I recently finished re-reading Ghost Boy, a book by Iain Lawrence.  This one made my dozen favorite books list, so it was no surprise that I enjoyed reading it again.  For me, Ghost Boy never gets old because it has such vivid characters and explores the theme of fitting in. 

            Lawrence uses picturesque details to describe Harold Kline, the protagonist:

“From the soles of his feet to the top of his head, his skin was rich like white chocolate, without a freckle anywhere.  Even his eyes were such a pale blue that they were almost clear, like raindrops or quivering dew.” If you couldn’t tell already, Harold is an albino.  The author often refers to him as Harold the Ghost.  The thing I like best about Lawrence’s writing is that he picks his words carefully.  Unlike writers like Steinbeck, who often dedicate up to a page to describe a scene or character, Lawrence rarely uses more than a few lines or paragraphs.   However, I never felt as though there was a lack of description.  In the previous quote, for example, there is just enough information to get a picture of Harold in my mind.

            The other characters are also full of, well, character.  Tina and Samuel are, to be blunt, circus freaks.  Harold firsts meets them when he ventures into a tent during set-up.  Tina, also known as Princess Minikin, is a grown women the size of a small child.  “Her face was the size of a child’s but as old as an adult’s.  It was hard to look at her, but impossible not to.”  She is always laughing and upbeat.  (Spoiler alert) Even as she is dying after being accidentally crushed by an elephant, Tina tries to smile and tells Harold that he shouldn’t feel bad.  Samuel is known by the public as the Fossil Man, because he appears to be half-human, half-ape.  “He had great, thick brows and the flattened nose of an ape, his ghastly face covered all over with hair as coarse as string…It disgusted him to feel his hand scrape against the hair on Samuel’s fingers, as stiff and bristly as a scrubbing brush.”  However, he is a very different man on the inside.  Samuel, despite his monstrous size and gruesome appearance, is really very gentle and kind to those who accept and respect him.

            The primary theme explored in Ghost Boy is normalcy and fitting in.  Harold was regarded as a freak in his hometown.  The other children taunted and jeered, and made up mean rhymes about him:

“He’s ugly and stupid

He’s dumb as a post

He’s a freak and a geek

He’s Harold the Ghost.”

As a result, Harold became reclusive and shy.  Once he joins the circus, Harold finds respect and acceptance when he trains the elephants to play baseball, something that was unheard of before he came along.  However, as Harold progresses, the “normal” members of the circus pull him away from his original friends (Tina and Harold).  People like Flip, the pretty horse trainer, insist that Harold stop spending time with the circus freaks.  Harold however, doesn’t want to lose his friends and feels torn between two worlds.  Being the eccentric individual that I am (Star Wars origami, anyone?), I can relate to Harold’s problem.  While I can’t say that I’m wanted by the popular kids (not that I’d want to, since many of them are snobs), I do often find myself ridiculed and tormented for who I am.  I just hope that someday I can be more widely accepted!