What Would Joey Do?

April 12, 2004
The final title in the saga that includes the Newbery Honor book Joey Pigza Loses Control
finds the hero flustered by his parent's questionable reunion and his ailing grandmother's efforts to push Joey to make friends. Ages 10-up.

October 21, 2002
This fall offers fans a fresh crop of sequels. The final title in the Joey Pigza saga, What Would Joey Do? by Jack Gantos, finds the hero flustered by his parent's questionable reunion and his ailing grandmother's efforts to push Joey to make friends.

Starred review from September 1, 2002
Gr 4-8-Joey's back, and this time he's not doing as much of the "weird Joey stuff" as usual. Now that he's ready to be "Mr. Helpful," it seems that everyone around him needs more help than he can give. His mom and dad have crazy fights involving motorcycle crashes, kidnapped Chihuahuas, and a restraining order. Joey's new homeschool partner is Olivia, a blind girl who earns the title of "Mistress of All Evil," and whose fundamentalist mother teaches them. And Grandma, the person who best understands Joey, is dying. The boy's first-person narration is as frenetically fun as it was in the first two books. Here, though, his energy and insights are turned more on those around him, and he turns out to be terrifically perceptive. His observations are totally believable because he vividly recalls (and sometimes still indulges in) dysfunctional behavior. His ability to connect with several diversely troubled personalities sets up many humorous scenes. A convoluted, but oddly logical scheme involving Olivia, Grandma, and tickets to Godspell culminates in the boy's touching (and very funny) first date. By book's end, Joey has lost a loved one, but he has gained enough confidence, and even wisdom, to look out for himself without letting his external problems overwhelm him or hold him back. Readers who don't know Joey will have no trouble jumping right in with this book, and those who have met him in the previous books will enjoy the way "Mr. Helpful" tries to set things right in a chaotic and uniquely amusing world.-Steven Engelfried, Beaverton City Library, OR

Copyright 2002 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 1, 2002
Gr. 5-8. Gantos' funny but also heart-wrenching conclusion to the Joey Pigza trilogy offers a view of the world through the eyes of the extremely memorable boy, who struggles to control his hyperactivity. When Joey's hyperactive father roars by on his motorcycle to attract the attention of his ex-wife, Mom, who has a new boyfriend and a powerful longing for a normal life, rises to the bait with such fury that she seems to be as maniacal as Joey's dad. The most normal influence in Joey's life is, oddly enough, Joey's grandmother, who, knowing she is dying, tries to give Joey the tools he needs to survive, including forcing him to make a friend. Well aware of the chaos swirling around him, Joey copes by trying to define his world with a label marker and working hard to make friends with a belligerent blind girl. Readers may find themselves waiting for a caring adult to come along and fix everything in typical children's literature fashion, but that isn't Gantos' style. Instead, he resolves his honest, affecting trilogy by giving his protagonist the heart to continue loving people despite their sometimes terrible flaws and the perseverance to keep aiming in the right direction--no matter what the grown-ups say. No need to read the prequels to enjoy this one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2003
In this final book about Joey Pigza, his mom has sent him to be homeschooled with a mean blind girl (think Rotten Ralph with a white cane) and her super-religious mother; his dad is tearing around, jealous of Joey's mom's new boyfriend; and Grandma is back, camped out on the couch behind a plastic shower curtain. Once again, Joey is a distinctive antihero who makes an immensely entertaining, remarkably lucid narrator.

(Copyright 2003 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)