eggs, by jerry spinelli

eggs
jerry spinelli

I need to be clear - I like this book. I do. But like the crystalline fowly residue covering 13-year-old Primrose's van/bedroom windows, it's because the story just would not let go.
Primrose and nine-year-old David, the main character, form an awkward and unbalanced friendship after the freak accident death of David's mother uproots David and his only-home-on-the-weekends father. David could care less for his grandmother. Primrose is outrageously embarrassed of her fortune-telling mother. The two, er, stumble upon each other during an easter egg hunt and again at a library story time. Soon they latch themselves to each other and hang on for dear life.
It seems predictable enough - through each other they will find redemption. Right? Weeellll ... First of all, "unlikely friendship" = understatement of the year. The Amazon product description used the phrase "tight yet tumultuous". I think Booklist gets closer with "close albeit abrasive". It's this so-called friendship between David and Primrose that stayed with me after closing the book (Closing the book satisfied, remember? I promise I like it.)
These kids are mean to each other. Not Judy Moody (Candlewick Press) smart-mouth mean. I am the older sister of a brother. I know what mean can look like, and yet these kids' insanely raw insecurities affected me like a Dementor. I was halfway through the novel when I thought to myself "Self? This might actually have a horrible, dramatic resolution." I could foresee a train wreck.
My emotional investment snuck up on me. I began to notice how much I ached for these two kids and how brilliantly Spinelli portrays their desolation without reverting to overused troubled-kid-gone-wrong scenarios. The more I sat with this story, the more I appreciated that it is not Spinelli's writing that is at the same time fragile and aggressive. It is David and Primrose. It is their characters, masterfully composed by Spinelli. I mean, gosh, you wonder if, realistically, there will ever be light at the end of the tunnel for these two. Given these characters' core and situation, could the predictable redemptive ending really happen? There are kids like David and Primrose in our world, in our own neighborhoods. For those of us who have only ever known reasonably comfortable Suburbia, we usually only know this side of struggling (whether economic, emotional or existential) via books like (and here is where I show my age) Dear Mr. Henshaw (HarperCollins), Dicey's Song (Fawcett), The Hundred Dresses (Scholastic), and now David and Primrose.
Why I like this book - as heavy as I have probably made this book out to be, there are rays of sparkling sunshine through the clouds (which, by the way, are never stormy just overcast). David's grandmother, for one, reminds us that it is David who keeps himself in his mopey state; the world at large is not all bad. Refrigerator John, bless his heart, is the only adult whose advice and guidance David and Primrose heed. He allows them a safe space to be so dysfunctional. They may be mean, but they are cared for.
Lastly, I am a fan of the ending. It doesn't tie up loose ends in a pretty bow. It doesn't leave us with a cheesy benediction. In its own way it redeems the Reader, we who believe in David's innocence and sweetness and in Primrose's creativity and heart.
It should be said that I don't know how much of my interpretation will be similarly shared by its intended audience of middle grade readers. One review praised this book as "one that should not be missed if looking for a good tale of friendship." Mmm, I guess. Not so much with the good tale of friendship. It's not Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Delacorte Books for Young Readers). But yes to the don't miss.

Coverness: (I know Fuse already does this, so maybe I'm copying, maybe I just can't resist in this case). Special shout-out to the cover. A close-up of an open six-pack of farm fresh eggs, no title, just "by jerry spinelli". Fabulous. In a story where words are flung so aggressively, the universally recognizable symbol works just fine. What a great discussion starter for kids about what else we understand without words - brand logos, body language, reading between the lines.