Hokey Pokey

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown Kids Books 4-week checkout	Y Fiction / Spinelli, Jerry	4-week checkout	Due 03-24-2024

Ever since they were Snotsippers, Jack and the girl have fought, until one day she steals his bike and as he and the Amigos try to recover it, Jack realizes that he is growing up and must eventually leave the "goodlands and badlands of Hokey Pokey."

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

School Library Journal Review
Booklist Review
Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Fiction Profile
Excerpt
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

A different sort of childhood submitted by wampishing on June 24, 2013, 1:13pm When the magnificent bike, Scramjet, that he captured and tamed all by himself falls into the hands of a girl-thief, Hokey Pokey tilts on its axis for popular big kid, Jack. A troubling air of change follows him as his scours the kids-only world for Scramjet and his arch nemesis. Every kid knows that the tracks running through Hokey Pokey never carry any trains, yet Jack starts hearing a distant whistle. Jack doesn't feel quite like himself. This land of simple laws - never pass a puddle without stomping in it, never kiss a girl - and simple places - Tantrum and the Doll Farm and the Snuggler - has an equally simple history: once, long ago, The Kid, beloved of all Hokey Pokey, began to feel not like himself, and told the other residents he would be leaving on the train. Unwilling to watch him go, his friends held him in puddle and tickled him until he hardened, covered in mud, into the statue that watches over them all. Jack and his friends begin to fear the story might be true. But what does that mean for Jack? Celebrated author Jerry Spinelli spins another tale of growing up, in this strange fable of a timeless world with no adults. With little plot beyond the mystery surrounding Jack's predicament, this quiet story captures the uncertainty and abruptness of the changes facing every burgeoning young adult. Inventive, if somewhat baffling, Jack's transition from childhood into adolescence may be more appealing to nostalgic adults that the book's middle school target audience.