Skinnybones
by Barbara Park
I was torn on whether our last Sticky Book for the Children’s Book Month of June would be Superfudge (by Judy Blume) or the lesser known Skinnybones. Both are excellent children’s books. Both are very funny. But in the end, I have memories of Skinnybones filling me with laughter for days.
I might be misremembering–nostalgia is a hell of a drug–but I recall this being the funniest childhood book I ever read. There are children’s books with more heart or more imagination or more wonderment or more feeling or even more beloved, but my now thirty-something mind doesn’t remember my then 10-year-old mind thinking there was a book that was funnier.
I could go back and reread it, but that’s both too obvious and wouldn’t prove anything. Even if I don’t think that it is that funny now, that doesn’t mean that 10-year-old Dan didn’t think it was that funny. So let young 10-year-old me introduce this book to you through hyperbole and wistfulness: “It’s the funniest book you will ever read in your entire life. Trust me. I’m ten. I’ve seen some sh*$.”
Sticky Books are those that you just can’t get out of your head. They stick with you long after you have put the book down and have moved on to something else. These are some of my Sticky Books. I don’t enjoy reviewing books myself. I find I am either full of far too much praise for the book because I know how difficult it can be to write a book, or I am far too negative about a book because, well, I guess I was just in a bad mood. So instead of reviews, I have pulled some of my favorite quotes from each Sticky Book.
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