Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! [Import] [Paperback]

M. E. Kerr (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Puffin Plus / Penguin Books; New Ed edition (1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140319336
• ISBN-13: 978-0140319330
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Social Aquarium, August 24, 2003

By 

Severa (Tórshavn Faroe Islands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! (Paperback)

This book starts out as being the story of Tucker Woolf, self-apointed expert on libraries, and cronicler of strange existences. But it soon turns out that it is actually the story of four young teenagers, and, on a broader scale, their parents and their entire society.
Tucker has to deal with having a faher who cares too much about apearances, and drills Tucker into only revealing parts of the truth when dealing with strangers. Tucker is feels somewhat out of place wherever he is, and when he finds a stray cat he imediately bonds with it. When his dad turns out to be allergic, he has to give the cat away. It is this cat who, directly and inderectly, brings him into contact with the other characters. It is adopted by Dinky Hocker, a tragically overweight girl, whose parents completely ignore their daughters problems, in favour of helping drug-addicts and othe worthy causes. Her cousin Natalie, and a boy who shares Dinkys rather enormous problem, together form the core of the story.

The book is funny, the characters quirky and the situations somwhat absurd, but the real fascination of this book comes from seeing how the parents of these children forget them in favour of either their own problems or the problems of strangers. The thing that struck me most is that Dinkys charity-mom is actually one of the most selfish people in the world. I would recomend this book to anyone, even though it is technically a YA-novel. Its a good read, all the same.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Defines the Genre, June 19, 2003

By 

William C Myers (Ypsilanti, MI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! (Paperback)

Like all great young adult literature, Kerr undermines our expectations throughout. Full of twists, complications and contradictions that make it one of the most compelling books I've ever read. In the league of the I Am The Cheese or Catcher in the Rye.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read for teen-agers and parents., August 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! (Paperback)

This book is great! It should be required reading for all children who are about to become teen-agers, and for all parents whose children are about to become teen-agers.