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 enlarge | Author: Rodman Philbrick
Publisher: The Blue Sky Press
Category: Book
List Price: $16.99
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Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 10313
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Reading Level: All Ages
Pages: 224
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 6.1 x 0.8
ISBN: 0439668182
EAN: 9780439668187
ASIN: 0439668182
Publication Date: January 1, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Master storyteller Rodman Philbrick takes readers on a colorful journey as young Homer Figg sets off to follow his brother into the thick of the Civil War. Through a series of fascinating events, Homer's older brother has been illegally sold to the Union Army. It is up to Homer to find him and save him. Along the way, he encounters strange but real people of that era: two tricksters who steal his money, a snake-oil salesman, a hot-air balloonist, and finally, the Maine regiment who saved Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg and won the war for the Union. (copy continues) These historical people and places will educate and engage young readers about our nation's past--in one of the most decisive moments of American history. In Homer's inspiring fight to track down his brother, Philbrick brings us another groundbreaking novel. Funny, poignant, entertaining, and tragic, The Mostly True Aadventures of Homer Figg will be embraced and heralded by readers and reviewers alike. A magnificent novel by one of the best fiction writers of our century.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
 The totally humorous and entertaining misadventures of Homer P. Figg February 13, 2009
H. S. Wedekind (Pennsylvania, USA)
18 out of 18 found this review helpful
"I say my 'true' adventures because I told a fib to a writer once, who went and put it in the newspapers about me and my big brother, Harold, winning the battle of Gettysburg, and how we shot each other dead but lived to tell the tale. That's partly true, about winning the battle, but most ways it's a lie.
Telling the truth don't come easy to me, but I will try, even if old Truth ain't nearly as useful as a fib sometimes."
- Homer Pierce Figg (p.7)
The year is 1863 and the American Civil War is raging. This story is about the unbelievable adventures (and outlandish prevarications) of 12-year-old Homer P. Figg during June and July of that year. After suffering hunger and abuse inflicted on him and his brother by his nasty uncle Squinton Leach in Pine Swamp, Maine, who assumed guardianship and then mistreated both Homer and his older brother Harold following their mother's death, he runs away from the farm to look for, find, and rescue his big brother Harold...illegally "sold" to the U S Army by their mean uncle Squint. While following the trail of Harold, Homer meets up with an unusual array of people. Some are good, some are foolish, some are scalawags, and some are downright evil. Among the many interesting things that happen to him during his entertaining odyssey: Homer finds himself involved with runaway slaves and slave catchers, rides on a train to Portland and then sails to New York aboard a steamship for the very first time, is featured as an attraction while traveling with a Medicine Show, is accused of being a spy, has a close encounter with a hot air balloon, and witnesses the above mentioned battle of Gettysburg. These and other wild adventures await the reader of this humorous book. I highly recommend THE "MOSTLY" TRUE ADVENTURES OF HOMER P. FIGG to young adults and to "old folks" who, like myself, enjoy reading YA literature. I'd give it 6 stars if I could. Rodman Philbrick is a terrific storyteller.
Straight from the horse's mouth March 18, 2009
E. R. Bird (Manhattan, NY)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
Ah, the inveterate child liar. The chronic juvenile dissembler. Is there any more classic character you can name? Whether it's The Artful Dodger, Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, The Great Brain or Soup from the Soup books, there is always room in the canon for just one more boy fibber (girl fibbers are not yet appearing the same numbers, I'm afraid). Now the best tellers of untrue tales often come from Southern soil. They are born below the Mason-Dixon line and are capable of great feats of derring-do, all the while escaping their own much complicated shenanigans. Credit Rodman Philbrick then with coming up with a fellow that's so far North that to go any farther he'd have to be Canadian. It's Homer P. Figg it is. Orphan. Storyteller. And the kid that's single-handedly going to win the Civil War, whether he intends to or not.
