Bucking the Sarge

Rating:
Summary: A Three - Peat by Christopher Paul Curtis
Review: Bucking the Sarge is as deeply satisfying as Curtis's two previous books; full of hilarious dialogue, unpredictable outcomes, and wonderfully developed characters. Speaking of developed, it's written for a more mature audience than Bud, Not Buddy or The Watsons go to Birmingham 1963. The condom Luther keeps hopelessly in his wallet and a few mild allusions to nocturnal solo activities put it in the young adult range, but several copies will be in my sixth grade classroom library for advanced readers. It's an excellent book.

The Sarge may be a lost soul vampire of a woman, but she has an unforgettable way of expressing herself. You'll be left wondering about her, along with Sparky, Chester X. Stockard, and Luther T. Farrell, teenage philospher, long after you've closed the covers of Bucking the Sarge.

Rating:
Summary: After being controlled by his ruthless...
Review: After being controlled by his ruthless, loan-sharking mother, "the Sarge," who owns an empire of slums and halfway houses, 15-year-old Luther discovers a way to buck the sarge and gain his independence. (M) (RR) A darkly humorous story with some unforgettable characters, twists, and incidents!


Rating:
Summary: Reminiscent of Bud, Not Buddy
Review: As much as this book is similar to Bud, Not Buddy, it is just as different. It has a great protaganist. Mr. Curtis creates a strong character in Luther, and he has a well-portrayed friend, Sparky, with him. The situations between Bud, Not Buddy and this book are similar (both boys are escaping from something), but this book is geared more toward the YA crowd.

The story itself kept me guessing for a while. I didn't know where Mr. Curtis was going to take the story. I was hooked. Luther and Sparky's adventures were funny, yet Luther's revelations were always interesting.

The characters worked well together. Everything connected perfectly: from the Sarge's relationships with Luther and Darnell to Sparky and Luther and Chester X.

Luther's story was funny and well written. I liked how the book was unpredictable. That made everything great. Mr. Curtis did a fine job with this.

I loved this book, and I think many other readers will also like this.

Rating:
Summary: Curtis is three for three
Review: Best understood by a secondary level student, Curtis carefully delineates a life in Flint, Michigan. His ability to construct a believable scenario, authentic characters and an uplifting ending is sooooo satisfying. This is a book worth missing sleep in order to finish. It has got to be on the Newberry list!

Rating:
Summary: Fun overnight read for young adults
Review: Christopher Curtis new book is a zany, but fun, read for middle and
high school readers. Imagine you are an unattractive, black, male teen with a loan shark, slum lord Mom. This is Curtis' new protagonist-- humorous, pitiful, resourceful, but strangely believable--all at the same time! I particularly found the politics of the school science fair described in this book hilarious.
Bucking the Sarge is not as humorous or serious as "The Watson's Go To Birmingham," but it is considerably more entertaining than "Bud, Not Buddy." Although, elementary level teachers will not be able to choose it for a class novel--school librarians in middle and high schools should find it a very popular read with their students who read and loved Curtis' earlier novels in elementary and are now looking for a high interest read from a male's point of view at the secondary level.
It is full of action and will keep young teen readers turning pages. Also, everyone loves reading about a Mom gone bad. :)

Rating:
Summary: A guessing plot
Review: Luther T. Farrell, philosopher and scientist, has a lot going for him in matters of the mind, but not so much when it comes to women. Women do nothing but complicate his life.

First, there's beautiful and talented Shayla Patrick. Luther's relationship with Shayla would be perfect if it weren't for the fact that he and Shayla are rivals in the school science fair and are, well, sort of not dating.

The other woman in Luther's life is his mother, better known as the Sarge. The Sarge, dispenser of advice and high-interest loans, is one of the richest women in Flint. She got where she is by milking the system ("If it's got nipples, I'm going to milk it," she says) and becoming a government hating slumlord. Luther knows the Sarge is crooked, but he does all he can to stay on her good side.

When his gold-medal science fair project lands him in some serious hot water with the Sarge, Luther gets creative and joins forces with his loyal if slightly harebrained sidekick Sparky to put the Sarge in her rightful place.

Readers of Christopher Paul Curtis's previous books, including THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM: 1963 and BUD, NOT BUDDY, will recognize Curtis's trademark humor and resilient characters. BUCKING THE SARGE, however, has a much darker tone and is serious through the laughter. Luther passes his fear of his ruthless mother onto the reader, but it is that fear that makes him reach inside himself and become someone strong, a character --- and a book --- worth cheering for.

