Customer Reviews

The Gorillas of Gill Park

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
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I picked up this book not expecting to finish it due to the fact that I never have the time to read. I soon found myself caught among the memorable characters and the storyline. I could not put this book down!

From Willy first going around Gill Park to the teary ending....

this book is fantastic!

I liked this book so much! Once I started reading it, I did not want to stop.
Willy Wilson does not seem to fit in with his family. He feels like he never lives up to his parents expectations. When he is offered the chance to spend the summer with his interesting and fun Aunt Bridget he jumps at the chance. Aunt Bridget is sewing an order of 30 gorilla costumes and recovering from the death of her husband. Willy settles in to life in her apartment which is across the street from Gill Park.

Music is an underlying theme to his stay and the book. Music plays continuously in Gill Park and the different styles become the rhythm of his life. One day the music suddenly stops and the news spreads that the eccentric owner, Otto Pettingill is going to sell the park to shopping mall developers.

The book has a great cast of characters who are determined to save the park. Willy grows and gains confidence in the events that follow. Baseball games, an elevator to a tree house, gorilla masks, a wild girl, violins--this is a very unique story line with an upbeat message about the difference individuals can make in their community.

The spirit of Pippi Longstocking, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle and Momo live in the Amy Gordon's Gorillas of Gill Park. The people who inhabit Gill Park exhibit spunk and zest. When Willie visits his Aunt Bridget,the feelings he brings with him (of exclusion, being different, and not quite good enough) become secondary to the need to save Gill Park and help Liesl. This is a story in which the wit and resourcefulness of the characters, not magic, save the day. Drawings by Matt Cordell perfectly capture the whimsical tone of the writing as well as the characters depicted in the story.

Gordon's despriptions vividly depict emotion, and she writes like no one else.

Her narrator, Willie, is burdened with the weight of parental expectations. "You would be so good at the violin if you practiced," his mother says. "Your teacher says you have potential."

Willie is the kind of kid who hides in the outfield, hoping no one hits the ball his way. His own expectation: I will screw up.

I loved this book. It's full of big ideas -- how families fall apart and come together again, how art and music are essential, even a touch of political activism. This book also holds a quiet wisdom. You find your passion, then let's see about potential. In the end, it shows children they can be important, too.

I'm looking forward to the sequel.

The Gorillas of Gill Park was a really good book. It was about a boy named Willy, who over the summer went to visit his Aunt Bridget in Gloria. His parents were reluctant, but Willy had nothing better to do, so they let him go. Willy's aunt makes costumes for people, and her current assisgnment is to make 30 gorilla costumes. Aunt Bridget's apartment is across the street from Gill Park. In the park there is a mysterious music maker. Willy can hear this music in his room. The next day, Willy goes to the park and meets some kids who play baseball. Well, these kids need one more player,so Willy agrees to play. Willy has a great adventure with baseball, those 30 gorilla suits,and finding out who the mysterious music maker is. So come along for the ride!!

Ah, eccentric old millionaires. Where would children's literature be without their kindly loopy presence? Why we wouldn't have brilliant books like, "The Westing Game" by Ellen Raskin or "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler", by E.L. Konigsburg, that's for sure. If children's books have taught us anything, it's that millionaires are often kindly (unless they're villainous developers) and that they like to set up elaborate games and clues for their child friends. "The Gorillas of Gill Park" features a slightly different kind of millionaire. He has all the usual characteristics: A home full of objects he collects, odd habits, a love of art, etc. He doesn't set up an elaborate game in this particular book (though its sequel is another matter entirely). Instead, it is through his kindly intervention that our hero is able to do a public service to the community and learn how to be his own separate person. There are many things to love about "The Gorillas of Gill Park". I just wish there had been more gorillas.