When you're stuck living with a scoundrel there's nothing for it but to make the best of things. And for years Homer P. Figg and his older brother Harold have made the best of living with their nasty ward and uncle Squinton Leach. A man so dastardly that he finds a way to sell Harold into serving as a soldier for the Union. The year is 1863 and when Harold ends up accidentally conscripted Homer is having none of it. Why his brother shouldn't legally be serving at all! Without further ado Homer takes his propensity for stretching the truth and Bob the horse so as to catch up with the army and get his bro back. Things, however, do not go smoothly. Before he finds Harold again Homer must endure blackguards, nitwits, shysters, pigs, a traveling circus, and an unexpected tour of the stratosphere. It all comes together at a little place called Gettysburg, though, where Homer must face the facts of his situation and do his best to keep the people important to him alive. Backmatter includes "Some Additional Civil War Facts, Opinions, Slang & Definitions, To Be Argued, Debated & Cogitated Upon."
I'm a sucker for a children's book that knows how to coddle a tongue-happy phrase. Why just last year I was charmed by Sid Fleischman's "The Trouble Begins at 8: A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West" with it's delightful play on Twain's flexible language. Now I've not read Philbrick before. Maybe if I picked up something like his "Freak The Mighty" or that "The Last Book In The Universe" of his I'd find a similar bit of wordplay. Whatever the matter, I found myself much taken with the syllables that get bandied about in "Homer P. Figg". First there are the names. Villains get to luxuriate in monikers like Squinton Leach, Stink Mullins, and Kate and Frank Nibbly. Then there are the descriptive sentences. Leach's villainy is pitch perfect, particularly since it is first introduced as "A man so mean he squeezed the good out of the Holy Bible and beat us with it, and swore that God Himself had inflicted me and Harold on him, like he was Job and we was Boils and Pestilence." Another nasty character is described as one for whom "Every part of him smells of rot." Actually, now that I look through my notes I see that a lot of the sentences I've highlighted as being fun descriptive passages have to do with odor. Like this later passage which reads, "The pungent perfume of the pig is still upon you. The suffocating scent of the swine exudes from your person. In a word, sir, you stink." Catchy.
In the midst of all this wordsmithing it's probably a temptation to let the language carry the plot and characters with little to no regard for the emotional content. But I like that Philbrick has couched this tale as an emotional quest of sorts. I mean, if you name your hero Homer then obviously there's some kind of Iliad/Odysseus thing going on there. Particularly if you push said hero into a quixotic series of scrapes. I kept sort of expecting our own Homer to go blind at one point, but if Mr. Philbrick ever felt the urge to remove his Homer's sight he did a noble job of repressing that inclination. Instead he builds on Homer and Harold's relationship. One example comes when Homer thinks about a time when he climbed onto a barn roof when he was younger. "It was a mean thing, wanting to scare my big brother who had always been so kind to me. But if felt good, too, like I enjoyed testing how much he loved me." So a book that could simply have been a series of unrelated incidents is held together by good old-fashioned brotherly love.
I mentioned at the beginning of this review what a novelty it is to find a casual liar like Homer coming out of the North rather than the South. And when Homer mentions on the very first page that he and his brother won the Battle of Gettysburg, then that he was from Maine on the second, I should have realized the connection. After all, I saw "Gettysburg" the film when it was in theaters. But it takes an author like Philbrick to put the pieces together for a reader like myself. Pieces he has a clear view of and isn't about to mess up. He doesn't romanticize war any either. At one point Homer makes a mad ride across a field of battle and what follows is an emotionless list of the horrors he witnesses along the way. Things like "Thirsty men sucking sweat from their woolen sleeves" and "A dead man on his knees with his hands folded, as if to pray." Mamas don't let your children grow up to be Civil War soldiers.
I was also interested to see that Homer mentions historical details that kids don't always get a chance to see in school. Facts like, "when President Lincoln declared that slaves in the Confederacy were free, he didn't dare free the slaves in he Union states like Maryland, Delaware, or Kentucky, in fear the border states might join the rebels." Children's literature has a tendency to sort of bypass that kind of information, but I think it makes a historical novel like this one all the richer for its complexity. And of course all historical novels for children grapple with a question that is never easy; How do you deal with terms that are historically accurate and odious to contemporary ears? I refer, of course, to "the n-word". Now, to be perfectly honest, there are at least two villains in this book that should be tossing that word back and forth like it's nobody's business. Yet they don't. They don't and I admit that this didn't ring untrue to me while reading the book. It was only later that I stopped myself and went back to see how Philbrick dealt with that conundrum. The answer is that the bad guys say either "slave" or "darky". And there might be some problems with the "d-word" as well, were it not for a good Quaker man who corrects Homer on this point later on. "If a man has dark skin, say that he is colored, or that he is African." I'm sure that some historians amongst us might have something to say about those terms as well, but as far as I can tell Philbrick covers his bases and doesn't have to cheat. Later Homer also refers to two workers as "Indians" though he acknowledges, "These Indians are from China - similar eyes, but a different tribe." Contextualizing ignorance in terms that modern kids can understand. A tough job.
