Jack Gantos 'Dead End in Norvelt' is laugh-out-loud funny: Young readers

norvelt.jpgFarrar, Straus & Giroux, 341 pp., $15.99, ages 10 & up

Eleven-year-old Jack is a mess.

Grounded for the entire summer of 1962, he is allowed to feel the sunshine only when he mows the lawn, digs his father's bomb shelter (the Commies are coming, after all) or if ancient Miss Volker calls and requests some assistance.

Otherwise, he must stay in his bedroom, where he builds an igloo of books and escapes into the pages. Jack also has a problem with his nose. Whenever he gets excited or startled, blood sprays from it "like dragon flames."

He is certain something is really wrong with him. "But one really good advantage about being dirt-poor is that you can't afford to go to the doctor and get bad news."

Poor, grounded, bleeding . . . and Jack is about to have the summer of his life.

And young readers, especially reluctant-to-read boys, are going to laugh the whole way.

"Dead End in Norvelt," awarded the cherished Newbery Medal last month for the best children's book of 2011, is a sidesplitting story from the unique mind of Jack Gantos, who spent part of his childhood in Norvelt, Pa., a planned town created in the New Deal and named after Eleanor Roosevelt. (Gantos also spent part of his life "grounded," serving time in federal prison decades ago for drug smuggling.)

"DEAD END IN NORVELT"

Jack Gantos reads from the audiobook of "Dead End in Norvelt."

I made the mistake of reading a few chapters in a coffee shop and ended up getting a few "you crazy" looks when I broke decorum with cackles of laughter.

Jack's summer gets a lot more interesting on those trips to Miss Volker's house. Turns out, the old woman is a blue-haired stick of dynamite. Her passions include history, human rights and outliving all the founding citizens of Norvelt. She writes their obituaries for the local paper, soaking them with history, gossip and affection. But her arthritis is becoming too much, and she needs Jack to be her scribe.

He spends the summer as her sidekick and underage chauffeur. That's because the original Norvelters begin dying quickly, revealing, perhaps, something sinister.

As the days pass, and Jack's nose leaks, readers are treated to a unique buddy story that rocks back and forth, perfectly, from poignant and touching to madcap and macabre. I found myself leaning forward as I read.

A summer in solitary has never been so spellbinding.

John Campanelli is a critic in Hudson, Ohio.

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