Willy Wilson doesn't think he has much of a personality. But getting shipped off to spend the summer with his eccentric costume-making Aunt Bridget might change all of that. When he comes to live with her in the large city of Gloria and right across the street from the fabulous Gill Park, Willy finds all kinds of new and exciting things about this home away from home. The park constantly pumps out wonderful music via its eccentric millionaire musician owner Otto Pettingill. It's filled with alternative baseball player kids, one of whom recruits Willy to be a first baseman right off the bat. There's Lisle, the odd little orphan who belongs to Otto and constantly does her own thing. There's also the fact that Aunt Bridget is now making gorilla costumes this summer, so the apartment is full of black fluff. Unfortunately, just as Willy starts getting comfortable with his new home, tragedy strikes. Otto Pettingill is going to sell off the park to a man who wants to turn it into a shopping mall. Lisle is being adopted by parents who don't fit her personality in the least. And Otto Pettingill himself has disappeared entirely. It's up to Willy now to save the park, save Lisle, and find the mysterious Mr. P before it's all too too late.

The writing in this book starts out a little slow, but eventually you get into it. What Ms. Gordon does particularly well is conjure up rather disgusting but effective descriptions. Lisle is reported to wear a cap of a particular color. "It might have been red once, or orange, it was hard to tell - now it was sort of the color of tonsils". It's almost a pity that a color picture of that same cap appears on the book's cover. Kids will undoubtedly check and double check it for an idea of tonsil colorations. It would have been nice if that could have been left entirely to their own imaginations. The story plays out at a fast clip, balancing the big story (the imminent destruction of the park) with the subplots (most centering around Willy's work on the baseball team). When the park plot wraps up a good 50+ pages before the end of the book, the story stalls out a little. You feel like you've experienced the climax and that the end should be a lot sooner than it is.

And look, if the word "Gorillas" appears in your book's title and you sport a picture of one on your cover, title page, and bookflaps, people are gonna want gorillas. Lots of `em. And unfortunately Amy Gordon is skimpy with the gorillaness of it all. Towards the end of the tale the gorillas finally play a little more into the plot, but not enough to justify their absence beforehand. There were other small problems with the story as well. For one thing, the book is entirely reliant on the reader wanting Lisle not to return to the uptight guardians millionaire Otto Pettingill inadvertently placed her with. The problem is that while our hero, Willy Wilson, is enamored of the wild child, the reader can't see her good points. She's the kind of child hero who when she's been repeatedly saved and helped by kind-hearted Willy, still hasn't the slightest problem with calling him a coward when he doesn't want to play his violin for her. She's charmless, is the problem. A nasty, mean, runty little thing without a speck of manners or pleasantness in her body. She's smart, sure, but not the kind of person you particularly feel like rooting for. She's been kidnapped by Pettingill's representative? Hooray! Throw away the key, so say I.

Of course, there's a lot to enjoy about this book. Each chapter begins with a picture of a person who appears in that chapter with a quote or sentence from that person that explains something especially important about their personality. The drawings of each character are credited in tiny tiny type to one Mr. Matthew Cordell. They're simple little pictures, rather sweet and simplistic. Mr. Cordell has done a nice little job (and I'm not just saying that because he's married to a school librarian). The characters in the tale aren't exactly three-dimensional (the plant guy speaks entirely in plant-like metaphors, the French woman with a Miss Piggyesque accent, etc.) but there are some surprising moments. I liked the bad-guy vegan or the fact that a little old lady could be a xenophobic moron. There's not a whole lotta depth to the book, but at least it's still a lot of fun.

It needs more gorillas though. A lot more. One can only pray that the sequel, "The Return to Gill Park" will contain some increased primate appearances. Altogether this is a good book for kids already into baseball in some way, shape, or form. It requires a knowledge of the game but still has enough action and adventure (not to mention a very realistic conjuring up of a truly fictional town) to justify its existence on bookshelves everywhere. Not the first book I'd think to recommend, but a nice read all the same.

This enthralling story about a young boy's eperience in a new, unfamilar place will capture the heart and soul of any young reader out there. From the moment begin to the tear renching finish, you will be caught inside the story, along side Willy, the akward, yet smart and curious boy who finds compasion,hate,love, and the power of hope in the big city.

This story is about a boy who has a boring life, and he has nothing to do this summer. His Aunt Bridget calls and wants him to come stay the summer with her in the city of Gloria. He goes and meets a lot of new friends, and plays on a baseball team at the Gill park. Willy the boy really likes the park. After a few days of being there Otto Pettingill says hes going to sell the park. Willy helps save the park and otto dies a few days later.
HE leaves the park to willy.