When I was a kid, readers’ advisory was not a service commonly offered by children’s and school librarians. Their mission becomes urgent when Jon’s ability to read minds is widely publicized by the media, ultimately coming to the attention of government agencies which recognize just how useful the boy could be for intelligence purposes.Īlthough it was originally published in 1965, only recently did I became aware of this novel for children.
They recognize that they must help the boy recover his memory and get him back to the world he came from. Thomas and his family willingly take on the job of protecting Jon from wrongful criminal charges. The Beans marvel at the boy’s ability to read minds, know others’ intentions, and effortlessly learn an entirely new language, English. That laws (and a government to make them) should really be necessary to keep people in line and that humans should actually use animals for food and clothing are ideas both foreign and troubling to Jon. While some objects (books and radios) and concepts (kindness) are familiar to him, others (like automobiles) are not. The Beans quickly figure out that Jon is not of this world. He’s a classic vindictive and ignorant local yokel. Lying and blaming come just as easily to him. Gilby, it turns out, is intimately acquainted with stealing, having done so much of it himself. Pitts is responsible for minding when its owner is away. Soon the hateful pair will report him for breaking, entering, and robbing a summer home that Mr. The couple quickly spread the rumour that a “wild boy” is on the loose, a foreign-looking, “unnatural,” and strangely dressed being. Pitts has already set him on the wrong track. However, Jon’s unfortunate confrontation with the unsavoury Mr. The Beans-Mary, Thomas, and their children, Brooks and Sally-stop their pick-up truck on a nearby country road and take the boy home with them.
Shortly after this, Jon, who has the ability to sense the emotions and thoughts of others, makes contact with benevolent humans.
However, even they cannot save him from a nasty first encounter with a gun-toting malevolent human, Gilby Pitts (and his equally repugnant wife, Emma), after he unwittingly walks onto their land. Initially he relies on the guidance of animals with whom he can communicate telepathically. Impaired by amnesia from the impact of crashing down among the rocks in a cave, Jon tries to navigate the mountainous new landscape he finds himself in. What surprises the reader is that the world “Little John” falls into is the human one. While gazing at the night-time sky with his people, a boy falls through a hole in the hillside, ending up in another world. He could see only one solution that might help. Everything was so unbelievably tangled in this world, with their laws and their money and their hates and their fighting for power.
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