Jerry Spinelli’s been an author since I was a second grader, but I don’t think I’ve ever read any of his books until today. And I feel that I have cheated myself.
I just finished reading Eggs, the story of David and Primrose, two kids in Perkiomen, Pennsylvania. David is a nine year old boy whose mother died a year ago and moved to Pennsylvania to live with his grandmother while his father works two hundred miles away. Immersed in his grief, David struggles to obey all rules in hopes that his mother will return to him.
Primrose is a thirteen year old girl living with her mother, a psychic reader and advisor. Defiant, Primrose makes her home inside of a 1977 Dodge van mere feet away from where her mother lives inside a garage.
David and Primrose are such an unlikely pair, but they meet sort of at an Easter egg hunt and form a friendship that becomes more like a brother/sister relationship.
Both of them are emotionally fragile like eggs, missing a parent and being mean to the parent, or parent figure in David’s case, who is there.
A summer of adventure — scavenging neighbors’ trash to find items for Primrose to sell at the local flea market, nights of conversations and arguments at Refrigerator John’s, and a determined trek to Philadelphia is the foundation of this story.
Over the course of this 220 page story, Primrose and David learn some fragile truths about life, themselves, and each other.
