Scribble - Hardcover

Jennings, Richard W.

3.6

15 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0618433678 ISBN 13: 9780618433674

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004

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After suddenly being able to communicate with ghosts by day and night, Lawson tries to find a way to reach his deceased best friend, but when she does not appear and he can find no way to reach her, Lawson must turn to his many memories of their time together in order to come to terms with the fact that she is gone forever.

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About the Author:

Richard W. Jennings has published more than fifty essays, articles, and short stories, including The Tragic Tale of the Dog Who Killed Himself, published by Bantam Books in 1980 to widespread critical acclaim, in addition to his recent titles published with Houghton Mifflin -- Orwell's Luck, The Great Whale of Kansas, My Life of Crime, and Scribble. He is cofounder of a popular Kansas City-area bookstore and former editor of KANSAS CITY MAGAZINE. He has five children, four grandchildren, a dog, a cat, and a parrot and lives in Kansas.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 5-8–Twelve-year-old Lawson's best friend dies after a long illness, prior to the start of this quirky tale. He has Scribble, Jip's dog, whom he believes can see ghosts. Soon he begins to see them, too, starting with Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. The rambling plot has Lawson believing that Jip is trying to contact him via spirit writing. Deeply upset that he can no longer picture her face in his mind, he tries to figure out her messages. Eleanor Roosevelt kidnaps Scribble in order to get Lawson's attention. Then Nat King Cole drives by in a bus, saying that what the boy wants is in the basement of Jip's empty house. Lawson confronts his friend's cousin and finds a videotape of Jip's funeral. He is now able to fix her face in his memory forever by viewing the pictures of her at the funeral. The subplot of the protagonist's miserable home life is happily resolved by his moving in with an aunt and uncle. Jennings's narrator is too mature to be fully believable, and the anticlimactic ending is disappointing. The author's fans may enjoy his familiar use of oblique time shifts and the wise-beyond-belief narrator. Others may simply find the story over the top.–B. Allison Gray, John Jermain Library, Sag Harbor, NY
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