Publishers Weekly
Spinelli (Jake and Lily) creates a surreal landscape reminiscent of J.M. Barrie’s Never Land in this poignant celebration of childhood exuberance. Don’t bother looking for adults in Hokey Pokey, where boys and girls dine on flavored ice and spend their days watching cartoons, playing cowboy games, and using their bicycles as trusty steeds. Jack’s bike, Scramjet, is the most coveted of all, and one day it’s stolen by his archenemy, Jubilee. This marks the first of a series of unsettling events that give Jack, a boy on the brink of adolescence, the eerie impression that “things have shifted.” It isn’t just that his tattoo, the mark of all residents, is fading; something deep inside him is pulling him away from familiar landmarks, friends, enemies, and routines. Spinelli’s story will set imaginations spinning and keep readers guessing about Jack’s fate and what Hokey Pokey is all about (so to speak). The ending is both inevitable and a risk (it invokes one of the more clichéd tropes in literature and film), but Spinelli’s dizzying portrait of life in Hokey Pokey will keep readers rapt. Ages 10–up. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
Starred Review, School Library Journal, January 1, 2013:
“This unforgettable coming-of-age story will resonate with tween readers and take its rightful place beside the author’s Maniac Magee and Louis Sachar’s Holes.”
Starred Review, Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2012:
“A masterful, bittersweet recognition of coming-of-age.
JANUARY 2013 - AudioFile
Hokey Pokey is a land for kids from birth through early adolescence. It’s a world of the imagination in which bikes are supreme and the railroad tracks never see trains—until one day Jack hears a far-off whistle. Maxwell Glick and Tara Sands work well in their team narration. They both manage effective character differentiation, but it’s an especially tough job for Glick, who carries both the narrative and all the male voices, which predominate in the story. His narration would be improved by having a voice in his repertoire for the occasional adult. But this is to quibble as his voices for children—from toddlers to teens—are convincing. The many transitions from one young character’s dialogue to another’s work well. M.C. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
If childhood were a place…. In the adultless land of Hokey Pokey, a dry, sandy environment reminiscent of the Southwest, children arrive when they've outgrown diapers and receive a ticklish tattoo of an eye on their abdomens. At midday they line up for a serving of hokey pokey, an ice treat in any flavor imaginable. The rest of their day is spent playing, watching a giant television with nonstop cartoons or riding bicycles, which are horselike creatures that roll in herds and can buck their owners off at will. In this inventive, modern fable, Jack awakens with a bad feeling that's realized when his legendary Scramjet bike is stolen by Jubilee, a girl no less, and his tattoo has started to fade. As he searches for his bike and the reason why "[t]he world is rushing at him, confusing him, alarming him," he recalls The Story about The Kid who grew up and hinted at tomorrow, an unrecognizable place to children. With nods to J.M. Barrie, Dr. Seuss and Philip Pullman, Newbery Medalist Spinelli crafts stunning turns of phrase as Jack "unfunks" and tries to "dehappen" the day's events. While reluctantly accepting his growing up, Jack brings Hokey Pokey's bully to justice, suddenly finds Jubilee an interesting companion and prepares his Amigos for his imminent departure. A masterful, bittersweet recognition of coming-of-age. (Fiction. 10-13, adult)
