Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key (Module 4)

Summary
 Joey is a boy who many would describe as ADD or ADHD. He is always moving, can't pay attention and seems to bother every adult around him. His mother left him when he was little, along with his father, and he was raised by his grandmother. Eventually Joey's mom comes back to raise him and creates a ton of rules for Joey to follow, and tries to help him with medication. Joey wants to be a good kid, but even with medication, he just can't seem to follow the rules.

Suggested Activities
This book would be great in a "Just for Boys" section of the library or even in an all boys reading club. Joey's behavior really comes through in Gantos' writing and would be great for any boy, especially one who has trouble paying attention. So many times there are books focused on girls, or even books with boy characters can come across as "girly". This would be a great book for boys to read and to encourage more boy students to read.

Reviews
Joey knows that he's "wired" and that his medication only intermittently enables him to calm down and focus on school tasks and reasonable behavior. More often he's swallowing his house key on a bet, sharpening everything he can find (including his finger) in the pencil sharpener, and sneaking the special scissors out of the teacher's desk-which results in another student's trip to the emergency room. This drastic event results in Joey's being moved from the special education class in his own school to "intensive counseling at the special-ed center downtown," but it also results in a more comprehensive and ultimately more helpful approach to his problems. The plot has some similarities to familiar learning-disability problem novels, but the treatment is quite different indeed. For one thing this starts after most of them leave off-the problem isn't that Joey's undiagnosed, and mere recognition of the problem isn't enough to solve it. Gantos has a heartbreaking honesty about the lot of a kid treated poorly by fate that makes you realize how much other children's authors tend to pull their punches. Joey's mother really does love him; she also left him for years with his creepy grandmother while she threw her lot in with his alcoholic father (whereabouts of Grandma and her son both currently uncertain), and she has missed several opportunities to improve Joey's situation for reasons we never quite know. Joey's narration is a particular achievement: it offers a vivid insight into his world, making his insistent internal pressure to bounce and fiddle tangible and contagious while also making it completely understandable that adults who deal with him don't really know what to do and are often at their wits' end. Jane Cutler's Spaceman (BCCB 5/97) decorously broke some new ground on this topic; Gantos roars past genre boundaries and takes readers to a place they've probably never been before. DS

Stevenson, D. (1998). Joey pigza swallowed the key. Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, 52(3), 95. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/223712945?accountid=7113

Joey Pigza Swallowed The Key by Jack Gantos

You'll love ft because: Joey Pigza's behavior gets him into loads of trouble. Will he ever get himself under control? You won't stop reading until you find out.

Book nook: Secrets and surprises from the world of books. (2002, Nov). Storyworks, 10, 4. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/213415175?accountid=7113

My Thoughts
 This book broke my heart. I felt so sad reading this book. I have such a hard time relating to ADD or ADHD students in the classroom. I can be overly focused on one thing for too long of time- I just can't imagine my mind being all over the place. Reading Joey's thoughts helped me understand how some of my students must feel. They can't pay attention, they can't sit still- but they want to so badly.  What really made this book hard for me to swallow was the fact that there was no solution. In the end Joey did get some medicine that helped, through a process I found quite extraordinary and in no way believable. I don't know how the public school system could get Joey to all those doctors and appointments. I have seen several students, in Joey's shoes, and when the parents work a lot and aren't able to be as involve,d  there is just no way for a teacher or school to get them to a doctor and brain scans. But besides the unbelievable moments of him finding medicine, I was just hoping it would be give me an answer of how to help these ADD or ADHD kids- and it just didn't.
I did love the message though- that even the most difficult kids can be lovable, likable and special. So many kids don't get that message and just think they are "bad" but Joey can change that idea in kids. And that is something I really liked.

Bibliography
Gantos, J. (2001). Joey pigza swallowed the key. New York: HarperCollins.