The summer of 1962 proves to be a bumper-car* ride through history for young Jack Gantos in this wonderful semi-autobiographical novel by the author of the same name.

    Grounded by his parents, Gantos still manages to be in the thick of small-town doings, thanks to Miss Volker, who has arthritic* hands and needs his services as scribe* for her newspaper obituaries*.

    In her free-ranging essays, Miss Volker mixes details about the dead with town history (Norvelt was founded in 1934 by Eleanor Roosevelt) and world events (such as the English Peasants’ Revolt of 1381).

    These, in turn, make Gantos think about gossip*, war movies, factories and the gold-crazed Spanish explorers in American textbooks of the time.

    As the summer continues, the number of obituaries and corpses* increases suspiciously*, and Gantos and the elderly busybody Mr. Spizz vie* with one another to discover the truth.

    The darkly comic mystery* and strange characters make for some good laughs, but the riffs* on history raise the consciousness as well: Who gets to record events and, thus, shape the public’s view of the past? Gantos suggests that history need not be the purview* of winners and learned professors alone. (SD-Agencies)