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(More customer reviews)To my mind, "How To Eat Fried Worms" is an American children's classic ranking just behind "Harriet the Spy". In school, kids are constantly being forced to read books that, while excellently written, haven't a funny or amusing sentence anywhere to be seen. This is a foolish act on the part of schools. If you want your children to become good readers, you need to soften the meaningful with the flamboyant and silly. I was actually expecting, "How To Eat Fried Worms" to be some kind of mildly amusing but essentially meaningless tale. I certainly didn't expect anyone to actually EAT a worm. Instead, I found that this is a brilliantly plotted war between two factions of friends and a book that can do a lot of good in teaching kids about rising action, climax, and satisfying endings. Plus lots of worms get munched.
When four friends, Billy, Tom, Alan, and Joe meet one day to discuss why Tom failed to join the others in a trespassing incident, they learn that he was kept indoors for not eating his dinner. Billy, the group's unofficial leader, pooh-poohs Tom's finicky ways, claiming that he could eat almost anything. This kind of statement leads to a dare. Could Billy eat a worm? How about fifteen worms? How about fifteen worms in fifteen days for fifty dollars? The bet is made, hands are shaken, and the rules are clear. Billy can use any condiment he chooses and may eat the worms broiled, fried, baked, or however he prefers. As the contest continues, Alan and Joe attempt to find ways to win an increasingly desperate war against Billy. They try psychological warfare. They try out-and-out cheating. They try using Billy's parents against him. They try using Billy's greed against him and at the last minute come up with a plan that very nearly finishes their friend for good. This all inevitably leads to fights, panicked late-night worm hunts, and an ending that will have kids gripping the edge of their seats as Billy's little brother Pete comes through at the last minute.
At the heart of the tale, however, is the worm eating. It's funny, but as the years have gone by the covers for "How To Eat Fried Worms" have grown more and more explicit. At first they wouldn't even show a worm. In the 1980s the cover displayed two kids presenting two others with a steaming silver plate of ... something. Now, at last, the worm is displayed on the cover in all its magnificent ickyness. Rockwell balances out the gross with the funny with the thoughtful. Some reviewers of this book have shown confusion over such chapter headings as "Admirals Nagumo and Kusaka on the Bridge of the Akaiga, December 6, 1941" or "Guadalcanal". I don't think it takes too much intelligence, however, to determine that these titles show that the boys are in a state of war. It's mind against not-so-queasy stomach and the stomach seems to have the obvious advantage. Reading this book, kids get easily sucked into a slowly escalating battle between two desperate sides. It's like a war without much in the way of pain and blood and gore. By the way, the original pen and ink illustrations by Emily McCully (who later went on to give us the Caldecott winning title, "Mirette On the High Wire") are simple but effective, complimenting the text very nicely indeed.
I'd like to state for the record that those of you who eschew this title without having read it are doing yourself a disservice. This is a consistently amusing, intelligent, and really well-written title that'll get even reluctant readers engrossed... and grossed. To those schools who already assign this book for Summer Reading I commend you. To those schools who do not, I would like to point out that "How To Eat Fried Worms" was originally published in 1973. What on earth are you waiting for?
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