Customer Reviews

The Cartoonist (Puffin story books)

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This book is really good. It's about a boy who loves to draw cartoons but his mother doesn't. He stays up in the attic drawing all the time. One day he finds out his older brother, who he dislikes, is moving in with them. Also he will be staying in the attic. Read the book to find out how Alfie defends his attic

This is a great example of what children's literature should be about. It tells a lot in a very few pages about how sad a child's life can be when the adults are less responsible than the children. We see Alfie's grim world through his eyes.

Alfie lives with his mother, grandfather and sister. Alfie's only interest in life is to draw cartoons. He draws at night, at school and any other time he can manage to sneak away. In the evening, he climbs up to the attic and closes the world of his loud abusive obnoxious mother behind so he can draw and dream about a better life.

Betsy Byars does a wonderful job of realistically portraying a grim world with an alcoholic mother and grandfather who do nothing but argue and watch television without beating the reader over the head with the harshness of it all. I felt real hope in Alfie as he tried to control his little world and keep it out of the hands of the irritating mother who fails to understand his artistic interests.

ISBN 0440410460 - Betsy Byars always does a good job with the various worlds of her young characters, and The Cartoonist is a great, if somewhat disturbing, example.

Alfie isn't just the youngest in his family, he is also the least. His mother loves her oldest son, Bubba, almost to the exclusion of her other two children. His grandfather, who also lives with them, rails against the government and has begun to feel useless, a feeling Alfie's mother reinforces often. Alma, Alfie's sister, is really the only adult in the house and through the book she slowly becomes vocal about Alfie's, and her own, dislike of their older brother, Bubba.

Alfie's family has moved many times, but this time they're in a house with an attic and Alfie has laid claim to it as his own retreat. Alma understands, but no one else seems to. Upstairs, Alfie draws cartoons, which he believes are works of art. Other things take a backseat to his interest in drawing, even school. His drawing and the attic are the most important things to him, so when Alma tells him that Bubba will be moving home, and bringing his wife, and that the couple will be living in the attic, the single thing Alfie has to call his own is threatened. His art isn't impressing people the way he thought it would, and now Bubba's going to take away Alfie's private space unless Alfie can find a way to stop him!

It's interesting that Alfie chooses humorous cartoons as his outlet, when throughout the book, he feels badly about himself that, unlike Bubba, he cannot make his mother laugh - worse, the only time he HAS made her laugh was by telling her a story about Bubba, but Alfie doesn't seem to realize that. Other than Alma, Alfie lives amongst people who don't seem capable of thinking of anyone but themselves. This Byars book is well worth reading, as usual. Richard Cuffari's illustrations are few but perfect.

- AnnaLovesBooks

When I was a kid, I liked to draw and had aspirations of becoming a cartoonist. Then someone gave me this depressing book as a gift and I haven't draw a thing since.

I don't even remember what it was about except the kid's family was dysfunctional with the mother caring the most about her first born who had already left home and the title character escaping his dull his life by drawing cartoons in the attic. This gets threatened when the older brother need a place to stay with his wife and will likely move into the attic. But this all got resolved somehow and it left me with a bland taste in my mouth. I'm surprised this book didn't turn me off reading in general, come to think of it.

In the end, I really didn't care for it and the main thing I took away from it after all these years was that I really didn't like it.

This book was sooooooooooo funny!
It's about Alfie Mason, who lives with his topsy-turvy family. His mother is somewhat drunk and his grandfather, who has a point but never shuts up, and his sister, Alma. He spends every minute he can get drawing cartoons in the attic. But when his spoiled brother, Bubba, comes back to live with them, he has to sleep in the attic. Alfie decides to keep his beloved attic to himself, by shutting himself up in there. His family tries to get him out, but it is no use. He even skips school to stay in there. But I can't tell anymore, or I'd spoil it.