Adrift in the soul-ar system
Written: Aug 09 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Beautiful descriptions, characterizations, themes, prose that
sings.
Cons: Advocates kids running away from a stifling home situation.
The Bottom Line: Offbeat, poetic tale of a troubled slum prodigy saved from his dysfunctional home life by a loose alliance of friends.
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| Cassady's Full Review: Planet of Junior Brown |
I read Virginia Hamilton's Newbery Honor young-adult novel after seeing a strikingly-lyrical movie version; I was glad to find it a rewarding reading experience as well. Junior Brown is a fat, sheltered, mentally-ill black teenager in Harlem. Unfortunately his talent for piano-playing and painting is smothered by his neurotic, overprotective and manipulative mother. Junior instead receives nurturing and protection via an allegiance of slum dwellers, like schoolmate Buddy Clark, a homeless orphan, and Tomorrow Billy, a sort of ghetto legend who matches up street kids with each other in safehouses. Buddy escorts Junior to unorthodox piano lessons taught by psychotic Miss Peebs, and to private tutelage in astronomy and confidence by school janitor Mr. Pool. Despite problems of his own, Buddy controls Junior's growing, clumsy interest in girls, and bring the kid back to earth when Junior begins sharing Miss Peeb's morbid delusions. Mrs. Brown thinks Buddy is a bad influence, her opinion hardened when school administrators confirm both boys missed class for months at their bleak urban school. Junior finally runs away from home. Buddy, after retrieving Junior from a bout of mutual hysteria with Miss Peebs, installs his friend and a few other parentless children in a `planet' refuge prepared by Tomorrow Billy. The theme is that when families and institutions fail, then children and other disenfranchised misfits have to take responsibility to help raise for themselves. It's certainly a bleak view of African-American society unable to look after its own children (a notion that hasn't dated at all since the book's publication in the 1970s, alas), but the ending offers tenuous hope that in the face of adversity and indifference, a Tomorrow Billy will always emerge to help out.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Cassady
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Member: Charles Cassady
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Reviews written: 290
Trusted by: 9 members
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