Centerburg Tales - (Homer Price Adventures) by Robert McCloskey (Paperback)

About the Book

Further adventures of Homer Price, including those in which a juke box sets the whole town singing against its will and in which a mad scientist develops weeds that overrun the town.

Book Synopsis

Centerburg might be your town. Grampa Hercules and his never-ending tall tales, Dulcy Dooner, the uncooperative citizen, unbusinesslike Uncle Ulysses and his friendly lunchroom, the flustered sheriff, the pompous judge--they are all as American as they come. But there's a subtle and delightful difference. In Centerburg, along with the routine of day-to-day living, the most preposterous things keep happening.

But nothing fazes Homer Price! Ragweeds taller than fire ladders, music that sets a whole town dancing--he solves these problems calmly and efficiently. Homer Price is a boy with a good supply of common sense--and ingenuity!

Homer's Grampa Hercules is a delightful old rascal and his extravagent reminiscences of his youth are the starting point of many of the episodes. The chapter titles are as enticing as the chapters themselves: The Hide-a-Ride, Looking for Gold, Ever So Much More So, Experiment 13, Grampa Hercules and the Gravitty-Bitties, Pie and Punch and You-Know-Whats.

Mr. McCloskey's characters have warmth and kindness and a healthy curiosity; but they are not above a few minor faults and foibles. They are unmistakenably alive. Like Mr. McCloskey himself, they are perpetually amused by the everyday hazards and discrepancies around them.

From the Back Cover

It's not that the folks in Centerburg are especially nosy; it's that in a small town everyone seems to know everything. But Homer Price does know more about what's going on than anyone, because he's usually in the middle of things...

About the Author

Robert McCloskey (1914-2003) wrote and illustrated some of the most honored and enduring children's books ever published. He grew up in Hamilton, Ohio, and spent time in Boston, New York, and ultimately Maine, where he and his wife raised their two daughters. The first ever two-time Caldecott Medal winner, for Make Way for Ducklings and Time of Wonder, McCloskey was also awarded Caldecott Honors for Blueberries for Sal, One Morning in Maine, and Journey Cake, Ho! by Ruth Sawyer. He was declared a Living Legend by the Library of Congress in 2000. You can see some of his best-loved characters immortalized as statues in Boston's Public Garden and Lentil Park in Hamilton, Ohio.