Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

And it’s not fun, I have to say.  I can’t hear worth beans out of my left ear, and it HURTS when I yawn.  On the other hand, I did go to the doctor, so I’ve got ginormous pills to take twice a day…

Anyway.  I finished Lower the Trap forever ago, but it kept getting pushed down on my list of things to post about.  It’s short–125 pages of quite a large font–and simple; when Graeme Swinimer’s dad catches a giant lobster in one of his traps, Graeme desperately  hopes that it will sell at auction for enough to take a dreamed-about trip to a famous aquarium.  (They live in Nova Scotia, and Graeme wants to be a marine biologist.)  He makes a deal with the cannery owner’s son in order to make sure it happens, but fulfilling his terms of the deal is not a pleasant job, and what if selling such a find isn’t really the right thing to do?  As an adult reader, I knew that the lobster was going to come out on top eventually, but the how of it was actually surprising, and I enjoyed the book. Graeme’s philosophizing at the end feels like a LARGE leap forward in the plot, though, and I did wonder for most of the book if his sister was real and alive.  He’s always calling out to her only to discover that she’s elsewhere, and while he watches his dad trying to catch up to her at one point, that’s more than a hundred pages into the book.  (It shouldn’t take that long to be sure she isn’t a “Sixth Sense” plot twist, right?)

Bottom line?  It was enjoyable, but partly because of the setting; the characters didn’t speak to me.  Elementary age boys, however–especially those with an interest in or connection to the setting–are the perfect audience (I was not).  Also, it’s part of a trilogy that tells the same story from three different parts of view, which can be especially interesting.  If you have elementary schoolers and the plot appeals, give it a try; I doubt you’ll be disappointed.