The Pigman & Me

by Paul Zindel

Overview

"Eight hundred and fifty-three horrifying things had happened to me by the time I was a teenager. That was when I met my Pigman, whose real name was Nonno Frankie."

The year Paul Zindel, his sister, Betty, and their mother lived in the town of Travis, Staten Island, New York, was the most important time of his teenage life. It was the year he and Jennifer Wolupopski were best friends. It was the year of the apple tree, the water-head baby, and Cemetery Hill. And it was the year he met Nonno Frankie Vivona, who became his Pigman.

Every word of his story is true. And The Pigman & Me has an added bonus--one crucial piece of information: the secret of life, according to the Pigman.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781935169307
Publisher:	Graymalkin Media
Publication date:	09/28/2010
Pages:	179
Product dimensions:	4.10(w) x 6.70(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Paul Zindel (1936-2003) was a playwright, young adult novelist, and educator. His most well-known work, The Pigman, is a children's book often taught in classrooms to study themes of peer pressure, loss, family, and death, despite being one of the most frequently banned books in America. Zindel's debut was The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, a play for which he received the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Zindel was also awarded the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association for his contribution to young adult literature.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 7-12A popular author turns teen troubles into humor as he recalls the year he, his sister, and their neurotic, wheeler-dealer mother shared a house with another single mother and her rambunctious, identical, preschool twins. Salvation comes in the form of his "pigman." (Sept. 1992)

School Library Journal

"Eight hundred and fifty-three horrifying things had happened to me by the time I was a teenager. That was when I met my pigman, whose real name was Nonno Frankie," begins this wry autobiography. Zindel recalls the zesty Frankie, father of a young Italian woman who, with her hyperactive twin sons, shared a house with teenage Zindel, his mother, and his sister. A frequent visitor, Frankie dispensed sound advice and a passion for life along with platters of frog legs and pasta. With the warmth characteristic of his classic novel "The Pigman", Zindel talks about those visits, and about battles with cockroaches, suicide threats from his unstable mother, bullies, and those meaning-of-life questions that trouble everyone--especially teens. His thoughtful, humorous book is one that even reluctant readers will enjoy. To be illustrated with photographs.

Candace Smith