Sing a Song of Tuna Fish: Hard-to-Swallow Stories from Fifth Grade - Hardcover

*Starred Review* Gr. 4-7. Memoirs are a hot genre in adult literature, less so in children's literature. But Codell's small, intimate work is the very model of what this kind of book should be. It brings young readers close while opening up a wider world. Ten-year-old Esme is growing up in one of Chicago's lower-middle-class neighborhoods in the late 1970s. Her family is unconventional, but then isn't everyone's? Her parents love television and are indifferent to school attendance, and her mother once takes her along to egg the car of a rich guy. Esme relishes the structure of a public school after enduring one so free-form that students could spend their time doing anything they wanted, from cranking ice cream to playing with rats. What is so appealing here is not so much what happens to Esme as the marvelous deadpan way Codell tells her stories (at least 95 percent true, as claimed by the flap copy). She begins each chapter the same way ("Let me tell you about . . ."), and then she does what she says, telling children in a simple yet profound way how parents can argue but still continue on: "Love is loud." She brings death home with a report on a prank that kills a classmate, and she explains what it's like to sink in Chicago snow as if caught in quicksand. Esme's is a story that sings its own special song. Ilene Cooper
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Grade 3-6 - These seven stories provide glimpses into the author's childhood. In "Different Kinds of Schooling," Codell describes attending an alternative school where "you only did what you wanted," such as learning how to disco dance. That is until her father, who was a teacher there, got fired for taking his class on a field trip that entailed riding the public bus to Esmé's house, eating hot dogs, and watching the White Sox game on TV. In another tale, the author describes her Chicago neighborhood where people were, as her mother would say, "broke" not "poor." When her mother saw a shiny red Jaguar parked in front of a fire hydrant, she enlisted her daughter's help in bombing it with eggs. Other stories deal with religion, a first crush, and relatives. Unfortunately, Codell is a bit condescending, advising young readers to store away their memories, "just in case the strange and improbable day should arrive that you forget what it was like to be a child." Other than those few instances, this is a funny and poignant book about growing up. - Heather Ulesoo, New York Public Library
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