Jon Scieszka’s semi-graphic novel memoir about growing up with five brothers reminded me of reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer when I was a kid. There’s lots of action and adventure to grab a young boy’s attention- wrestling, peeing on electric heaters, breaking stuff and then blaming it on someone else, telling jokes, making mortars out of M80 firecrackers, etc. It’s just good boisterous fun. I grew up around farms, and so we always dared each other to pee on electric fences, which is its own special kind of fun.
It’s not fully a graphic novel/memoir. He includes pictures of the family and various pieces of old-comic-style art to correspond with the text, but the memoir is largely text-based. The chapters are very short and each one focuses on a specific situation or memory. As the title states, these are “mostly true events.” I question the group puking incident in the station wagon, but I imagine this is the story the way the boys told it to their friends. The book is good fun and a quick nostalgic read, for me anyway. Good times, good times.
Another good read from ijustfinished.com