Living in Norvelt may be a dead end in 1962, but it is never boring in Jack Gantos's 2012 Newbery Award winning novel! Twelve-year-old Jack Gantos has been grounded for various offenses and his only ticket 'out of jail' is to help arthritic Miss Volker type up the obituaries for the dying pioneers of Norvelt. His punishment for the summer is to dig a bomb shelter in the backyard, and the time he's allowed to escape to help Miss Volker becomes a welcome reprieve from the back-breaking work. In this task he discovers the history of the town of Norvelt and of its oldest residents. Historic Norvelt was a community designed by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt following the Great Depression to offer its residents good affordable housing in this experimental utopian town. But by the sixties, society has moved on and so have many of the businesses and residents. The remaining residents are colorful, wacky, and often hilarious; even Jack's dad, who is determined to escape Norvelt in a salvaged airplane he is rebuilding in the garage and is constantly feuding with Jack's mother, who refuses to leave her hometown. Young Jack's adventures lead him to unusual chores involving the newly dead, molten wax, the Hell's Angels, and countless bloody noses. This is a funny mix of true circumstances and wildly crazy fictional antics!
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