The Wizard's Tide: A Story - Hardcover

Buechner, Frederick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 006061160X ISBN 13: 9780060611606

Publisher: Harpercollins, 1990

Synopsis

An eleven-year-old boy describes the joys and sorrows of growing up in a dysfunctional family with a jobless alcoholic father during the hard times of the Depression

About this title

From Library Journal

This is the touching tale of a young family's struggle to survive during the Great Depression. Attractive, charming, and born to comfort, Mr. and Mrs. Schroeder are unaccustomed to scraping by; poverty takes a toll on their relationship. The resulting tension unnerves little Teddy, who loves his parents dearly and worries about life should they part. Given Schroeder's job-hopping and the family's frequent moves, Teddy and his younger sister, Bean, had come to believe that "home was wherever Mr. and Mrs. Schroeder happened to be living at the time." Offering both sad and joyful memories from Teddy's perspective as a child, Buechner displays an uncanny accuracy in his characterizations of childhood. His descriptions of birthday parties, cozy rainy days, and magical childhood thinking are sensitive and credible. This charming book is nostalgic without being sentimental.
-Kimberly G. Allen, National Assn. of Home Builders Lib., Washington, D . C .
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

The personal impact of the Depression years is seen through the eyes of an 11-year-old boy in this simple yet evocative story from the author of the critically praised Godric and The Alphabet of Grace. In 1936, Teddy Schroeder is the elder of two children in a middle-class New Jersey home. With his sister, Bean, he enjoys the cosseting of grandparents, trips to Manhattan with his pretty mother, and a richly imagined world peopled with characters from the land of Oz. Teddy's awareness of tension in his parents' marriage mounts as he overhears their arguments about money, as his father, who seems unable to find work, has a proclivity for get-rich-quick schemes. We share Teddy's loss--feelings not expressed until we hear his adult voice in bittersweet recollection--when his father's suicide abruptly marks an end to the secure tenor of their lives. Plainly told, gently nuanced, the story has appeal for those who believe in the healing power of memory.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harpercollins
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 006061160X
• ISBN 13: 9780060611606
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 104