The Madman of Piney Woods
Newbery Medal winner Christopher Paul Curtis returns to the town of Buxton (Elijah of Buxton), a community of ex-slaves, and adds neighboring Chatham to tell an engrossing tale of an unlikely friendship between Benji and Red, boys of Ontario, Canada of 1901. Benji is an aspiring African-Canadian newspaperman who has just gotten his first job as an apprentice, with much more to learn about the power of words. Red is an Irish-Canadian who lives with his widowed father and his terrifying An Gorta Mor (“The Great Hunger”) survivor grandmother, Mother O’Toole. He’s an aspiring scientist.
Mother O’Toole has a traumatic past, as does the Civil War veteran known as the Madman of Piney Woods, a legendary hermit. But where she is an embittered bigot, he is a gentle soul who has retreated into the natural world. The boys get to know the realities of both their lives, and the choices that come with experience. With each other the winsome pair are jokesters of the highest order, trading insults and loyalty to delightful effect. Red’s gullibility plays nicely against Benji’s woods-smarts.
All of their Mark Twain-like adventures separately and together prepare the reader for the drama that ends the novel with murder, mystery and answered questions. Some profound realities are here. Red’s father says, “Given enough time, fear is the great killer of the human spirit.” Passionate and humane, The Madman of Piney Woods is a great representative of the best of YA literature. Ages 8-12.
