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Loading... The Cartoonist (1979)by Betsy Byars
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Threatened with the loss of his private place in the attic of his crowded home, a young boy determines to keep it at all costs. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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I had remembered vividly a lot of the details about Alfie's drawing- how he gets caught in class drawing instead of doing his math, how he imagines ideas and reworks them on paper- frustrated sometimes when they don't come out right. I had forgotten how much of the story is about Alfie's family dynamics- the older sister seems the most sympathetic and responsible, the mother feels overworked and exasperated by the grandfather, who bemoans his feelings of uselessness and tells the same stories over and over again. The family spends a lot of time arguing or sitting in front of the television- all the programs sound really inane and annoying- no wonder Alfie preferred to spend time alone attic- but it really makes me wonder if the author had something against tv viewing!
In case you're wondering, Alfie does finally come down from the attic, not because of his mother's threats, his grandfather's cajoling, his best friend's attempts to get him to join activities, or his sister's expressions of understanding. For another reason entirely that erased the conflict. The sad thing is that the whole experience made Alfie realize he was avoiding things by spending so much time in the attic with his daydreams and his cartoons, and he made a motion to change that. It isn't clear at the ending if he stopped drawing altogether, but it did seem like his attitude towards his artwork had changed.
from the Dogear Diary ( )