Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Mostly True Stories about Growing up Scieszka by Jon Scieszka

From the Publisher

How did Jon Scieszka get so funny, anyway? Growing up as one of six brothers was a good start, but that was just the beginning. Throw in Catholic school, lots of comic books, lazy summers at the lake with time to kill, babysitting misadventures, TV shows, jokes told at family dinner, and the result is Knucklehead. Part memoir, part scrapbook, this hilarious trip down memory lane provides a unique glimpse into the formation of a creative mind and a free spirit.

VOYA

Thankfully, Scieszka never grew up. Evidence is this autobiography that reads more like a conversation with the class clown in the back row of Algebra I than a memoir. The author of The Time Warp Trio series as well as neo-classic picture books The Stinky Cheese Man and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs tells of his growing up as the second of six sons of a school principal and a nurse in Flint, Michigan. Predictable hilarity of a rambunctious boy-dominated world ensues. Tales run from the relatively innocent con of a younger brother to cover backyard-dog-poop detail to more startling small explosions and attempts at hiding various destructions. The front and back cover designs imitate comic books popular during Scieszka's 1960s childhood, and although the content is not of the graphic variety, it is appealing. The slim book is divided into thirty-eight very brief chapters littered with images of hokey birthday cards, Cub Scout paraphernalia, and baseball cards. Goofy grade school photos of the boys-wearing the same striped, hand-me-down jacket-are here, too, as are the even goofier family Halloween and holiday photos. It is all fair game, and Scieszka invites readers to revel in his fun. This memoir is indispensable for students required to write author reports. Adults of Scieszka's generation will enjoy the backward glance to the era, and his fans-as well as readers who love a funny boy story-will find themselves guiltily giggling over nearly every page. Reviewer: Lauri J. Vaughan

School Library Journal

Gr 3-6

Just try to keep kids away from this collection. Inspired book design makes the volume look like an old-school comic. The front cover features an elementary-aged Scieszka popping up out of a military tank, surrounded by explosions and bombers, while the back advertises a "Treasure Chest of Fun" and displays chapter titles and excerpts along with nostalgic graphics. Scieszka answers the oft-asked question, "Where do you get your ideas?" with a slew of childhood anecdotes and his family's escapades that have given him plenty of material from which to draw. Born in 1954, the second of six brothers, he writes about Catholic and military schools, buying gifts, chores, and hand-me-downs-all familiar experiences related with a specific Scieszka twist. His mother, a nurse, insisted that her sons use proper terms for anatomy ("rectum" rather than "butt") and bodily functions ("urinate" rather than "pee"), making way for several laugh-out-loud moments. Some stories are just amiably funny, such as wearing recycled Halloween costumes, while others help readers understand more about how the author developed his unique sense of humor. Although it includes the car trip story from Guys Write for Guys Read (Viking, 2005), Knucklehead is aimed at a younger audience. Family photographs and other period illustrations appear throughout. Entertaining and fast-moving, silly and sweet, this homage to family life is not to be missed.-Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School, Richmond, VA

Kirkus Reviews

Offering an answer to the perennial query about where his ideas come from, the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature looks back to his early 1960s youth. Fans will not be surprised to learn that, except for his mother (a nurse, fortunately) he grew up in an all-male household: father, five brothers and "even our dogs and cats and fish." The resulting memories include group pukes in the back seat, slipping toy soldiers into the Christmas creche, playing neighborhood games like "Slaughterball" and idyllic summer expeditions into the woods around his grandparents' cottage-not to mention the pleasures of random dips into the household children's encyclopedia and spurning "those weirdos Dick and Jane" to "find out more about real things like dogs in cars and cats in hats." Illustrated with truly dorky school-yearbook photos and family snapshots, this account of a thoroughly normal childhood doesn't match Gary Paulsen's memoirs for hilarity or Tomie DePaola's for cultural insight, but it will draw chuckles of amusement from middle-graders (particularly less eager readers) and of recognition from their parents and grandparents. (Autobiography. 8-11)

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