Eggs

This wasn't THAT bad of a story, but I was really looking forward to reading a new Jerry Spinelli book and this one just didn't live up to my expectations. It wasn't funny, I didn't really care about either of the main characters, and the resolution was pretty superficial.

Eggs was a book about a 13 year old and a 9 year old that become best friends and have many troubbles and many exciting things happen to them.

This is my first Jerry Spinelli, and I was not disappointed in the simplicity and complexity interwoven in this story. Young David (9) has recently lost his mother and has moved to surburban Philadelphia to live with his grandmother, while his father travels most of the time on business. His

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grandmother tries to help him cope but his shell remains hardened until he meets 12 year old Primrose, the only child of a fortune-teller, forced to live in a converted van in her yard as her mother's "career" and personal habits have taken over their tiny house. The two forge a tenuous friendship as they explore the possibility of closeness with another while at the same time keeping themselves protected from harm. Both are desparate for intimacy, yet so afraid when it gets there, that their friendship often falls apart over seemingly simple arguments.

Eggs are both metaphoric and realistic contrivances used by Spinelli. In their real form, David meets Primrose at an Easter egg hunt, her van home is frequently pelted by vandalizing teens in town, and David tells his grandmother that he doesn't like eggs. Metaphorically, they represent the soul/heart of these two children, whole but yet so fragile, as well as their growing friendship. David asks Primrose in one of their travels if she's rather be hit by a rock or an egg -- the rock is harder and hurts more, but the egg would break but leave goo behind.

I think this story would be good for young teens to explore the concepts of loss, grief, and friendship, and to begin to grasp the concept of metaphor in fiction. Overall, it's a charming story that had me feeling the emptiness of both protagonists.

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Great touching story (without an ounce of sentimentality) about two sad, lost souls who manage to help see each other through tough times.

Eggs by Jerri Spinelli opens with nine-year-old David forced to attend a local Easter egg hunt by his grandmother. David is still grieving his mother's death and does not want to interact with any other children. He is the last to start looking for eggs and because he knows he will not find any in

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the grassy part of the park he goes into the wooded section. There he finds the body of a girl, lying on her back with an egg in her mouth. He is too frightened to tell anyone about the girl and when he goes back to the park later in the day she is gone. He watches the newspapers and the nightly news, but no mention of the dead girl is ever made.

Several weeks later he accompanies his grandmother to the library where she reads books to groups of children. In the back row, apparently asleep, is the dead girl. David screams, the girl screams, the children scream. She gives him a card before she runs away, and several days later he goes to the address on the card to find the girl, Primrose, living in an abandoned van outside of her mother's small home.

Primrose does not have a father; David does not have a mother. The two become friends and slowly reveal their secrets to each other. Primrose resents her mother who is "goofy", wears odd wigs, reads people's palms, sometimes the soles of their feet, for a living. She resents the fact that her mother never read her to sleep which is why she was at the library pretending to be asleep while David's grangmother read to the children. David resents his grandmother who will not scold him or punish him because she believes he has enough to bear. He believes that if he follows ever rule except his grandmothers that his mother will come back and watch the sunrise with him. She had promised to wake him early so they could watch the sunrise together the night she died.

Eggs is not the fun book many of Mr. Spinelli's readers have come to expect. Primrose does have many Stargirl like characteristics: she is decorating the inside of her van and putting flower boxes on the outside for example. She takes David along for the ride on her late night expeditions to find good trash she can sell at the Saturday flee market. But Primrose is no Stargirl--she is mean to David, picks on him because he is four years younger, and she faces the world with a chip on her shoulder, taunting the people at the flee-market who avoid her table. I think that if she met Stargirl she would probably end up starting a fight with her.

David is working through a very complicated grieving process, and it is here that the strength of Eggs lies. David is taking his anger out on his grandmother, whom he openly torments in several scenes. He sees her mopping the kitchen floor and deliberately enters the room and walks all around it from stove to sink to refrigerator for no reason but to bother his grandmother, or so it seems. We learn later that his mother died in an accident--she slipped on a freshly mopped floor that did not have a caution sign on it and fell down a staircase. David is also bargaining, trying to follow every single rule he encounters, which would have saved his mother had the cleaner put up a sign and might bring back his mother, he believes.

Both Primrose and David find resolution in the end of the book, after a misguided attempt to walk from their suburban town to the city along train tracks. Primrose and David help each other accept their situations in an ending is both satisfying and believable.

Eggs is much more grounded in reality than other books Mr. Spinelli has written; it feels much more personal. This may be because the subject matter hit me very close to home. I am not convinced that Mr. Spinelli's younger readers will rank Eggs along Stargirl or Maniac Magee but I am giving it four out of five stars.

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This is one of those feel-good reads, where the characters conflict, develop throughout the story, and then the book finishes with a fairly predictable ending. I thought for the most part, the dynamics between a 9-year-old and a 13-year-old held pretty true, but the story itself didn't really grip

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me or blow me away.

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This novel is a good example of realistic fiction because all of the events that take place in the book could happen, but they have not actually happened. Through this book Spinelli does a great job taking a real issue of loss, and showing how these two fictional characters are able to deal with it

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through friendship.

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David, a nine-year-old boy whose mother has passed away, has a difficult time adjusting to life at his grandmother's house. He is befriended by Primrose, a thirteen-year-old girl who comes from a broken home. Primrose lives in a tiny house with her fortune teller mother. Primrose and David, both

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fragile in their own ways, must help each other deal with what is missing in their lives.

