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Summary
Summary
A boy escapes home to seek his own way in the world in a whimsical outing by the award-winning David Almond, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers.
Stanley Potts's uncle Ernie has developed an over-the-top fascination with canning fish in the house, and life at 69 Fish Quay Lane has turned barmy. But there's darkness in the madness, and when Uncle Ernie's obsession takes an unexpectedly cruel turn, Stan has no choice but to leave. As he journeys away from the life he's always known, he mingles with a carnival full of eccentric characters and meets the legendary Pancho Pirelli, the man who swims in a tank full of perilous piranhas. Will Stan be bold enough to dive in the churning waters himself and choose his own destiny?
Author Notes
David Almond was born on May 15, 1951 in the United Kingdom. He writes novels for children and young adults including The Savage, Slog's Dad, My Name Is Mina, The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas, and The Tightrope Walkers. He has received numerous awards including the Carnegie Medal for Skellig, two Whitbread Awards, the Michael L. Printz Award for young-adult books for Kit's Wilderness, the Smarties Prize and the Boston Globe Horn Book Award for The Fire-Eaters, the 2015 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize for A Song for Ella Grey, and the Hans Christian Andersen Award.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
As he did in The Boy Who Climbed to the Moon, Almond strikes a lighter, more whimsical note in the story of orphan Stanley Potts. After Stanley's guardian, Uncle Ernie, is fired from his job, the man quickly rebounds with "big, big plans" to build a fish cannery in his home. When ambition and greed prompt Uncle Ernie to dip his fingers into Stanley's bucket of pet goldfish, an infuriated Stanley leaves home and joins a carnival. He is working the hook-a-duck stall when he is discovered by Pancho Pirelli, a man renowned for performing the death-defying act of swimming with piranhas. Pancho, on the verge of retirement, is looking for a replacement, and Stanley might fit the bill. Reinventing oneself can be dangerous, disastrous, or fortuitous, as this proudly silly tale (and Jeffers's equally blithe spot art) illustrate, and there will always be members of the establishment (in this case, DAFT, the "Departmint for the Abolishun of Fishy Things") trying to prevent the realization of dreams. Bold, imaginative, and funny, Stanley's bigger-than-life escapades will tickle imaginations. Ages 9-12. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Stanley Potts just can't seem to catch a break. After his dad dies in an accident and his mum dies of a broken heart, Stan goes to live with his aunt and uncle. Uncle Ernie loses his job at the shipyard, decides to start his own business canning sardines, and expects Stan to become as obsessed with the business as he is. Pushed to the breaking point, Stan runs away with a carnival, where he meets an odd assortment of characters. None, however, is quite as mysterious as the legendary Pancho Pirelli, the man who performs the death-defying act of swimming in a tank full of piranhas. Pirelli recognizes a kindred spirit in Stan and takes him under his wing, grooming him to become his sidekick and successor. Almond ventures far afield from the almost hallucinatory magical realism that characterized his earliest work, offering up some lighthearted fare for a younger audience. This book, complete with old-fashioned intrusive narrator and numerous spot illustrations, seems to have more in common with the work of Roald Dahl or Frank Cottrell Boyce; yet the silliness is tempered by an unsentimental, clear-eyed wisdom, marking it unmistakably as the work of Almond. jonathan hunt (c) Copyright 2013. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Dahl meets J. K., flavored with a soupcon of Choose Your Own Adventure, but in the end, this novel is all pure, sweet Almond. Stanley Potts has lost his parents, but his Aunt Annie and Uncle Ernest have ably stepped in. Then Uncle Ernest goes fish crazy, making a fortune by canning fish in the living room. Stanley is on board until his beloved goldfish get tinned, and he takes off. After joining a carnival, he lives with Mr. Doestesky, the hook-a-duck operator, and his daughter, Nitasha, who has been abandoned by her mother and wishes to become the world's ugliest, fattest bearded lady. Stanley seems an ordinary boy, but those who come in contact with him sense his purity and goodness. So, when Pancho Pirelli appears to perform his great act in which he swims in a tank of piranhas, it's no surprise that he recognizes Stanley as his successor. As with most everything Almond writes, there is the story on paper and then all that churns over and around it. This is as much a meditation on chance, choice, and destiny, as it is a frolicsome tale of a boy who runs away for a circuslike life. In the subtlest ways possible, Almond masterfully makes young readers understand this, and they will be delighted that life lessons can be administered so deliciously. Simple pencil drawings illustrate. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Almond is one of the finest writers for young people working today, which makes anything he writes something to look forward to.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2010 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-7-When Stanley Potts's Uncle Ernie takes his fish-canning business in a new, inhumane direction, the orphaned boy decides to leave the home his relatives made for him and join a traveling carnival of Gypsies. With the guidance of the hook-a-duck booth proprietor Dostoyevsky, Stan finds success tending the goldfish prizes and forms a tentative friendship with the boss's prickly daughter, Nitasha, who broods over the desertion of her ballerina mother. Big news is the arrival of famous Pancho Pirelli, who swims in a tank with piranhas. Pirelli is convinced that Stan is destined to be his successor and sets about teaching him to dive, to overcome fear, and to find faith in himself. Meanwhile, as Stan settles into his new life, back home Uncle Ernie and Aunt Annie are distraught over his disappearance and plagued by DAFT, the Departmint for the Abolishun of Fishy Things. Setting out to find him, they unintentionally lead DAFT to the carnival, where mayhem ensues. Master storyteller Almond combines delicious wordplay, zany antics, wacky characters, and a bit of magical realism in a novel that touches the heart. Quick-paced, accessible, and enhanced by stylized cartoonlike drawings, this book is sure to be enjoyed by fans of humorous, quirky stories.-Marie Orlando, formerly at Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Guardian Review
