Hit: Reviews of Harris and Me

[Mary Ludwick <ludwick@swbell.net>]

Author
         Paulsen, Gary.
     Title
         Harris and me : a summer remembered / Gary Paulsen.
  Publisher
         Harcourt Brace & Co., San Diego : 1993.
 Description
         157 p. : 22 cm.
   Reviews
         Publishers Weekly; School Library Journal; Booklist starred;
Book Links 07/01/96;
         Elementary School Library Collection 03/01/98; Wilson's Senior
High School
         11/01/97; Wilson's Middle and Junior High School 09/01/95;
Notable/Best Books
         (A.L.A.)
    Notes
         Sent to live with relatives on their farm because of his
unhappy home life, an
         eleven-year-old city boy meets his distant cousin Harris and is
given an introduction
         to a whole new world.
   Subjects
         Farm life Fiction.;Cousins Fiction.;Boys Fiction.;Pastoral
fiction.
   Tracings


School Library Journal 01/01/1994

Gr 6-9-A nostalgic journey through a boy's breakneck summer. Told by a
narrator recalling his
experiences the summer he was 11, the stories begin with his being
dropped by a deputy at the farm
home of a distant relative. "`We heard your folks was puke drunks, is
that right?'" asks the beguiling
and reckless nine-year-old Harris almost immediately. Of course they
are, but that dismal fact of life
is forgotten nearly at once as Harris leads the two of them off on one
wild adventure after another.
As one might suspect from Paulsen, there are no ordinary characters
residing on this backwoods
farm: there's Vivian, the ornery, kicking cow; 300 pound pigs who don't
look kindly on wrestling
matches with boys; Ernie, the attack-rooster; Louie, the hired hand with
strange table manners and
an artistic streak; Buzzer, his pet lynx; and Harris's older sister,
Glennis, who is constantly whacking
him for swearing. (At times the language does get a little salty.) The
plot is a loosely constructed
romp with each chapter an episode that's fast paced, highly descriptive,
and funny. Using headings
such as ``In which war is declared and honor established,'' Paulsen
raises readers' expectations and
sets the tone for the action to follow. Some stories push beyond
believability and edge into tall-tale
territory, but it doesn't matter, for this is storytelling in the
tradition of Twain and Harte, memorable
and humorous and very telling of human nature.-Lee Bock, Brown County
Public Libraries, Green
Bay, WI

School Library Journal 02/01/2000

Gr 5-8-Paulsen can be very funny when he wants to be. In this novel, he
has created a character
that youngsters will love to read about, but would hate to be anywhere
near in real life. Harris is a
crude, rude, scheming troublemaker, but he has a sense of fun and
excitement that makes readers
want know what he'll do next. Like his literary predecessors Soup and
The Great Brain, Harris
causes most of the trouble while the less mischievous narrator gets a
good part of the blame (and
often the pain). Half of the laughs come about as a result of Harris's
crazy ideas, like attaching a
washing-machine motor to a bicycle. Equally amusing, though, is
Paulsen's tongue-in-cheek
first-person narration. PG-13 Award: In the spirit of exaggerated
realism, there's plenty in this book
to offend some adults, including French postcards, plenty of damns and
hells, and more than one
serious injury to Harris's "business."

Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly 10/18/1993

Paulsen choreographs an antic jig of down-on-the-farm frolics in this
warm comedy set a few years
after WW II. The 11-year-old narrator (who has spent a good portion of
his life being shipped off to
various relatives) has never seen anything like the Larson homestead,
where he is sent to spend the
summer; nor has he witnessed anyone like second cousin Harris, prankster
extraordinaire. Initiation
to country life includes a swift kick in the head by Vivian the cow,
run-ins with an angry rooster and
the Larson's spirited pet lynx, as well as assorted dares and
humiliations conducted by nine-year-old
Harris, who eventually becomes a cherished friend. Days are filled with
a mixture of tough work and
rough play and sometime during the course of his visit the city
boy--parented by a couple of ``puke
drunks''--learns the real meaning of ``home.'' On the Larson farm,
readers will experience hearts as
large as farmers' appetites, humor as broad as the country landscape and
adventures as wild as
boyhood imaginations. All this adds up to a hearty helping of
old-fashioned, rip-roaring
entertainment. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)
--
Mary Croix Ludwick   ludwick@swbell.net (home)
ludwickm@lisd.net(school)
Librarian, Owen Elem.,The Colony, Texas
Lewisville ISD(north of Dallas)   K-5

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