My editor, Jean Feiwel, was great and kept encouraging me to have at it, to go anywhere that I felt I had to go with it.ĭid you set parameters for yourself, in terms of working within Burnett’s original storyline? I knew I needed to follow the original story line-or that I wanted to-but I knew I had to make it different enough that it would be worthwhile for people to read my novel. The idea of writing a contemporary version of The Secret Garden was very exciting to me, yet at the same time it was very, very intimidating. How did you tackle the actual writing of The Humming Room? I have a battered copy on my bookshelf-it’s really quite a mess! The experience of reading the novel keeps deepening for me. I’ve reread The Secret Garden every year as an adult. She’s always finding something new popping up-something delightful or surprising. Rereading The Secret Garden, Ifelt a lot like Mary feels when she visits her garden.

A lot of times when I go back to books I loved when I was young I don’t quite understand what it was that I loved about them. New York: Philomel Books.Yes, very unusual for me. 6th through 8th graders will enjoy this book. There are a few fun twists and turns at the end that we don’t see coming. It is actually a wonder that he is as well-adjusted as he is after what he has been through. As we learn more about how Owen and Jeremy use different techniques to deal with their parents’ death, we become sympathetic to Owen and his plight. Then, I was afraid that his parents died in 9/11, since their new ‘mom’ is a dispatcher for New York Police. But by page 2 I was laughing out loud at the witty comebacks that Owen thinks inwardly while outwardly saying something lame. In the meantime, his cookies are missing.Īt first, I thought, oh great, another fat boy gets teased book. Owen begins to believe that he can use an invention to capture the radio waves as they bounce back from an unknown star to see a replay of his parents’ murder and capture the suspect. At one time, he puts Owen in a dog harness in front of the class and makes him do summersaults. Owen’s classmates make fun of him being fat, calling him Flapjack and farting when he comes near.

To make matters worse, he is starting a new school, his sister has started calling herself “Jeremy” and dressing like a boy, and, oh, yeah, he witnessed his parents being shot to death only two years before. Owen Birnbaum at 12 years old is 5 foot 2 and 157 pounds.

Slob by Ellen Potter