Peter Leroy recalls an episode from his grade-school years, an episode that he would really rather forget, one of the dark, gritty bits that one finds at the bottom of the chowder bowl of life. It involves the Young Tars, an organization originally intended to raise the morale of students at the new Babbington Central Upper Elementary School, and the treacherous Mr. Summers, a teacher whose armamentarium of instructional techniques featured "humility sessions" and a toy weapon that fired ping-pong balls.
Peter Leroy recalls an episode from his grade-school years, an episode that he would really rather forget, one of the dark, gritty bits that one finds at the bottom of the chowder bowl of life. It involves the Young Tars, an organization originally intended to raise the morale of students at the new Babbington Central Upper Elementary School, and the treacherous Mr. Summers, a teacher whose armamentarium of instructional techniques featured "humility sessions" and a toy weapon that fired ping-pong balls.
Peter is a thoroughly likable lad. He is bright and observant, but also subject to all the anxieties and misapprehensions of childhood. His parents, grandparents, neighbors, classmates, teachers, and friends are all marvelously alive, individual, eccentric. What happens to them has all the elements of surprise and inevitability that characterize the human condition, and some of it is so funny you can scarcely turn the pages for chortling.
Product Details
BN ID: 2940013003200
Publisher: The Babbington Press
Publication date: 8/16/2011
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 76
File size: 585 KB
Meet the Author
Eric Kraft grew up in Babylon, New York, on the South Shore of Long Island, where he was for a time co-owner and co-captain of a clam boat, which sank. He met or invented the character Peter Leroy while dozing over a German lesson during his first year at Harvard. The following year, he married his muse, Madeline Canning; they have two sons. After earning a Master’s Degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Kraft taught school in the Boston area for a while, moonlighting as a rock music critic for the Boston Phoenix. Since then, he has undertaken a variety of hackwork to support the Kraft ménage and the writing of the voluminous work of fiction that he calls The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. He has been the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts; was, briefly, chairman of PEN New England; and has been awarded the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature.
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Overview
Peter Leroy recalls an episode from his grade-school years, an episode that he would really rather forget, one of the dark, gritty bits that one finds at the bottom of the chowder bowl of life. It involves the Young Tars, an organization originally intended to raise the morale of students at the new Babbington Central Upper Elementary School, and the treacherous Mr. Summers, a teacher whose armamentarium of instructional techniques featured "humility sessions" and a toy weapon that fired ping-pong balls.