Social stigma and prejudice often accompany these disorders and may exact a high toll on kids who suffer from them, both diagnosed and undiagnosed. Enter Joey Pigza!!
Joey Pigza is a young boy suffering from ADHD, the creation of award-winning author, Jack Gantos. Joey's struggles, heartwarming, hyperactive and humorous, have struck a chord with readers of every generation and situation. Joey Pigza Loses Control is a 2001, Newbery Honor Book. Both Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key and Joey Pigza Loses Control are intimate, if twitchy, dances through the thoughts and feelings of a boy struggling to be who he is, in the best way possible. Even when who he is may not be clear, as medication levels wax and wane, and doctors, therapists, and teachers come and go.
Joey's not trying to be a hero, he has enough problems simply making it through each day. See, Joey was born "wired", as his grandma puts it, so he tends to do things and act ways which other people, particularly adults, find troubling. Such as waking early in the morning and building a fort out of every piece of furniture not nailed down. Such as repeating phrases he finds appealing, or which stick in his head. Such as sliding the house key, hanging on a string around his neck, up and down his throat, a personal distraction, until the teacher cuts it from its string and Joey swallows it for real!
Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key and Joey Pigza Loses Control are active, intense reads, like their main character and the kids and adults who inspired him. It is almost painful to see Joey bouncing and be-bopping around, unable to control himself. The reader sympathizes with Joey as he struggles to fit in with his classmates yet discovers he needs time-outs in a special education class, in order to successfully survive a school day.
Readers, old and young, experience life from the perspective of a child with ADHD, the pain and frustration of trying to cope in isolation, and the fight to overcome incredible obstacles. Joey Pigza struggles not only against his own body and mind, but in Joey Pigza Loses Control, against a father who rejects the necessary medical interventions and forces Joey to battle his disability without medication, in this case, a battle destined to be lost.
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