The Janitor's Boy (Andrew Clements)

The Janitor's Boy
Andrew Clements
Atheneum Books
Fiction, CH General Fiction
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: Jack Rankin used to be proud of his father... way back when he was in second grade, before he realized that janitors were considered the lowest of the low. Now, he's stuck in the very school where his father works. Worse, when a classmate got sick, Dad smiled at him in front of the whole class and said hello to Jack, calling him "son". Of course, the class bullies latch onto this bit of information in a snap... and it never would've happened if his father had a better job! This calls for revenge, by way of a massive wad of gum smeared under a desk in the music room: just the way to send a message to his father about what Jack thinks of janitors in general and him in particular.
Unfortunately, teachers and principals aren't as oblivious as kids would like to believe, at least not when it really matters. Caught, Jack is sentenced to three weeks of gum cleaning duty after school, which will mean working with his dad. How much worse could his life get?
But then Jack discovers the janitors' secret: keys that let them access any room in the building. He never expected his explorations to teach him more about his father, and why the man seems so happy and proud being "just" a school janitor.

REVIEW: I've only read a few of Clements's books, but the ones I have read have been stellar. He really had a way of capturing the often-awkward, sometimes-painful moments of growing up, and presenting adults as something more than monolithic masses even in stories geared around young protagonists. This story is a small slice of a boy's life, but a pivotal one, as Jack struggles in a vice between peer pressure and family; he never truly hates his father, not at a bone-deep level at any rate, but feels frustrated and, yes, more than a little ashamed to be known as the janitor's boy. Sentenced to work with the janitors after school, he learns there's more to them and their jobs than he ever stopped to think about before, just as he learns that there's more to his father than he ever realized; everything and everyone has hidden facets, from old school buildings to the people whom he's always taken for granted around him. Meanwhile, the act of gum-based vandalism/rebellion wakes his father John up to the fact that Jack isn't a little kid anymore, and that a growing boy needs more to hold onto if there's going to be a relationship in the future. John finally brings the boy into his confidence about some of the forces that shaped him, including his own stressful relationship with Jack's late grandfather. It culminates in a rite of passage that's both a literal and metaphoric journey out of young childhood and young childish emotions and viewpoints and into something more mature and nuanced.

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