42 pages • 1 hour read
Skinnybones
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Background
Authorial Context: Barbara Park’s Middle Grade World
Skinnybones author Barbara Park has a long and detailed history of contributions to the middle grade genre. Her first novel, Don’t Make Me Smile (1981), was quickly followed by two others in 1982—Operation: Dump the Chump and Skinnybones. With Park’s first three novels, she established a trend of writing stories that appeal to children who are going through struggles very similar to those faced by her whimsical yet realistic protagonists. For example, Don’t Make Me Smile focuses on Charlie Hinkle, whose parents are going through a divorce. Through Charlie’s story, Park shows children how to grapple with their own feelings about divorce. Her second novel, Operation: Dump the Chump, focuses on Oscar Winkle, who faces another common problem that children face: dealing with annoying siblings. The book follows Oscar’s efforts to get his younger brother sent to summer camp so that he can have a few weeks of peace. Oscar’s story provides young readers with an outlet for frustrations they may feel toward their own siblings.
Like its predecessors, Skinnybones tackles the common issue of social competition, as Alex feels small, unpopular, and unathletic. Because sports are often a central part of children’s social sphere, Skinnybones offers healthy alternatives to athletic skill, delivering the philosophy that many other talents can stand on an equal social level with sports prowess. As Alex struggles to arrive at this realization, his self-conscious narrative is designed to strike a chord with readers who may feel similarly inadequate among the intense peer pressure of the sports arena.
However, Park’s literary legacy is much broader than her first three books. Her most famous series is the Junie B. Jones series, which follows the quirky and enthusiastic titular character as she works her way through kindergarten and first grade. These books are designed to appeal to a wide audience of young children who feel that they are unusual compared to their peers. Junie’s adventures, like those of Park’s other protagonists, demonstrate that children who might not fit in can still find their own niche to fill in the world. In this way, Park has provided important contributions to children’s literature and focused on enticing young readers to see themselves in the pages of her books.
Literary Context: Humorous and Self-Deprecating Protagonists
Barbara Park’s Skinnybones is part of a broader middle grade trend that focuses on featuring a self-deprecating protagonist who struggles with confidence and a barrage of social dilemmas. Because the transition from elementary school to middle school is often a difficult one that requires children to navigate greater scholastic and social pressures, the conflicts faced by this age group are fertile territory for authors to explore, and Park’s work joins the ranks of middle grade novels that offer meaningful and realistic scenarios.
One of the better-known series that uses a self-deprecating narrative to capture the awkwardness of middle school is Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2007) and its sequels. Following the publication of the first novel, the series’ concept gained meteoric popularity. This mainstream series currently stands at 19 installments, and there are many other books that feature the Wimpy Kid branding and tie into the novel’s universe. In 2010, the books were adapted into a major motion picture, allowing the series to leave a lasting mark on the world of children’s literature. The protagonist, Greg Heffley, shares a range of attributes with Alex Frankovitch, given that his insecurities about his size often manifest in the form of self-deprecating jokes. Alex and Greg are not the only two young male protagonists that follow this trend, but their stories have become particularly prominent within the genre, and both Kinney and Park have made notable contributions to the genre of middle grade fiction that deals with insecurities and complex social dynamics.
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