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Summary
Summary
Crusher the snake will charm readers in this entertaining, funny novel about a snake in captivity and how she turns the tables on her human captor.
I am a snake.
No, not a rattlesnake. I just look like one. I'm a gopher snake.
One day an oily, filthy, fleshy human child crossed my path. As luck would have it, he knew the difference between a gopher snake and a rattlesnake. He has imprisoned me in a terrarium. His name is Gunnar. He calls me Crusher. He thinks I'm male. I'm not.
He dropped in a dead mouse and hoped I'd eat it. I buried it. He then dropped in a live one, which he called "Breakfast." I didn't lay a coil on it.
Gunnar thinks I'll be his adoring pet. He's wrong.
In fact, I am planning my escape. I may take breakfast with me.
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Told by Crusher, a gopher snake, this pointed story might encourage middle-graders to rethink their relationships to any pets that are incarcerated in cages. Briefly mistaken for a rattlesnake, the venomless Crusher is caught by Gunnar, "an oily, filthy, fleshy human child" who displays an outsize insensitivity to his collection of creatures. Gunnar's mother, who never follows through on either threats or promises, and his uninvolved father do not build a strong case for the humans in this tale, although their characterizations explain a lot about Gunnar's expectations of his "pets." Advised by Gunnar's other captive reptiles, Crusher decides that her best chance at freedom lies in pretending to be fully domesticated; the trouble is, she begins to feel sorry for Gunnar. While the interspecies dialogue doesn't reach the heights of James Howe's Bunnicula comedies, the humor here is more acerbic and the focus more squarely on the human interactions. Ages 8-12. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate) "Crusher" is the name Gunnar gives the gopher snake he catches and adds to his collection of exotic animals, but he doesn't know his snake at all, not even its gender. Through Crusher's wry narration, readers get to know her and to hear her view of "lower life form" Gunnar as she tries to figure out this new and puzzling world. Her fellow prisoners in nearby cages, a tortoise and a lizard, offer advice and warnings telepathically, but Crusher must sort out most of the strange customs for herself. She wonders about the purpose of the "box" Gunnar focuses on nonstop ("maybe the boxes communicated telepathically with one another, maybe at the humans' behest?") and is baffled that creatures powerful enough to control nature (by use of refrigerators and windows) are so ignorant and cruel. Crusher's adventures and her gradual development of compassion for Breakfast, the live mouse in her cage, and even for Gunnar himself work together with the hilarious satire on modern American life to give this terrific child appeal but also a lot of room for discussion. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
When a sweaty boy named Gunnar makes an unsuccessful grab for a gopher snake, the reptile (soon to be called Crusher) confesses, Humans give me the creeps. They are so slimy. Unfortunately, Gunnar captures Crusher and places her in a terrarium in his bedroom. The captive snake spends her days observing Gunnar's sad life, communicating telepathically with other animals (notably a lizard and a tortoise) held captive in the room and plotting her escape. Along the way she develops previously foreign emotions, such as sympathy, compassion, and maybe even love. Honest in its portrayal of a thoughtless and apparently heartless child who is largely ignored and undisciplined by his parents, the first-person narrative contains some sad and even grim scenes, yet there's a good deal of humor in the book as well. The snake makes an entertaining (if understandably snarky) narrator, whose point of view gives the story a distinctive slant and makes its conclusion fitting as well as surprising.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2009 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
It wouldn't seem possible to make high school jocks, popular girls and losers fresh and hilarious, but Yoo does it. His Romeo and Juliet story is a winner (outcast Albert Kim with popular girl Mia? No way), but it's Albert's ice-dry telling of his tale of woe that sets it apart. From his uncool Korean parents with their "legitimately tragic childhoods" to the angry little kids next door ("a barrage of iceballs arc overhead like grenades"), Albert views growing up with all the comic sweetness and unsentimentality it deserves. POSY By Linda Newbery. Illustrated by Catherine Rayner. Atheneum. $16.99. (Ages 2 to 5) The kitten in this handsome book conducts classic feline maneuvers (playing with yarn, pouncing, laundry-inspecting) that could draw in cat lovers of any age. All swirly stripes, whiskers and looks of surprise, Posy is undeniably cute. Newbery and Rayner 's book, though, would have been stronger with a story line of some kind; young readers might