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Wishin' and Hopin' by Wally Lamb
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Harper Perennial
My Thoughts:
This was a good transition read for me after reading Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly. It was swift, easy and fun and started to set my mood for the upcoming holiday season.
Wally Lamb is known for his powerful, emotional novels like She's Come Undone and I Know This Much is True. I was impressed that he could switch hats a bit and deliver this sweet, coming of age holiday tale. I was also impressed with myself for having read it in two naps!
(my toddlers, not my own!)
The story centers around Felix Funicello, ten years old and a fifth grade student at St. Aloysius Gonzaga Parochial school. It is gearing up to be an exciting holiday season for him; his mother is participating in the Pillsbury Bake Off (on TV!), he lands a role on the Ranger Andy Show (also on TV), his old teacher has a nervous breakdown (pretty sure he caused it), he gets a new teacher who insists on teaching French and wears sassy red berets and fishnet stockings, his best friend Lonny gets a girlfriend, Zhenya, the new Russian student, and he continues to battle it out with his sister and his bossy, know it all classmate, Rosalie.
He's a good kid, overall. He helps his Dad out at the lunch counter, where he moons over the framed picture of his cousin (yes, his famous cousin!) Annette Funicello!
He's good to his mom, does pretty well in school and generally tries to stay out of trouble.
This was a sweet book, perfect for this time of year. The time period, being 1964, gave it a dated feel, much like The Christmas Story movie. It also held some of the same ingredients that are endearing to me; a young boy, mischievous friends, fun yet stern parents, lessons to be learned, strict teachers, Christmas play and a nice, heart warming ending.
Rating: 4 stars/ 6 stars
I recommend this for a fun, fast holiday read. There were parts that reminded me of my childhood especially the Christmas play they put on.
I played Mary for my Catholic school's production of the Real Story of Christmas.
I was eight. It was awesome. I was a big star!
Not really but it sured pleased the parents.
Much like it did for Felix's parents, even though...(cough), due to a slight disaster
he ends up playing baby Jesus.
Ha!
Thank you to TLC Book Tours for allowing me to participate in this tour. Be sure to stop by the other stops and read another opinion.
Monday, November 8th: Colloquium
Wednesday, November 10th: Rundpinne
Thursday, November 11th: The Winey Mommy
Tuesday, November 16th: Til We Read Again
Wednesday, November 17th: Literary Feline
Thursday, November 18th: Lisa’s Yarns
Monday, November 22nd: The Book Faery Reviews
Tuesday, November 23rd: red headed book child
Monday, November 29th: The Lost Entwife
Tuesday, November 30th: Peeking Between the Pages
Wednesday, December 1st: Wordsmithonia
Thursday, December 2nd: Reviews from the Heart
Monday, December 6th: The Brain Lair
Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!
red headed book child
4 comments:
Glad to see that this was fun...it's one of the books I intend to read for the holiday challenge I entered.
So glad you liked it! I thought it was a sweet read as well. I read it after hearing Wally Lamb read from another book where he used mimicked a child's voice, so I had his voice in my head throughout the book. Pretty cool.
Thanks for being on this tour!
Oh this sounds fun!
I don't remember playing anything cute in any plays. For some reason, I was always taller than the other kids so it didn't bode well for theatre.
(I leveled out later)
Great review.
Happy Thanksgiving :)
This was a fun read for me in 2009.
Happy Thanksgiving Michelle.
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