--- Reviewed by Carlie Webber

Rating:
Summary: Richie's Picks: BUCKING THE SARGE
Review: The nation's fifth and sixth grade teachers will return to school in September just in time to discover that Christopher Paul Curtis has forsaken them. BUCKING THE SARGE is not a book that they will be reading aloud to their students in the same way that thousands of them have been reading THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM, 1963 and BUD NOT BUDDY.

But those of us who spend most of our time in the somewhat-older, YA world are gonna be doing some kind of badass NFL-style victory dance for having lured Christopher over to our side of the 'hood with his latest tale full of one-of-a-kind characters and occasional laugh-till-the-snot-and tears-pour-out situations.

"I don't mean to say my boy is obsessed, but Sparky blames all our problems on the fact that we live in Flint. Yeah, I'm looking to get out someday myself, but this is one of those things that me and Sparky don't think alike on. But that's not his fault. My mind is trained in a different way than his.
"I like to look at everything philosophically, and he doesn't. I've known since I was about six that thinking that way will get you what you need in life so I've been studying philosophical junk since then.
"It gets a laugh every time I tell someone but by the time I'm twenty-one I plan on being America's best-known, best-loved, best-paid philosopher. And that's a job that there's gotta be a big demand for 'cause how many full-time, professional American philosophers can you think of?
"I rest my case."

Luther T. Farrell is a skinny, six-foot-four student at Whittier Middle School. He is actually fifteen, even though his driver's license says eighteen. Sparky is his best friend and foil. Luther is a success with science fair projects but less so with love (as evidenced by the well-aged condom in his wallet that he's named Chauncey). He quietly longs for romance with Shayla, the pretty and smart undertaker's daughter whom he's known forever. He's also big on making lists.

Luther's mother, a.k.a. The Sarge, has him stretched between school and work. The Sarge is the loan-sharking, slum-lording, government reimbursement-sucking, ever-scamming operator of numerous sub-par establishments, including the Happy Neighbor Group Home for Men, where she's had Luther living with, caring for, and chauffeuring around the clients since he was thirteen.

For a reasonably easy and often-funny read, BUCKING THE SARGE is also riddled with complexities and darkness. The Sarge and Darnell Dixon ("the Sarge's go-to guy and my boss and one of Flint's leading psychopath nut jobs") are a matched set of ticking time bombs. The Sarge's consistently despicable and cruel treatment of society's most vulnerable groups--children, the poor, the elderly--is topped off by the pair's gross brutality during their eviction of a family that includes one of Luther's classmates.

When, at one point, Luther "[gets] up enough nerve to tell her that I was thinking about quitting working at the home and was probably gonna get a job at Micky D's," she repeats the jaw-dropping story of how she got to where she is today. The moral of that bitter recollection is that she has learned from the wealthy, the politicians, and the corporations to milk "any- and everything that moves. If it's got nipples, I'm going to milk it." To recognize this cold, hard, violent woman as a mimic and parody of the "winners" in the American economic system of the haves and the have-nots is to understand this subtle yet scathing indictment of the system.

Luther, himself, tells us that he's learned philosophically to see things from both sides. "What's important is that you keep your mind wide open and try to understand what's going on from a lot of different angles. That's what I try to remember every time I talk to the Sarge or think about her or try to understand why she is the way she is." But, in either case, we see a dangerous woman who--whether full of great advice or not--is clearly not in a space to be what we'd consider to be a loving mother.

And dark humor is certainly found in the dangerous extremes to which Luther's buddy, Sparky, is willing to go in order to try and escape Flint. Those vivid images make us cringe as we laugh (or is it laugh as we cringe).

"Sparky took three steps back, then fell in a pile limp as a towel you just dried off with after a shower. It seemed like all of his bones had been Jell-O-fied."

There are a wealth of contemporary coming of age tales, but in the hands of Christopher Paul Curtis it's a whole new story.

"I've learned that if you don't write down what you're thinking about, no matter how amazing it is you'll forget it. I don't like to brag, but I know I've had a couple of ideas that were so great and shocking that they'd've won the Nobel Peace Prize of Philosophy. The only problem was I didn't write them down and by the time I got home or got out of the shower they were long gone."

Even more so than with Kenny or Bud, we're left at the finish wondering about the future of this goodhearted kid we've come to love. You can be damned sure that I'll be keeping a lookout for America's great new, best-loved, professional philosopher.