No matter how tough the subject matter or the work, "Homer P. Figg" is a strong and snappy little novel. Funny and with a plot that keeps moving at a lightning quick pace. Very few readers will find themselves bored by what Philbrick produces here, and many will be caught learning a little something in the process. One of the best of its kind.
Great Book! October 7, 2009
Todd L. Berry (Kansas)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This was a very unique way to look at the civil war. It showed how the war effected families and how those families fought to stay together. This book is very age appropriate for 5th through 8th graders.
Chances are readers will be left with something to think about March 4, 2009
Kidsreads.com (New York, NY)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Homer P. Figg is the kind of kid who always has a story ready to tell. When one character asks him if he knows anything about gemstones, Homer's instinct is to tell a tall tale: "Something in me wants to say my third cousin Curtis McTavit has been trading gems for his whole life, and recently come into possession of the world's largest ruby that he got off the widow of Blackbeard the pirate, but that the ruby is cursed. Ever since he got the ruby, poor McTavit lives in fear. He's barricaded himself inside his own dungeon and believes that the ruby speaks to him in the ghostly voices of all it has cursed." Homer's urge to tell tales can sometimes help squeeze him out of a tough place; just as often, though, his tendency to embroider the truth can get him in over his head.
Homer finds himself in a tough place right from the beginning of the story. He and his older brother, Harold, are orphans, living with their mean-as-sin uncle in rural Maine. Uncle Squint works the boys hard and keeps them so hungry that Homer finds himself tempted by the slops he feeds the pigs. But Uncle Squint really outdoes himself when he sells Harold into the Union Army to take the place of the son of a rich man willing to pay good money to keep his son from dying in the Civil War.
When Homer realizes what his uncle has done, he runs away, only to find himself caught up by a couple of bounty hunters, sent to re-capture runaway slaves before they can make it to the Canadian border. These lowlife criminals spot Homer's talent for lying right away, and they send him into the home of Jebediah Brewster, a tourmaline magnate who just happens to have one of the stations of the Underground Railroad hidden beneath his fine manor home. They figure that Homer can use his innocence and youth to find out the location of the runaway slaves --- just in time for the bounty hunters to swoop in. Even though Homer feels a little fishy about the whole thing, what can he do, with the bounty hunters breathing down his neck? But once he gets inside and meets the slaves and Brewster himself, Homer figures out that lies --- and tricks --- work both ways and that sometimes lies can work for good as well as for evil.
Philbrick's novel moves at the breakneck speed of a runaway horse; just like the best old-fashioned adventure stories, readers will barely have time to catch their breath before Homer's story charges incessantly forward. There is plenty of humor here, too, arising mainly from Homer's own folksy narration --- it turns out that Homer can make his own adventures as rollicking and riotous as the tall tales he tells.
THE MOSTLY TRUE ADVENTURES OF HOMER P. FIGG may remind readers of some of the best stories in this vein: John D. Fitzgerald's The Great Brain series, Richard Peck's books about Blossom Culp and many of Sid Fleischman's novels. There is a serious undercurrent beneath this fast-moving river of adventure, however, as Philbrick's novel touches on issues of loyalty, cruelty and injustice against the very real backdrop of slavery and war. When Homer slows down to take a breath and reflect on the historical horrors he has been witness to, chances are readers will be left with something to think about, too.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
Hard to put this one down! April 1, 2010
T. Poole (Staten Island, NY, USA)
I purchased this book for my daughter who is hard to purchase for because she likes books with alot going on and with adventure in it's content. She is ten, and told me she can hardly put it down! Whew! So, I count this one a winner. I love to purchase books and am an avid fan of children's literature. Amazon, keep them coming!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
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