Life is Funny [Hardcover]

E.R. Frank (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2000 | Age Level: 7 and up | Grade Level: 2 and up | Series: Richard Jackson Books (DK Ink)

A moving novel about a diverse group of teenagers in a Brooklyn neighborhood.

Eric is fiercely protective of his little brother, Mickey. The world sees only his fierceness. China and Ebony, watching outside the day care near McDonald's, see him as "mad scary." Later, a teacher sees that Eric is an artist worth her attention. He is one of eleven characters -- black, white, Pakistani, Puerto Rican -- whose story over seven years in Brooklyn is worth anyone's attention. Rarely does such power and tenderness illuminate a book and the true worlds of its kids. Most attend the same school; their live take different trajectories yet intertwine, overlap, cast light upon the others. Grace and Sam are lucky enough to be beautiful. Sonia struggles to live the life of a good Muslim girl in a foreign America. Monique and Molly are sisters who each feel saved by the other. Keisha says, "Before Gingerbread first talked to me, I'd a long time forgotten about laughing, but the second after he said his own name right out loud, I remembered again. When we first started, I asked why he laughed so much, and he said, like it ought to be plain as day, Because life is funny, and maybe that's when I for real started to fall in love." Frozen from laughter and from tears, Linnette warns to Eric when she hears him being told: "Your mother's fighting a war out there. That war got her so young she's been fighting since before you were a thought." for his mother wants nothing to do with Eric. Her enemy is the crack addiction, something Gingerbread was born with and yet can still say, and mean, "If you have a good anybody to help you through, you can do anything." This book brims with "good anybodys."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"'He's got poetry,' I go, all choky. 'He's got mad poetry.'" With these words from China about her crush Eric, debut author E.R. Frank proves her fresh knowledge of millennial teenspeak. In Life Is Funny, there is no dated slang, only the ripe hip-hop dialogue heard on subway cars and street corners. Frank's ear is perfect as she details the lives and loves of 11 Brooklyn teens on the cusp of adulthood. Though the stories are gritty, for every slam there is a triumph. Tough-talking Monique, who is pregnant by her abusive ex-boyfriend, finds real peace with Hector, a dreamy-eyed nurse at the prenatal clinic who knows that love is the only medicine that will cure her terminal anger. Rich-boy Drew rejects all the material possessions that his father can buy him when he finally makes the 911 call that saves his mother from another beating at his father's hands. There's also Grace, whose movie-star looks can't save her from her alcoholic mom's rages, and Eric, who has lost the ability to love anyone or anything except his little brother Mickey. Sonia feels the friction of being a good Muslim girl in an intolerant public school, and Ebony cuts herself to forget how much she misses having a father in her life.

Frank has penned a high-intensity, multicultural, multidimensional teen reading experience that will challenge and change those who open it. These are real teens in real time. Be prepared for them to rock your world. (Ages 12 and older) --Jennifer Hubert

From Publishers Weekly

Eleven kids with distinct voices and individual struggles narrate Frank's impressive debut novel, yet each of the interlocking stories springs to life with tender details. The book follows a loosely connected group of Brooklyn students over a seven-year period. The author initially introduces a few characters in a kind of pastiche, then renders them in fuller portraits, such as Keisha, who reveals that her brother is "touching me on my privacy every night" and, in a chapter four years later, experiences a healthy relationship with a peer. Other characters deal with physically abusive or absent parents, an unwanted pregnancy or a friend's suicide, but as the title indicates, each tale is tempered by humor. Readers will empathize with their struggles, but more than that, they will be inspired by the strength of their spirits and their willingness to love. Eric, another character introduced in a kind of broad brushstroke at the beginning, metamorphoses in one of the novel's most memorable stories. His mother is a drug addict, and he becomes the caretaker for his little brother, Mickey ("He tell all the little bugs he see at school he don't need no daddy 'cause he gots me," says Eric). The brothers reappear in the last chapter, narrated by their new foster-sister, Linnette, who calls Eric a "hatchet murder face," intimidated by his bottled-up anger. When he literally reaches out to her at the end, she delicately describes her reaction as "my voice high and melting, my insides all unfrozen." The language is gritty, and some of the story lines will be intense for young readers, but this is ultimately an uplifting book about resilience, loyalty and courage. Ages 12-up. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 7 and up
  
• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: DK CHILDREN; 1st edition (April 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078942634X
• ISBN-13: 978-0789426345
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #689,625 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars last stop, brooklyn, April 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Life is Funny (Hardcover)

I am a professional social worker and I work in NYC schools. This book was masterfully accurate. It was tough and real, and most impressively, full of hope. These characters learn that they can trust themselves, trust eachother and reach for the stars. Everyone should read this book. Everyone will love this book.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, August 8, 2000

By 

V. Ludas (Montclair, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Life is Funny (Hardcover)

I read this book for the second time last night (the first time I read it I was up til 2am) and it made me teary again. The people are completely lifelike, and I feel as if I know them. I would love to see a sequel with these or other kids, written only by E.R. Frank. Read this book, no matter how old you are. I'm bringing this with me when I go back to college, that's all I can say.

(and, of course, being from Montclair makes it all that much cooler)

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars mad poetry, April 19, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Life is Funny (Hardcover)

The voices are powerful and the stories moving. The characters' lives are difficult and sometimes scarred by tragedy, and yet the book as a whole is very uplifting. Knowingly or not, these kids live the beauty beneath the suffering. Their pain is transcended by their love of life and for each other. Eric is the best example of this -- I cannot even think of him without my eyes moistening.

In my mind this book is clearly for an adult audience as well as for young adults. It's the best thing I've read in at least ten years.