Penrod
Product Description
Newton Booth Tarkington (1869-1946) was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams. Booth Tarkington was born in Indianapolis. He first attended Purdue University but graduated from Princeton University in 1893. While at Princeton he was the editor of the Nassau Literary Magazine and formed the Princeton Triangle Club. He was also voted the most popular man in his class. He was one of… More >>
Related posts:
Tagged with: Alice Adams • American Novelist • Booth Tarkington • Dramatist • Indianapolis • Magnificent Ambersons • Nassau • Newton Booth • Penrod • Popular Man • Princeton Triangle Club • Princeton University • Product Description • Pulitzer Prize Winning Novels • Purdue University
Filed under: Christmas Gifts
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
I was reminded of the Penrod books by a review exalting them at the white supremacist site American Renaissance. The person who wrote the piece was under the impression that Tarkington was approving of racism. (Such people tend to make the same mistake regarding Mark Twain.) Actually, Tarkington considered himself progressive regarding race relations, despite the racist stereotypes that are so glaring in the Penrod novels to contemporary eyes. There are quite a few wink and nod approvals of the books for the same mistaken reason as at AR here, so I’ve decided to debunk it.
Beyond the racist aspect, are the Penrod novels good children’s literature? Not really. They’re rather formulaic. Tarkington was neither a Carroll nor a Dickens. There are better books from the past and the present. Unless you are a white supremacist or Far Right sort, I doubt that you will want your child to be exposed to material that is, despite the intent of the author, indoctrination into both sexism and racism. The Penrod books are suitable for adults as historical artifacts, but that is about all.
Rating: 2 / 5
Penrod Schofield is a very bad little boy. Well it is not even that he is a bad child it is just that he gets blamed for every thing that happens; for instance when his sisters dress disappears and ends up in dukes dog house and Penrod got blamed for it even though duke took it. He enjoys writing, and playing with his dog Duke who is almost always with him. Penrod thinks of himself as the class clown and tends not to be very truthful. Penrod has an unimportant role in the school production of The Round Table, but do not tell him that because he thinks if he dose not go the show will not go on with out him. Through out the book Penrod grows up a lot in my opinion for example he tell his father the truth at the end of the book which I did not think would happen. He does get in a lot of trouble whether it’s eating too much candy or squealing on his sister.
I did not like Penrod because it was in my opinion aimed more for boys and not as much towards girls or maybe it was just me but I was not entertained through out the whole book. There were most definitely parts I liked for example parts were Penrod is in conversation; one part I did not like was the excerpts from Penrod’s book about how Mr. Wilson is killed. I liked the conversational parts because through out the book you are kind of in Penrod’s head, and I did not like that. But in conversation you sort of get both views from both people not just what Penrod thinks. Don’t lie because no one will believe you even if you are right, that is the moral of this story. I hope my review helped.
Rating: 3 / 5
I’m going to add to the chorus of rave reviews for this old gem, which had me laughing out loud at the antics of Penrod Schofield. Voted “Worst Boy in Town”, Penrod doesn’t purposely go around looking for trouble, it just happens, ya know. Read this book and go back to an innocent time where you dip girls’ pigtails into ink pots, put on a show in the barn out back, and scandalize society by doing the Turkey Trot.
I would like to recommend the book to younger readers, but as other reviewers have mentioned, what was perfectly normal back at the turn of the 20th century is considered politically incorrect concerning non-Caucasian characters. I leave it up to the individual to decide whether or not they would allow their kids to read Penrod.
Rating: 4 / 5
I read “Penrod” countless times as a boy, and still have my original copy, which I opened again today. I was amazed at how well-written it is, and how funny. This is a real novel, not a “children’s book,” and Tarkington earns full comparison with the somewhat later P. G. Wodehouse, whose style and word mastery resembles him. You may find yourself surprised. A great American book.
Rating: 5 / 5
Booth Tarkington’s humorous tales of 12-year old Penrod Schofield compare favorably with Mark Twain’s novels Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and Rudyard Kipling’s Starky and Friends. The immensely popular Penrod (1914) was followed by Penrod and Sam (1916) and Penrod Jashber (1929).
Unfortunately, some of Tarkington’s tales of young Penrod reflect the commonplace racial prejudice of early twentieth century America. This prejudice is not mean-spirited nor vicious, but nonetheless some stories may be unsettling to today’s readers. Racial prejudice is not front and center, but is simply part of the background. Racial comments are made in a casual, off-handed, unconscious fashion.
Penrod Schofield is a typical boy. He has little interest in being a perfect young gentleman (and in fact considers the term somewhat pejorative). He is not bad boy by any means, but he does seem to be continually in trouble. He is embarrassed by his forced participation in school plays and dance classes, and always seems to offend the only girl for whom he has some liking.
At one point Penrod quickly makes friends with two young black boys, Herman and Verman, and persuades them to participate in an exhibition as Herman the one-fingered tatood wild man and Verman the savage tatood wild boy who talks only in his native languages. Their small earnings from their amateur carnival are shared fairly. Penrod is particularly impressed that their father was in jail: “Pappy cut a man, an’ de police done kep’ him in jail sense Chris’mus-time; but dey goin’ tuhn him loose ag’in nex’ week.”
A later chapter in which Herman and Verman save Penrod from a white bully is titled Coloured Troops in Action. The reader recognizes that Penrod’s occasional expressions like darky boy (and other more objectionable terms) are never intentionally offensive, but are simply common speech (and hence reflections of a pervasive, socially acceptable prejudice, not a personal prejudice on Penrod’s part.)
Nonetheless, Tarkington’s Penrod tales are not likely to be found in classrooms today. Rightly or wrongly, later generations (and certainly recent generations) hold earlier generations to new standards. There is much to be said for and against political correctness, but it is a shame when earlier literature is ignored (a prejudicial censorship?) for modern sins.
Penrod provides a fascinating insight into how completely racial prejudice permeated American society in the early twentieth century. A creative high school history teacher might use Penrod as an illustration that societal norms do change in relatively short periods. In any event I recommend Penrod to any reader with a little tolerance for past prejudices and past intolerances.
Booth Tarkington is a lesser known author today, although other than William Faulkner, he is the only author to have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction twice – The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) and Alice Adams (1921).
Rating: 4 / 5