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I couldn't finish this book. It started out with a boy on an easter egg hunt who finds an egg perched on the lips of a girl who pretends to be dead. When the boys goes to get help and comes back the person is gone. He sees her again later and learns she did it as a joke. They become friends and

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sneak out of the house in the night and go to the 7-11 or dinners or such. I stopped listening at this point because it was unrealistic to me that an 8year old boy would sneak around town every night with a friend. Plus her family were psychics or something and it was just a bad story.

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After David's mother dies, he moves in with his grandmother. He feels that she is smothering him and he is determined not to let her take his mother's place. He soon forms a friendship with Primrose, whose mother doesn't even seem to notice when Primrose moves out of the house and into an old,

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abandoned van. Their friendship helps both children to appreciate the good in their lives.

Touching and funny--classic Spinelli.

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David—motherless, living with his grandmother, angry, and scared of breaking rules—meets Primrose, a flighty and explosive 13-year-old girl whose mother is an inept fortune teller, in this unique tale on the healing power of friendship. David and Primrose seem to have almost nothing in common,

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and indeed, their friendship often consists of taunts and arguments more than laughter and comfort. But the two friends bond in inexplicable ways and discover that friends may be just the thing you need when you think you don’t need anything.

Like other Jerry Spinelli books, EGGS gently explores an important theme in a way that’s approachable yet different for readers of all ages. However, EGGS is more on the silly and weird side, rather than the heartwrenching and memorable. It’s a quick read that will most likely get the attention of well-read kids looking for something odd. Make of EGGS what you will, as it will most likely mean different things for everyone.

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This is a pretty realistic book, the events in this book could actually happen. David's mom died and he moves in with his grandmother. He feels like his grandmother wants to take the place of his mother and it annoys him. David meets Primrose and they are both in the same boat. This is a good book

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about two people just wanting friends and to be loved.

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This book is an excellent coming-of-age story about two kids who are different and have many things to deal with. A very entertaining read.

Still recovering from the tragic accident that struck his mother david is forced to live with his grandmother who he dispises. He does have a father the problem is his father works 200 miles away therefor they do not see each other often. Then forms a special friendship with primrose. Who lives in

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a mystery of her own. trying to remember her long gone father, she is now living with her kooky mother. Spinelli uses great meaning in the making of this book. It made me think twice about my life.

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i was interested in seeing what was going to happen in the bigging but nothing would happen. it was an un interesting book i would not read it again.

Eggs is the story of a friendship between a nine year old boy who just lost his mother in a freak accident and a thirteen year old girl whose mom is a bit different. Jerry Spinelli has once again engaged the reader in a real world of growing up problems and solutions. The ending is very reassuring

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in this age of uncertainty.

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I really didn't think that David was a 9yo. Besides that I thought that the story was interesting and a cute read. I like the unusual friendship that developed.

A solid YA realistic fiction read. My first Spinelli, but not my last. Some great word play. Point out to both sensitive boys and girls.

Eggs is the story about two people of different ages who meet and develop this love, Hate relationship from the very start. The boy had lost his mother many years ago and this had created a tragic back story throughout his life. The girl things her mother is crazy and she tries to avoid her mom by

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moving into a car parked in front of the yard. This story creates a whole new kind of friendship that not many books have been able to create in a story. This book is a really good one that I have read and think that its way of developing a need to continue reading and see where their friendship leads to in all kinds of adventures. As the story progresses it begins giving things that make want to question things that discovered. Another friend of their's is refrigerator John who buys and sells things as a living and he creates another need side of story. This is also added with the boy's strange attitude towards his grandma who he must live with since his dad always as work. These things and more are in store for anyone who likes to read books with mystery, adventure , and a lot of other things that show up along the way.

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Not as good as the other books, unfortunately.

This book was as good as any Jerry Spinelli as far as the writing goes. The thing I couldn't take was the unbearable sourness and childishness of the two main characters and the lack of strong adult characters anywhere. I was longing for at least one strong adult in this fiasco, and all I got was

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an endless progression of guideless bad decisions. Good book for the writing, but the story was only so so.

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After his mother's death, David goes to live with his grandmother, far from his home. His father travels for business, and is not around much. Lonely and sad, he doesn't let anyone get close until he meets a girl named Primrose with family issues of her own.

Very touching story.

Not as poignant and memorable as Star Girl, Maniac Magee, or Crash, but a heart-warming, quick read. The characters are somewhat charming, but not anyone I'd like to know in real life. Refrigerator John represents the exact kind of person "Stopping at Every Lemonade Stand" is encouraging us all to

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be--a person who takes an interest in the youth of his community, and he's not even a pedophile. He makes a real difference in the lives of these two wayward children.

The story was a bit unrealistic in that it was just so dangerless--kids out all hours of the night without any trouble whatsoever, parents never knowing (or caring) where the kids are and what they're doing, a young girl with a completely incompetent mother (is she retarded?) who easily and resourcefully cares for herself without ever messing up, befriending the childless adult male on the street and hanging out with him all night, the parent figures then realizing this has been happening and them being totally okay with it, the dad all of a sudden realizing that he'd like to spend more time with his son and cut back on his work hours (but nothing drastic happened in order to provoke this major life change), etc. Life is just a bit too peachy in this novel, and was a bit predictable with its happily-ever-after ending where nothing dramatic, scary, shocking, or really interesting happened.

While I enjoyed it as much as watching an episode of the Golden Girls, I wouldn't recommend it as a "must read."

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