Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Ruth M. Stein

Critical Essay by Ruth M. Stein

Dumps seem to be popping up frequently in juvenile literature this year. [The one in Mrs. Fish, Ape, and Me, The Dump Queen] is the Queenship Town Dump, whose smells and sights come alive under Mazer's deft pen. "Ape" is what people call Old Dad, Joyce's uncle in charge of the dump. Mrs. Fish is the temporary custodian in Joyce's school who befriends the lonely girl. How life becomes more bearable for all is the ordinary theme made extraordinary by well-delineated characters and the proper mixture of laughter and tears.

Ruth M. Stein, in her review of "Mrs. Fish, Ape, and Me, The Dump Queen" (copyright © 1981 by the National Council of Teachers of English; reprinted by permission of the publisher and the author), in Language Arts, Vol. 58, No. 2, February, 1981, p. 185.