JOEY PIGZA LOSES CONTROL

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gantos, Jack. 2000. JOEY PIGZA LOSES CONTROL.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0374399891

PLOT SUMMARY
Joey Pigza is a 10 year old boy who has lived with this mother most of his life. His father has been non-existent in his life since shortly after his birth. The summer after he turns 10 Joey decides that he wants to visit and get to know his father. His mother is apprehensive about it but agrees to let him go so that he can draw his own conclusions about why his father has not played a role in his life all these years. Joey brings along his constant companion, Pablo, his Chihuahua, to also spend the summer with him at his father and grandmother's house.

Joey uses a patch to control his ADHD which his father shortly after arriving flushes all the remaining patches down the toilet. Joey's father claims that he does not need them and then if Joey would only try hard he can control his actions. This is an interesting comment on the part of the father because he "self-medicates" himself all the time with alcohol, always claiming that he controls the alcohol not the other way around.

Joey's father lives with his mother (Joey's grandmother) who at one time had lived with Joey and his mother. She recalls the times that she spent with Joey and his mother and even though she never comes out and admits it she deep down inside regrets trading that stable environment for the one she lives in now. She is a chain smoker and uses an oxygen machine and is dependent on others to transport her and do many things for her that she can no longer do for herself.

At first Joey is happy to have the patch removed and convinces himself temporarily that he can do just fine without his patches but as the summer wears own he starts to realize that he needs his medication to be able to function and begins to realize that his father believes that the only way that he himself can function is by having his daily doses of beer.

After suffering the effects of his father's low self-esteem Joey flees to the local mall where he makes a desperate and pleading telephone call to his mother to come and rescue him from this place he once thought that he wanted to be a part of. The story ends with Joey's mom picking him and Pablo up leaving all of Joey's other possessions that he brought with him for the summer behind in their haste to flee the demon that the alcohol has made his father become.


CRITICAL ANALYSIS
This book is a Newbery Honor book for the year 2001. The reader can definitely see why this book out of many that could be chosen got this recognition. The qualities that make this book a treasure and will have children reading it are due to the characterization, plot, setting, and theme techniques that Gantos is a master at using in order to make a book come alive and draw the reader in.

When it comes to characterization young adults must be able to connect with the characters, in other words the characters must seem like real people. The story must be factual, situational, emotional, and social in addition to not stereotyping the characters in the story. Gantos has shown his skill at characterization because Joey is a believable person with real-life issues that children today deal with. Many children deal with having ADHD, divorced parents, alcoholic parent(s), and not feeling accepted, loved, respected, and ever "good enough". There is no stereotyping going on in the story.

One example of how Gantos makes his characters come to life is the scene, which by the way had me laughing, where Joey's mother is driving him to see his father, and Joey is asking her a million questions about his father, many of the same questions that he has been asking for the last two weeks. "What if he's not nice? What if he hates me? What if he's as crazy as you always said he was? What if he drinks and gets nasty? Whatt if I don't like him? What if Grandma tries to put me in the refrigerator again? What if they make Pablo sleep outside? What if they don't eat pizza? What if I want to come home quick, can I hire a helicopter?" An adult reader, especially a parent, can hear their own children as they ask their endless questions about life. A child would relate to Joey's questions because they know themselves have had countless questions about things in this life that are puzzling to them.

Gantos has the skill of plot down to a science. A plot must be credible, true-to-life, and avoid coincidences and pat endings and instead have hopeful if not happy resolutions. This is true of JOEY PIGZA LOSES CONTROL because in the end eventhough Joey is happy to be going home with his mother a part of him wishes that his father were different and that they could have a mutually respectful father-son relationship as well as being able to keep the bond with his grandmother. In the car as they are driving home the conversation between Joey and his mother is as follows:"He needs meds," I said. "He's been self-medicated forever," she replied. "He needs help," I said. "He doesn't believe in help." "He needs me," I said. "Sure he does," she said. "But he's still too messed up to know it."

The setting in a good fiction book for young adults must be believable and contemporary. In JOEY PIGZA LOSES CONTROL this is the case because the setting is present-day Pittsburgh. In order for young adults to relate to a fiction book written on their level the theme must include topics that are timely and relevant to their lives, have a personal resonance for them, and avoid didacticism, the story should not be overpowered by the theme. Gantos is truly a master at his craft because he tells a true believable story about a ten-year old boy with ADHD and the circumstances that can arise when a parent and child do not a close, loving relationship.

Joey, as well as the other characters are believable and easy to relate to. This book will have the reader feeling a wide range of emotions. This a trait that shows an author knows how to reach his audience, keep them interested from page one, and leaving them wanting to know what happens next to the characters. The reader will find himself/herself laughing outloud in one section of the book and the next moment sad or upset because noone seems to understand what Joey is feeling and Joey cannot seem to get the right words out to express all the feelings he has inside.

REVIEW EXCERPTS
School Library Journal:"Gantos, at his best with real kidspeak dialogue"

CONNECTIONS
Other books that deal with Joey Pigza as the main character are:
JOEY PIGZA SWALLOWED THE KEY. ISBN 044086433X
I AM NOT JOEY PIGZA. ISBN 0374399417
WHAT WOULD JOEY DO? ISBN 0060544031

Other ideas to connect readers and the book are:
Have a speaker (child or adult) come and talk about what it is like to have to live day to day with ADHD
Create a detailed itinerary listing sites of importance, what to pack, money exchange, temperature for the season, where to stay, how to get from place to place in Pittsburgh
Change one aspect about the story, for example the setting-place or time or one of the character's personality or choices.