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Title details for Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli - Available

Hokey Pokey

by Jerry Spinelli
Maxwell Glick
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
Welcome to Hokey Pokey. A place and a time, when childhood is at its best: games to play, bikes to ride, experiences to be had. There are no adults in Hokey Pokey, just kids, and the laws governing Hokey Pokey are simple and finite. But when one of the biggest kids, Jack, has his beloved bike stolen—and by a girl, no less—his entire world, and the world of Hokey Pokey, turns to chaos. Without his bike, Jack feels like everything has started to go wrong. He feels different, not like himself, and he knows something is about to change. And even more troubling he alone hears a faint train whistle. But that's impossible: every kid knows there no trains in Hokey Pokey, only tracks.
Master storyteller Jerry Spinelli has written a dizzingly inventive fable of growing up and letting go, of leaving childhood and its imagination play behind for the more dazzling adventures of adolescence, and of learning to accept not only the sunny part of day, but the unwelcome arrival of night, as well.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 8, 2013

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780385368506
      • File size: 172742 KB
      • Duration: 05:59:52

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • ATOS Level: 3.6
    • Lexile® Measure: 600
    • Interest Level: 6-12(MG+)
    • Text Difficulty: 2-3

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Hokey Pokey is a land for kids from birth through early adolescence. It's a world of the imagination in which bikes are supreme and the railroad tracks never see trains--until one day Jack hears a far-off whistle. Maxwell Glick and Tara Sands work well in their team narration. They both manage effective character differentiation, but it's an especially tough job for Glick, who carries both the narrative and all the male voices, which predominate in the story. His narration would be improved by having a voice in his repertoire for the occasional adult. But this is to quibble as his voices for children--from toddlers to teens--are convincing. The many transitions from one young character's dialogue to another's work well. M.C. (c) AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 12, 2012
      Spinelli (Jake and Lily) creates a surreal landscape reminiscent of J.M. Barrie’s Never Land in this poignant celebration of childhood exuberance. Don’t bother looking for adults in Hokey Pokey, where boys and girls dine on flavored ice and spend their days watching cartoons, playing cowboy games, and using their bicycles as trusty steeds. Jack’s bike, Scramjet, is the most coveted of all, and one day it’s stolen by his archenemy, Jubilee. This marks the first of a series of unsettling events that give Jack, a boy on the brink of adolescence, the eerie impression that “things have shifted.” It isn’t just that his tattoo, the mark of all residents, is fading; something deep inside him is pulling him away from familiar landmarks, friends, enemies, and routines. Spinelli’s story will set imaginations spinning and keep readers guessing about Jack’s fate and what Hokey Pokey is all about (so to speak). The ending is both inevitable and a risk (it invokes one of the more clichéd tropes in literature and film), but Spinelli’s dizzying portrait of life in Hokey Pokey will keep readers rapt. Ages 10–up.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • ATOS Level:3.6
  • Lexile® Measure:600
  • Interest Level:6-12(MG+)
  • Text Difficulty:2-3

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