not find enough of a reason to have a second or third look after absorbing the appealing pictures. WE CAN'T ALL BE RATTLESNAKES By Patrick Jennings. HarperCollins. $15.99. (Ages 8 to 12) The wisecracking and irritable-sounding narrator here is definitely something different: "I am a snake. ... a gopher snake." Gunnar, the child who has captured "Crusher" ("He thinks I'm male. I'm not"), dumps her in a tank near his other pets: "a tarantula, a desert tortoise and an alligator lizard." The other creatures are at first unfriendly, refusing to communicate telepathically, but soon they are joining forces and Crusher is methodically planning her escape. Her seen-it-all voice, and the twists and turns of Jennings's plot, make for an engaging and very funny story. ERIKA-SAN Written and illustrated by Allen Say. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $17. (Ages 4 to 8) Say's book makes a case for following your dreams, however inchoate and even ... dreamlike they are. An old picture of a house in the Japanese countryside captivates Erika, an American girl. She studies Japanese at school and after college goes to Japan to teach. At first Tokyo is disappointing; it's not "old Japan" and nothing feels right. But then she finds an island town and a friend who shows her around by bicycle. In the end they marry and move to a small farmhouse, "home at last." DINOTHESAURUS Prehistoric Poems and Paintings. Written and illustrated by Douglas Florian. Atheneum. $17.99. (Ages 6 and up) Florian's whimsical rhyming text contains helpful lessons: for example, how to pronounce "Micropachycephalosaurus," for "small, thick-headed lizard," or "Plesiosaur" - "we always say PLEASE before we might bite." A bit of dinosaur lore follows: "What kept the Spinosaurus warm /When it was colder than the norm?/ Spines much like a solar panel./ (And long underwear of flannel.)" The underwear part might be misleading, but Florian's art - in gouache, collage, colored pencil, stencils, etc. - is gorgeous and fun. OPEN THE DOOR TO LIBERTY A Biography of Toussaint L'Ouverture. By Anne Rockwell. Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $18. (Ages 9 to 12) The story of L'Ouverture, who led a successful rebellion in the French slave colony of St. Domingue - now Haiti - is full of cruel reversals. An eloquent leader (John Adams was an admirer), L'Ouverture resisted unnecessary violence, but failed to build on his victory and died in a French prison. Rockwell succeeds admirably in explaining a complicated life, and the American-primitive-style drawings are a good match. But there is no simple or uplifting moral to the story of this tragic hero. JULIE JUST
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-6-After being captured by "an oily, filthy, fleshy human child" named Gunnar, a female gopher snake gets an up-close view of the human world. Christened Crusher by her captor, the snake communicates telepathically with the other reptiles in his room and learns that the boy has a bad track record with his pets, soon losing interest in them and becoming absorbed in his video games. Crusher at first refuses to eat any food Gunner provides and even befriends the live mouse he brings her-Breakfast. At first standoffish, Crusher attempts to act tame in order to get an opportunity to escape; at the same time, she begins to develop compassion for both her human and animal companions. Crusher is a compelling narrator, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Although some of the minor characters, such as Gunnar's friends, are not fully developed, kids are not likely to notice. They'll be too busy enjoying Crusher's commentary on human habits and absorbing the facts about snakes that are seamlessly integrated into the narrative. They will also come away with the message that wild animals don't make good pets. Give this to readers who enjoyed Anne Fine's Notso Hotso (Farrar, 2006).-Jackie Partch, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Like a Dick King-Smith tale with a bit more biteand a certain amount of bitingthis animal-narrated episode casts a satiric light on human behavior but leaves room for compassion, too. Captured and plunked into a bedroom tank by Gunnar, a horrible child given to tantrums, a gopher snake he dubs "Crusher" struggles to comprehend her weird new world while determinedly setting her mind on escape. Rejecting the resigned claims of the tortoise and the lizard in adjacent tanks that death is the only escape, Crusher resolves to play "tame" and bide her time. Proud of her wildness, though, she also goes on a hunger strikewhich is severely tested when Gunnar drops "Breakfast," a live white mouse, into her tank. In time Crusher is surprised to realize that Breakfast has become more than just prey to her and that even Gunnar ("dumb as a duck" though he may be) deserves an occasional flicker of sympathy. Readers will enjoy her snake's-eye view of human foibles and cheer her on her way when a chance for release comes at last. (Fantasy. 10-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
