03 May 2004 SING A SONG OF TUNA FISH: HARD-TO-SWALLOW STORIES FROM THE FIFTH GRADE by Esmé Raji Codell, Hyperion, January 2005, ISBN: 0-7868-5509-6

"There was one cartoon I watched the most, called 'Popeye the Sailor Man.' It was about a pipe-smoking sailor who was kind of deformed and had a speech impediment, but when he ate spinach, he suddenly became very good at punching people. He was in love with Olive Oyl, who was no great beauty and a little whiny and seemed to own only one outfit, but managed to have a lot of admirers. She had some sort of relationship with an abusive, hulking boyfriend named Bluto. She used the attraction Popeye and Bluto felt for her to create a rivalry between them.

"I always thought Olive had a lot of confidence, because if I had only one dress and no shape like she did, I wouldn't be so quick to play head games with the guys I liked. I paid a lot of attention to Popeye and tried to learn from it, because it seemed very realistic. I mean, you couldn't make people like that up, could you?"

Welcome to the wit and wisdom of fifth-grader, Esmé Raji Codell.

"The apartments were crumbling but still spacious, with sagging balconies hanging in front and back, where broke people could sit and relax."

Growing up broke-not-poor in one of those Chicago apartments in the late-Seventies, and having earlier transitioned from an under-structured private school to the neighborhood public school, Esmé focuses this wonderfully written collection of vignettes around her fifth grade school year as she recalls her childhood friends, fears, and haunts:

"Waveland Bowl had a great soda machine that didn't just drop cans. Instead, a cup would fall down a chute and sit while two streams poured into it, the flavoring and the seltzer. I would always choose black cherry. My father always chose with some ceremony, because he confessed it had been his dream since childhood to get two flavors at once. So he always tried to press two buttons at the same time. It never worked."

Not having gone through the sort of traumas (life-threatening disease, abuse, kidnapping, etc.) that would give the book a sensationalist flavor, SING A SONG OF TUNA FISH is instead more a fun, bittersweet, and soulful collection of tales and mini-adventures, everything from having her best friend punch her out in order to escape this week's piano lesson ('But Dad! My lip!' I wailed. 'You don't play piano with your lip, do you?') to an attack with Mom on the privileged classes:

" 'Is anyone around? Is that police car around?' We looked up and down the street. Not a soul in sight.

" 'Do it,' Mom hissed.

"I pulled my hand back and flung the egg high into the air. Truly, one of the most beautiful things I have seen in my life was that little ivory missile passing across the moon. It glided through the air so slowly, as though it had wings. Considering it was an egg, it could have had wings...but we'll never know, because it landed on the hood with a terrible splursh.

" 'Pretty good,' said Mom, handing me another egg. 'Aim more to the left, go-go-go!' I looked at my mom in disbelief, and then pitched the egg. The thrill was not gone. "Splirtch.

"The egg splattered on the windshield.

" 'Yay!' My mother cheered and hugged me. 'Nice shot.'

" 'Want me to do another one?'

" 'No.' My mother closed the carton. 'There are people starving. We don't want to waste.'

" 'Do we have any bacon?' I laughed.

"My mother put her arm around me. 'We're vigilantes.' She sighed, looking down at our work. 'We're the egg patrol.' "

Whether it's learning about boys the hard way from a hot blond classmate, eating a bunch of pastry letters that turn out to be twenty years old, or doing battle with enormous snowdrifts in the school yard, SING A SONG OF TUNA FISH is an enchanting read and a perfect catalyst for persuading kids (and adults) to observe, recall, and share stories.

Richie Partington

http://richiespicks.com

BudNotBuddy@aol.com