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Summary
Summary
Spencer Adams Honesty may be the last best hope for Paisley, Kansas--and for lonely kids everywhere.
Spencer Honesty and his mom are the last people left in Paisley, except for Chief Leopard Frog, Spence's imaginary friend. One lonely day, Chief Leopard Frog's carved rabbit talisman tells Spence to take his photo, so Spence digs up his late father's camera and starts shooting photographs all around his ghost town. When the photos come back developed, he does not expect to see his old neighbor Maureen Balderson in her bedroom. Or Ma Puttering clearing weeds in her yard. They aren't in Paisley anymore. Yet there they are.
What happens to Spence next is unexpected. It involves a catalog called Uncle Milton's Thousand Things You Thought You'd Never Find, a poetry deal gone awry, and a ghost camera that promises to take pictures of the past (just be sure not to photograph yourself).
Author Notes
Richard W. Jennings has published more than fifty essays, articles, and short stories, including The Tragic Tale of the Dog Who Killed Himself, published by Bantam Books in 1980 to widespread critical acclaim, in addition to his recent titles published with Houghton Mifflin - Orwell's Luck, The Great Whale of Kansas, My Life of Crime, and Scribble. He is cofounder of a popular Kansas City-area bookstore and former editor of KANSAS CITY MAGAZINE. He has five children, four grandchildren, a dog, a cat, and a parrot and lives in Kansas.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
After the town is abandoned, the sole residents of downtrodden Paisley, Kans., are precocious 13-year-old Spencer Honesty and his mother, who is still a paid employee of Paisley's post office. Spencer spends his time talking to his make-believe, poetry-writing Indian friend, Chief Leopard Frog, and taking photographs of the empty town. But when ghostly ex-residents appear in his photographs, Spencer begins to see artistic potential in his isolation. Paisley, with its numerous spiders, reptiles and vacated buildings, emerges as just as vivid a character as Spencer; others, including Spencer's departed crush, Maureen, and the wheeling-and-dealing owner of an oddities catalogue who takes an interest in Chief Leopard Frog's carved talismans are more peripheral, developing through letters they exchange with Spencer. Spencer's frequent musings on solitude, art and life are thought provoking and often funny (artists who got famous by painting objects like chairs were simply "stuck in their rooms," he reasons. "What else was there to look at?"). Despite the need for suspension of disbelief throughout, the highly fortuitous outcome comes across as a stretch-but it's a fun ride getting there. Ages 12-up. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Middle School, High School) In a first-person voice at times disconsolate, at times philosophical, thirteen-year-old Spencer Honesty relates how he came to be the last kid left in Paisley, Kansas. One by one, businesses and schools closed and families gave up the ghost and moved away, leaving only Spencer and his mother. But if the town is no longer populated, Spencer's dreams are, as teachers, shopkeepers, bus drivers, waitresses, babies, and dogs show up therein to keep memories of Paisley alive. Spencer senses a connection between these dreams and his need to hold on to the past, so he uses his father's old-fashioned camera to record the old haunts of the desolate town. The odd thing is, people who no longer live there appear in the photographs: Maureen Balderson combing her hair, Ma Puttering working in her squash garden, Spencer's father wearing his old peach-colored Columbus Catfish baseball cap. It's a delicious premise -- a ghost town coming back to life in dreams and photographs -- developed with an accretion of humorous situations and details: a disappearing toe, a pumpkin that looks like Oprah Winfrey, and a poetry-writing imaginary friend named Chief Leopard Frog who whittles bad-luck talismans. And when the Chief's poetry and Spencer's ghost camera bring in unexpected wealth, the fortunes of Paisley, Kansas, revive. Readers who can suspend disbelief and appreciate the quirkiness will enjoy Jennings's story of a ghost town's unlikely savior. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
A teenager finds a camera with some unusual properties in this typically offbeat tale from Jennings. Spencer and his mother being the last two (living) residents of a deeply isolated Kansas hamlet, there sure isn't much to do so at the suggestion of his semi-imaginary friend, Chief Leopard Frog, he digs out his father's old camera and starts taking shots of the locality. To his amazement, some of the pictures come back with libidinous ex-neighbor Maureen and other former residents in them. Smartly driven along by a sense that just about anything can happen next, the story takes several severe twists from there, culminating in a rush of prizes and huge royalty checks for both the photos and for the wildly popular poems that Chief Leopard Frog writes. Fans of Gary Paulsen's Lawn Boy (2007) will find this similarly epic rocket to fame and fortune equally stimulating.--Peters, John Copyright 2009 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7-10-How do you spend your time when you live in a dead-end town? Spencer Adams Honesty, one-half the population of Paisley, KS, revives his childhood imaginary friend, Chief Leopard Frog, for company and takes up photography. The boy's camera captures the ghosts of Paisley's ex-residents and sets off a chain of wonderfully absurd events. For example, a correspondence with Uncle Milton (President and Proprietor of Uncle Milton's Thousand Things You Never Thought You'd Find novelty catalog) leads to the man's publishing a collection of Chief Leopard Frog's bad poetry, and Spencer's romancing two "older" women (older by a few years) as he takes on the world of art photography by storm. Jennings has a dry wit, and the protagonist's matter-of-fact observations make the most outlandish scenes seem possible. This is a coming-of-age story/tall tale that's full of charm.-Caroline Tesauro, Radford Public Library, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Offbeat, quirky, peculiar, unusualtake your pick of adjectives; any (or all) could be used to describe the latest effort of a Midwestern writer known for original characters and unpredictable plots. The question is, how odd is too odd? Certainly the story of Spencer Honesty, last child living in Paisley, Kan., takes some downright bizarre turns. From his long-dead father's old camera, which takes photos of people who aren't there, to Spencer's imaginary friend, Chief Leopard Frog, woodcarver and aspiring poet, to the lucrative relationship Spencer develops with an entrepreneurial ex-pat based in the Cayman Islands, readers won't know quite what to expect next. Not that there's not a loopy kind of logic at work, but sometimes it can be hard to spot. Likewise, Spencer's low-key, first-person narration adds a fillip of humor to the outlandish tale, but some readers may find his deadpan delivery more annoying than amusing. For readers who enjoy Jennings's work, Spencer's adventures will be a welcome addition. Those unfamiliar with the author's style, however, may find themselves working a bit to acquire a taste for it. (Fiction. 10-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
