Thomas Crowell - 1975
179 pages
Jiro is a thirteen-year-old boy in eighteenth-century Osaka, Japan and extremely poor. His family is always telling him that he's messing up and he's tired of it. So he joins the Hanaza, a puppet theater, where he is mentored by Yoshida Kinshi, the puppet master's son. Meanwhile, a thief by the name of Saburo is acting like a Japanese Robin Hood, gagging merchants and policemen and giving back to the night rovers, a group of sometimes violent beggars.
Let me start off by saying that I always choose the picture of the first edition cover, and this is probably not the cover that you will be seeing if you get the book. The cover you will be seeing is to the left, of the mass market paperback 1989 edition. And that cover is possibly one of the most frightening things you will ever see. So don't read this late at night or some other time when you might fall asleep lest you wake up and see it.
Now we can actually get down to business. The novel is extremely bad. I felt sympathy for Jiro when he was poor, but later he gets some money from the Hanaza that he doesn't need because they provide everything for him. At this time (spoiler alert!) his mother is a night rover. Meanwhile Kinshi is going out late and giving his money to some of the night rovers, but he doesn't know who Jiro's mom is. So Jiro asks if he can come with and give money to his mother, but Kinshi says that it's too dangerous. So instead of saying "What do you know?" and going anyway like any other hero would, Jiro just mopes and stays back at the Hanaza.(spoiler end) That's right, Jiro is the kind of person who gives up after being told no, just like every interesting hero. Some of the so-called "surprises" aren't very surprising, and some was just thrown in for a little pizzaz, for example when (spoiler alert!) the night rovers set fire to the Hanaza after the puppet master refuses to give them food by throwing lanterns at the straw. Where do beggars get expensive oil lanterns anyway?(spoiler end) Also, I have no idea where the climax was supposed to be, because all the action Jiro just seemed to wriggle his way out of in a few paragraphs with little description.
Katherine Paterson's fingers should have beeen controlled by Yoshida so she knew what to write. The only redeeming quality of the book was how short it was.
Grade: D-
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