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Penrod

English, published in 1914
Category: Fiction

This is a picture of a boy's heart, full of the lovable, humorous, tragic things which are locked secrets to most older folks. It is a finished, exquisite work.

Excerpt

on a simple apparatus consisting of an old bushel-basket with a few yards of clothes-line tied to each of its handles. He passed the ends of the lines over a big spool, which revolved upon an axle of wire suspended from a beam overhead, and, with the aid of this improvised pulley, lowered the empty basket until it came to rest in an upright position upon the floor of the storeroom at the foot of the sawdust-box.

"Eleva-ter!" shouted Penrod. "Ting-ting!"

Duke, old and intelligently apprehensive, approached slowly, in a semicircular manner, deprecatingly, but with courtesy. He pawed the basket delicately; then, as if that were all his master had expected of him, uttered one bright bark, sat down, and looked up triumphantly. His hypocrisy was shallow: many a horrible quarter of an hour had taught him his duty in this matter.

"El-e-VAY-ter!" shouted Penrod sternly. "You want me to come down there to you?"

Duke looked suddenly haggard. He pawed the basket feebly again and, upon another outburst f

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2006.10.14
Richard Bohan

This is one of the great books of all time for pre-teen boys. The author is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer prize. In this book he has managed to present the adventures of a twelve year old boy, presented entirely from the boy's point of view. That is a major accomplishment. Penrod is a boy--not a "good boy" and not a "bad boy--but simply a boy engaged in experimenting with his place in the world. The overall story has a gentle humor to it, interupted by a few slap-stick chapters. The fact that these chapters usually revolve some black boys who are friends of Penrod's has led some to accuse Tarkington of being a racist. This overstates the case, but as a novelist he was not above using current stereotypes to please his readers.