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The Bulletin
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The
Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester
by Barbara O'Connor
Owen Jester lives in a not-much-happenin’ little corner of Georgia,
where tending his freshly captured bullfrog, Tooley, is about as
interesting as things are likely to get this summer. He and his buddies
Travis and Stumpy have all kinds of plans for securing Tooley’s
comfort: they’ll build him bigger digs; they’ll partially submerge his
chicken-wire mansion in the pond, where fresh food will swim through
his cage; they’ll do just about anything but set him free. Viola, a
pestering age-mate who lives nearby, incessantly turns up with unwanted
advice, eliciting the predictable responses of taunting and evasion
from the boys. But Owen quietly begins to suspect that Viola may often
be as correct as she is annoying, and when he discovers the Water
Wonder 4000, a small recreational submarine that rolled off a train en
route from a Canadian manufacturer to a Florida resort, bookish Viola
is the one who can actually strategize how to get the thing to the pond
for a joyride before adults put the inevitable kibosh on their
adventure.
O’Connor masterfully twists the two plot threads—Owen’s gradual
realization that Tooley must be released, and the children’s Fitzcarraldo-like mission to move
the submarine through brush to pond—into a fully convincing tale
pitched perfectly to the upper elementary grades. Any reader who has
ever dragged home an injured bird or captured a lightning bug in a jar
will fully empathize with Owen’s struggle to overcome his stubborn,
misguided sense of ownership. Tension is palpable as O’Connor
meticulously traces Tooley’s physical decline, and Owen’s decision to
do right by the bullfrog is far from a sure thing. While Owen wrestles
with his conscience, the guys face the four-pronged challenge of
submarine transport: formulating a workable plan, gathering materials,
keeping their efforts secret from adults, and working cooperatively to
execute the mission. And that means swallowing buckets of pride in
admitting that Viola knows a thing or three about hacksaws,
submersibles, and the load-moving strategies of Egyptian pyramid
builders.
Owen comes a long way over the summer, especially in learning to tap
into the resources of those around him. O’Connor blesses him with a
circle of family and friends who can offer him just what he needs at
the moment he’s open to receive it. His grandfather, bedridden after
what appears to have been a stroke, cannot spout wisdom or advise, but
his soft grunts, lopsided smiles, and slightly raised hands provide the
encouragement Owen needs to reach his own decision to set Tooley free.
Owen’s parents and the grouchy housekeeper, Earlene, stand quietly in
the background (well, quite noisily in Earlene’s case), giving Owen
space to work out his issues, but ready to reel him in with gentle
discipline when he runs amok. Travis and Stumpy, who initially do
little more than echo Owen’s aversion to Viola (“‘Go away!’ Owen
yelled. . . . ‘Mind your own business,’ Travis snapped. ‘Yeah!’ Stumpy
hollered”), prove unexpectedly adept at brainstorming, and after Viola
blackmails her way on board their project, they move haltingly from No
way/No how, to grudging respect, to total group enthusiasm as the Water
Wonder 4000 makes its maiden voyage.
If the characters are familiar in their nyah-nyah banter and determined
but rough-edged work ethic, the setting may be eye-opening for many
readers. O’Connor fashions a geography of childhood freedom in which
kids enjoy the time, space, and relative privacy in which to learn by
trial and error how to master their surroundings and expand their
relationships. Here young naggers, bumblers, skeptics, pragmatists, and
dreamers can figure out how to pull in harness together without the
noise of grown-up intervention. For many overprotected and
overscheduled children, Owen’s world offers a glimpse of almost
unimaginable liberty, and they will surely enjoy visiting a laid-back
place where perfectly good kids announce, “I’m going outside,” and
perfectly responsible parents reply, “Be back before dark.”
Elizabeth Bush, Reviewer
Cover image from The Fantastic
Secret of Owen Jester
©2010 by Greg Call. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and
Giroux Books for Young Readers.
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This page was last updated on October 1, 2010.
