss auto accident for his friends. Jimmy's elaborate plans for an all-Thonker spring vacation are thrown into disarray by the arrival of his cousin David, a wimpy, fearful child who must stay with the Novaks while his mother recovers from heart surgery. The Thonkers' ultimate attempt to prove their braveryjumping off a moving railroad drawbridgecoincides with a frightening accident involving Jimmy's father, the first mate on a towboat. This crisis forces Jimmy to learn the difference between selfish recklessness and true courage. Many plot lines intersect here, and these abrupt transitions make the story hard to follow. Although information about towboats is interesting, the novel sinks under the weight of so many events happening to an overabundance of characters. This lack of focus may cause readers to overlook the main ideas of self-realization and Jimmy's first stirrings of maturity and responsibility. This theme is more successfully explored in Bauer's On My Honor (Clarion, 1986) and Hermes' Nobody's Fault (Dell, 1983). In Eddie, Incorporated (Macmillan, 1980), Naylor created a believable character who, like Jimmy, learns self-reliance and self-respect. Jimmy the Thonker misses the boat. Martha Rosen, Edgewood School, Scarsdale, N.Y.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.