David Almond has always had his eye on the marginal, the defeated, the odd, the off-key. Finding mystery in the boring, magic in the down-to earth, he has the startling knack of conjuring the uncanny out of the stuff that everyone else passes by without a second glance. His new novel for younger readers is both typical and different: the story of a lonely boy who runs away, and a knockabout comedy written in a cheerfully throwaway style, short on subtlety but big on laughs and fun. It is all, quite literally, a fishy business. When the shipyards close, Stanley Potts's Uncle Ernie turns his house into a fish-canning factory ("Potts's Spectacular Sardines, Potts's Perfect Potted Pilchards") and Stan becomes his drudge. A brief period of homemade-machine mania is mercifully brought to an end when Stan visits a travelling fair and wins 13 goldfish. He is "entranced" (a fact formally confirmed by the fair's Gypsy Rose) by their "panting mouths and their delicate scales and their tender dark eyes". And when Uncle Ernie's madness takes a turn for the worse and attracts the attention of DAFT ("Departmint for the Abolishun of Fishy Things"), Stan has a circus to run away with, where he begins a promising career on the Hook-A-Duck stall. What he doesn't anticipate is something altogether grander and madder. Not just a career, but his destiny! Apprenticeship to the celebrated Pancho Pirelli - the man who swims with piranhas. Almond has produced a circus ride of a story, with thrills and spills and all the fun of the fair. There are glittery prizes to be had, and big fat morals printed in coloured letters ("the little troubled runts are often the ones that turn out to be best of all"), as well as quiet moments in the silvery moonlight. Generally the pace is hectic (quadruple verb-clusters a speciality) and the action bold. There's no lingering over refinements such as motives or ramifications and the storytelling voice is big-hearted with a decided preference for cheap and cheerful cliches. The characters are cartoonish (such as Gypsy Rose, the dastardly villain Clarence P Clapp of DAFT, or the policeman whose talk is full of "I know lads like you" and "Go on, get going"). They talk funny, and show a marked tendency to farce: the thugs of DAFT are much more Keystone Kops than Child Catcher. Like the fairground setting or the run-away-with-the-circus storyline, they're kitsch, completely unpretentious and fun to play with. The end of the story is cheerfully strewn with loose ends and the invitation to finish it (and some of the characters) off yourself. Is it a success? For me, its freewheeling style disguises some difficulties. The opening fish-canning factory section, which seems a perfect fit with the swimming-with-piranhas ending, has a demented tone and pitch that is out of kilter with the rest of the book. The incompetent DAFT bunch seem unable to locate their proper role. The story has magic but lacks danger or fear. But the author's generosity of spirit saves it. There's no mistaking the hallmark Almond tenderness and the willingness to work with the common things of life, which animate it from start to finish and make it good. Simon Mason's Moon Pie is published by David Fickling. To order The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas for pounds 7.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop - Simon Mason It is all, quite literally, a fishy business. When the shipyards close, Stanley Potts's Uncle Ernie turns his house into a fish-canning factory ("Potts's Spectacular Sardines, Potts's Perfect Potted Pilchards") and Stan becomes his drudge. A brief period of homemade-machine mania is mercifully brought to an end when Stan visits a travelling fair and wins 13 goldfish. He is "entranced" (a fact formally confirmed by the fair's Gypsy Rose) by their "panting mouths and their delicate scales and their tender dark eyes". And when Uncle Ernie's madness takes a turn for the worse and attracts the attention of DAFT ("Departmint for the Abolishun of Fishy Things"), Stan has a circus to run away with, where he begins a promising career on the Hook-A-Duck stall. What he doesn't anticipate is something altogether grander and madder. Not just a career, but his destiny! Apprenticeship to the celebrated Pancho Pirelli - the man who swims with piranhas. - Simon Mason.
Kirkus Review
In British novelist Almond's latest, the trouble starts when Ernie Potts decides to turn his house on Fish Quay Lane into a loud, stinky fish-canning factory, and his nephew Stan has to quit school to work. But the adventure starts on Stan's birthday, when he's granted a rare day off, stumbles upon a nearby fair and is told by the fortunetelling Gypsy Rose, "You are entranced. You will be dejected. You will travel. And we will meet again." Stan, however, is too entranced by the dying goldfish offered as prizes at Mr. Dostoyevsky's hook-a-duck stall to absorb her prophecy. He rescues the 13 fish--but in vain. Greedy and obsessed, Uncle Ernie pan-fries and cans his nephew's new best friends that very night, and Stan, knowing Ernie is now truly barmy, runs away. Stan heads back to the traveling carnival, where he soon becomes the protg of the mustachioed Pancho Pirelli, the piranha-proof man. Almond's wonderstruck philosophical bent, earthy humor, lovely use of language and colorful characters keep readers swimming along, as does the personable narrator who playfully demands an examination of the storytelling process as it happens. Jeffers' spare, cartoonish pencil sketches perfectly suit the salty, magical tale. A buoyant, delightfully Almond-ine coming-of-age novel about fish, fate and family; moonlight, madness and myth; runts, "Rackanruwin" and, finally, redemption. (Fiction. 8-12)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
