Skip to main content

The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis

By



The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis
by Barbara O'Connor
150 pages
juvenile fiction
New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009

Everyday is the same in Fayette, South Carolina. Boring! Popeye is not looking forward to a summer of having nothing to do except learn the weekly vocabulary words his grandmother, Velma, gives him. To make it worse, it rains for a week straight so he can't even escape to the backyard. Then he discovers a shiny surprise stuck in the mud down the road from his house. A big shiny silver motor home tilted on the edge of the road, one tire hopelessly stuck in the mud. Popeye is stunned by this wonderful new thing in his life. It is covered with American flags, smiley faces, peace signs, lightning bolts and bumper stickers. The day got even better when he discovered a large family with a whole bunch of kids lived in the motor home. They invited him to join their Spit and Swear Club. Boy, did it feel good to do something naughty without Velma knowing a thing! Soon Elvis, the oldest boy, and Popeye were ditching the younger kids and trying to have a "small adventure" before the motor home was pulled from the mud sending Elvis' family on their way.

Barbara O'Connor has a way with words and characters. I could visualize all the people in this short little novel as if I were watching a movie. This is a nice and refreshing glimpse into the life of a young boy looking for just a little excitment in his life.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Bletchley Riddle

By
  The Bletchley Riddle By Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin New York: Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2024. Fiction. 392 pages. It's spring of 1940, Hitler has swept through most of Europe, and people believe England will be next. Half Polish-Jewish, half American Jakob has been recruited from Cambridge to Bletchley Park where they are working on deciphering the enigma machine. Jakob's sister Lizzie, meanwhile, is being forced to move from London to Cleveland to live with her grandmother after her mother disappeared in a 1939 attack in Poland. Lizzie manages to escape the keeper her grandmother sent for her to bring her to America and makes her way to Bletchley, where she's eventually given the task of delivering messages between departments. When secret messages begin appearing with Lizzie's belongings, she must decipher them to find the truth about her mother's past and location, while keeping the secrets away from the MI5 agent that seems a little t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Painting for Peace in Ferguson

By
Painting for Peace in Ferguson By Carol Swartout Klein Treehouse Publishing Group, 2015. Nonfiction. When the city of Ferguson was overrun with so much hate and despair that homes and businesses had to be boarded up to protect property, citizens of the community decided to bring a message of hope by painting the boarded windows. Klein’s rhyming text supports the photographs of the hundreds of artists and volunteers and their artwork as they bring the messages of peace, hope, love, and that by being united they can make a difference. A great book to show children how a community rallied to make a positive change and that even a small gesture can make a huge difference. A great discussion opener on how we should treat each other.
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Faker

By
Faker By Gordon Korman New York: Scholastic Press, 2024. Fiction. 214 pages. 12-year-old Trey is used to starting over at a new school -- he has the routine perfectly memorized: make new friends, introduce his dad to the wealthy parents of his new friends, and "Houdini" themselves out of there before they get caught running their latest scam. Trey's dad is a master con artist, and Trey has just been promoted to full-partner. Their new scheme for the next big score brings them to the affluent suburb of Boxelder, TN where Trey's dad has cooked up a fake electric car company for investors to buy into. The only problem is that Trey is starting to grow tired of moving around and never putting down roots, especially after forming a fast friendship with Logan and developing a crush on Kaylee, a socially conscious girl in his class. As Trey longs for a normal life, is there any way he can convince his dad to get out of the family business? Gordon Korman is a perennial favorit...
Post a Comment
Read more