 “Jim the Boy” is a clever novel that tells the story of a boy on the verge of adolescence during the Great Depression. His father succumbed to heart problems before he was born, but his mother was fortunate enough to have three brothers to help her raise the newborn son to adulthood. The story is written in language that is fast-moving and easy to understand, but the plotline is very complex- although certainly not unintelligible. This tale features many of the problems that plague children of middle school age: bullying, the sense of feeling estranged from both younger and older boys, and a conflict between a desire for independence, such as when Jim is appalled at the notion of his family accompanying him to school, and a wish to make his parent figures proud, as manifested by his bitter disappointment over having difficulty hoeing a field in the novel’s opening chapters.
Some of the characters, such as the main character Jim and his friend Penn, are engaging. Their manner of speech is more dialect than what Jim calls school-teacher English. Their friendship is a very interesting one, for Jim lives close to town while Penn hails from the mountains. They have different cliques as well, and started off as rivals. Indeed, elements of jealousy and rivalry emerge even when Penn falls ill. They act just as one would expect two boys of ten to behave throughout the novel, with streaks of recklessness and rebelliousness. Their time together reflects exactly the sorts of things young boys enjoy doing with friends. Avid sports fans will be amused that boys were just as zealous about baseball decades ago. On the flip side, other characters, such as Jim’s uncles, seem flat. The only layer of complexity occurs in their relationship with their sister, Jim’s mom. One thing I noticed is that Jim’s family had it easy compared to many others during the Great Depression… they have some struggles, but they still have a home and a farm. They seem to be a middle-class, or perhaps even upper-middle class, American family in the mid 1930s. Like today’s 20-year-olds that watched the world change from the Industrial to Informational age as children, from paper to electronics, Jim saw electricity come to have an immense impact on society. The scene descriptions are very vivid and detailed without too much wordiness common among other authors- a reader can easily form their own image of what is happening. Adolescents that read Jim’s story will be able to identify with the characters, particularly males- girls might not enjoy this as much, but the letters and thoughts of Jim’s widowed mother will speak to them. The author intermittently includes the internal struggle of Mrs. Glass over whether she ought to remarry since she has been bereft of a husband. She must cope with pressure from her brothers to remarry, highlighting the societal view of women in history. The one criticism I have with this aspect to the novel is that it seems irrelevant to the general plot, and sometimes the book switches to the relations between Whitey and Jim’s mother rather abruptly. The biggest criticism I have is that some major ideas, such as women’s struggles, the bullies, societal views toward African-Americans, and struggles such as polio, are quickly entertained and abandoned. I also disliked the ending- it seemed abrupt and a sense of closure was lacking. All in all, I would give this 3.5 stars.
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