Spitting Image - Hardcover

Crum, Shutta

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0618234772 ISBN 13: 9780618234776

Publisher: Clarion Books, 2003

Synopsis

While showing some New York City reporters around Beulah County so that they can witness poverty firsthand, twelve-year-old Jessie K. Bovey, using this opportunity to make some money, learns some valuable lessons in life, in a heartwarming coming-of-age story set in 1967 Kentucky.

About this title

About the Author

Shutta Crum is a retired children’s librarian. Her Clarion titles include Spitting Image and My Mountain Song. She was born in Paintsville, Kentucky, and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. For more information visit www.shuttacrum.com.

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-8-With a devotion to justice and a quick temper, Jessie Bovey, 12, has been known to indulge in fisticuffs with those who insult her or her friends. Born "out of wedlock," she feels secure in the love of her mother, yet wonders why she won't tell her anything about her father. While her grandmother, the "old biddy," seems to pick on her, Lester, the oldest member of their small community, holds her in warm regard just as she is. Excitement arrives when Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty brings a VISTA volunteer to her small Kentucky town and Baby Blue, Jessie's friend Robert's developmentally delayed younger brother, might get to go to something called Head Start. Innocently, Jessie assists reporters and photographers and is mortified when they grab national attention by focusing only on the worst aspects of her community and dearest friends. When a huge poisonous snake is set loose on her and Baby Blue, her grandmother coolly executes a superb rescue. As the story comes to a close, Jessie has learned who her father was and of violence in her mother's life, and she seems to be getting some control of her temper. Spitting Image contains as much cultural truth as Ruth White's Belle Prater's Boy (Farrar, 1996), but in contrast is narrated by a charmingly unpolished character looking from the point of view of the working poor. Truly memorable characters abound, and moonshining, snake handling, a rape 13 years earlier, and racial discord are knitted together in an absorbing plot with an uplifting ending. A remarkable first novel.
Cindy Darling Codell, Clark Middle School, Winchester, KY
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Clarion Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0618234772
• ISBN 13: 9780618234776
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 218