I read this aloud to my children. At first, my 11 year old son seemed reluctant to listen, but the next night he asked for another story from the book. There are six stories in the book. Some have an element of mystery. All have elements of comedy. Now that we have finished all the stories my son and daughter want to see if Robert McCloskey wrote any other Homer Price stories.The stories are funny and engaging. The setting is country America after cars and electricity, but when a farmer still had a horse and wagon and would let his kids drive it to town, back when many rural roads were still dirt roads.A wonderfully nostalgic book. I think that some children might not enjoy it if they are into action movies. I used different voices for the characters and there were plenty. From Uncle Ulysses to Miss Terwilliger, to a sheriff who gets his words mixed up all the time and says Learning Beaves instead of burning leaves. Homer is a clever boy with a pet skunk. The illustrations are absolutely amazing. You can almost hear the pictures. There are robbers in one story, a doughnut machine gone crazy in another, a romance with 2 suitors who insist the lady decide between them, and a version of an old fairy tale with a twist and more.Black Americans are depicted in the book. A young black man finds a diamond in a doughnut and returns it for a reward. He wears patched clothes and shows himself an honest boy.Obviously in the book, there was still some segregation, however, at least in the churches, as the "African Church choir" participates in town events and festivals. I was glad they are presented as valuable members of the community. Native Americans are called Indians and are accused of getting drunk on an elixir that a town founder gave them in the Centennial Celebration skit. However, the street sign maker, who is a white man who is supposed to be putting up signs during the skit, also gets drunk on the stuff and fails to complete his assigned task.I think this last story is trying to poke fun of the history of the town being that the founder made the elixir.I enjoyed the book immensely and hope that indeed Robert McCloskey did write other tales about Homer Price.
Some books are decades old but still feel fresh; Charlotte's Web, for the most part, qualifies. And some books are decades old and they definitely feel decades old. That's Homer Price. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it does limit the interest of today's young readers.Homer is pretty much an average boy growing up in a average town. He's honest, smart, and a good kid. He likes to go fishing, build transistor radios, and help out at his uncle's donut shop. The six short stories in this first book about Homer's adventures are really more about the town of Centerburg than about Homer, though, with the exception of the first story. In it, the town witnesses a burglary by four robbers who steal a suitcase full of money then hide out in the woods. Homer happens upon them and outwits them all. (This is the story with the mistake in one of the illustrations. According to a children's book expert friend, McCloskey didn't realize he'd drawn an extra burglar in the illustration until after publication. Weird that he'd forget how many robbers he wrote into the story. Interesting, though.) This story may have the most outdated feel of them all, since the robbers are foiled by a skunk. The other stories involve a not-so-heroic comic book superhero, a donut-making machine running amok, a contest over who has the longest ball of string (with a pretty sexist bet weighing on the outcome), a mysterious Pied Piper-like figure who magics away all the mice in town (and the kids along with them), and the building of a new neighborhood in Centerburg. I've tried to imagine what today's young readers would think of Homer Price. I'm sorry to say that most of them wouldn't give him the time of day. However, I'm pretty sure as a kid I would've gotten a big kick out of the donuts-everywhere tale, and I think this would make a good read-aloud for a first- or second-grade class. Kids that age are old enough to get the humor and not quite old enough to be skeptical of the stories' simple nature.
What do You think about Homer Price (1976)?
This is an episodic children's book, typical of the time period in which it was written. There is no plot running through the story but instead each chapter (there are 6) describes an adventure of Homer's. Homer's life in the 1940s is one of freedom and childhood naivete. His escapades border on the outlandish and that makes them all that much more fun, but a little less believable. I've read this book three times now and I never get tired of it. I love the episode where the suburb is built with identical houses and no one can find their own homes and the 8yo loved the doughnut maker goes out of control episode. The 8yo thoroughly enjoyed this book and I think he's going to be a fan of other books in this same genre. He already loves Henry Huggins, and I have yet to introduce him to The Great Brain, Soup and Henry Reed. This book is similar to the others I mentioned and will be enjoyed by those who enjoy these stories of old-fashioned boyhood. Great.
—Nicola Mansfield
I read this over and over when I was just a wee bairn. Now, about 40 years later, I picked it up again. The stories are still delightful and funny, told in an engaging, childlike manner. They are everything I remember.But wait, there's more. Where did all that social satire come from? I don't remember that being there when I was nine. "The Case of the Cosmic Comic" is dark, showing the shattering of a young boy's dream of his hero. "Wheels of Progress" is still as pointed a commentary on the demise of craftsmanship in a mass-produced world as it was in 1943, when the book was published. This ranks up there with the brilliant political satire hidden in Oliver Butterworth's The Enormous Egg.If you haven't read this since you were a kid, pick it up. It'll bring back great memories of your childhood reading, but will be much more than just a nostalgic trip back to your old bookshelf. These stories are fun and imaginative, but they also have teeth.
—Scott
This was a delightful story about Homer Price and his town of Centerburg . I had never heard about this book before over on my side of the pond, but a friend suggested this to me thinking it would be my type of book , and Lesley you were right!Homer is a young boy who likes to make radios ,he is also very inquisitive ,and likes to know what is going on in his small town, and for a small town there is quite a bit of interesting things happening there. From bandits to pet skunks ,and a few too many donuts there is always something to keep the reader interested and Homer on his toes.The characters were lovely and the illustrations were just darling . I can't wait to read more about Homer soon again.:0)
—Edel
