Eggs

by Jerry Spinelli

Warning! This audio book may expose your kids to ideas beyond the realm some parents might choose for their children. But if you have real kids growing up in a real world that isn’t always perfect, this is just the sort of book that can lower the dysfunction level in a broken world.

Warning! Listening to this audio book on an otherwise boring road trip might help your kids see how the way they communicate keeps them from meeting their own needs. Besides learning to see themselves and their problems in a new way, through letting these words seep in at their ears, they could also become enthralled with savoring the words of this Newberry Medal winning author on paper.

The two main characters, David, a nine year old boy in deep pain from the irreconcilable loss of his mother, who died in a freak accident about a year ago, and Primrose, a thirteen year old girl who wishes her weird eccentric mother would get lost, form an unlikely friendship. This is no goody goody happy bond, but a real connection full of conflict and complexity more like siblings might struggle through with each other’s quirks.

Both David and Primrose exhibit what some may call bizarre characteristics, which actually spring from their wounded states. David tries to follow all the rules in the world, except for being civil to his loving, caretaking grandmother, under the delusion that his behavior will bring back his mother. Primrose tries to detach herself from her weird mother by living in a wheel-less van outside her house. If we pay attention we will see that the traits, behaviors and injuries of these vivid characters resonate with our own. David and Primrose are each needy and abrasive in peculiar, personal way. Getting to understand their idiosyncrasies may help us see into ourselves.

Sarcastic and bossy Primrose, and aloof, timid David are drawn to each other through their mutual sense of isolation and separation. They struggle through personal anger and hurt to form an unconventional bond. Their odd relationship is tumultuous and must overcome painful self sabotage and oh–so-human distance-keeping before it becomes true friendship. This story is funny and touching, real, and full of adventure. Both young people desperately need someone to love and depend on. With time and practice they learn to give each other what they cannot get from the adults in their lives.

Although the grown-ups in Eggs may seem underwritten, Primose’s spacey fortune-telling mother, David’s mostly absent father, and well-meaning Grandmother, and the quirky, but acceptable adult figure, Refrigerator John, are seen from an odd, but typically narrow kid’s eye view.

Eggs are fragile, so are kids. Can a cracked eggshell be bandaged? Let’s hope so! We all get our fragile shells cracked in one way or another. This unusual story of two complicated, damaged children offers a compelling message about friendship, and healing. Jerry Spinelli is an author who helps us find our band aids.

This audio presentation is delightfully performed by Cassandra Morris and Suzanne Toren. The voices of David and Primrose as well as minor adult characters are distinctive and appropriate. It takes almost exactly four hours to listen to the entire book. Plan you trip accordingly. Save a little time for post listening discussion. Ask your kids about eggs — fresh eggs and spoiled eggs — about what eggs mean to them—about eating them, throwing them, breaking them, searching for them at Easter, hard boiling them, taking them away from hens. Warning! They may want to also read the version also available in print from Little, Brown.