Living with My Stepfather Is Like Living with a Moose - Hardcover

Bowdish, Lynea

9780374346300: Living with My Stepfather Is Like Living with a Moose

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374346305 ISBN 13: 9780374346300

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 1996

"Ten-year-old athletic Matt is mortified by his new, clumsy stepfather, Frank. Matt's mom arranges numerous activities designed to bring stepfather and son closer together, but Matt is embarrassed and disgusted by each turn of events...The story is light and funny, sending a message about all human relationships."-Booklist

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From School Library Journal:

Grade 2-5. Fifth-grader Matt, a talented athlete, describes the tangle of emotions he feels when his mother marries a total klutz. Matt cannot help resenting Frank's presence and feeling embarrassed by his ineptitude. The boy and his stepfather bowl together with hilarious results; share an unpredictable basketball game; and go to the movies. Matt's friends accept and enjoy Frank's warmth and good humor, which only makes Matt feel worse. He finds his guilt growing as well, so he reluctantly agrees to help Frank band birds. As he watches the man's skillful handling of the birds, he begins to see that he has talents. This realization makes it easier to accept Frank's participation in the father-son softball game. Bowdish's characters are not fully developed, but her first-person narrative conveys Matt's strong emotions with an immediacy that grabs readers from the first paragraph. The youngster's acceptance of Frank may come too easily, but it fits with the fast pace and smooth flow of the story. While the undemanding text, broken by Sims's appealing illustrations, will attract transitional readers, older children who are experiencing these life changes will find some comfort in sharing Matt's struggle to accept a new family member.?Maggie McEwen, Coffin Elementary School, Brunswick, ME
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Matt's new stepfather, Frank, is clumsy and uncoordinated, an embarrassment to athletic Matt, whose mother keeps pushing them into joint activities. Matt's friends find Frank friendly, but Matt remains steadfast in his determination to avoid a father-son softball game that he fears will be the ultimate humiliation. Then, during a trip to band birds with Frank, Matt finds reasons to reevaluate his position. There's a low believability factor from beginning to end, with unlikable characters throughout: Matt is mulish, and his change of heart is less convincing than his well-established stubbornness; his mother appears needlessly domineering; the oafish Frank is rarely more than a cipher. Black-and-white cartoonish illustrations match the simplicities of the plot, reinforcing the notion that these are stock types, loafing through a TV sitcom. (Fiction. 8- 11) -- Copyright �1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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