Macaroni Boy

By Katherine Ayres

Book Overview

During the Great Depression, a boy who faces bullying stumbles upon a mystery and comes of age in this novel that integrates fact and opinion and has a rich 1930's vocabulary. Extra material: An Author's Note is included in the back of the book.

Mike Costa has lived his whole life in The Strip, Pittsburgh's warehouse and factory district. His father's large Italian family runs a food wholesale business, and Mike is used to the sounds and smells of men working all night to unload the trains that feed the city. But it's 1933, and the Depression is bringing tough times to everyone. Money problems only add to Mike's worries about his beloved grandfather, who is getting forgetful and confused.
Mike is being tormented at school by a loud-mouth named Andy Simms, who calls Mike "Macaroni Boy." But when dead rats start appearing in the streets, that name changes to "Rat Boy." Around the same time Mike notices that his grandfather is also physically sick. Can whatever is killing the rats be hurting Mike's grandfather? It's a mystery Mike urgently needs to solve in this atmospheric, fast-paced story filled with vibrant period detail.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0440418844
• ISBN13: 9780440418849
• Release Date: July 2004
• Publisher: Rh Childrens Books
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.2" x 7.6"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

Caroline's Macaroni boy review

I read a nutmeg book titled Macaroni Boy by Katherine Ayres. It is an interesting and suspenseful story that left me hanging every time I closed the book. This book was set in Pittsburgh during the time of the depression. The main characters in this story are Andy Simms-the school bully, Michael Costa who is nick named Macaroni boy because his family owns a food company, Joseph who is Mike's best friend, and Mikes Grand-pap... who is been acting very strange lately. The main problem of the book occurs when Mike's grand-pap starts vomiting blood and dead rats start appearing everywhere. Other strange things happen like a banana warehouse suddenly explodes leaving the smell of rotten bananas for weeks. Mike decides to investigate to find out what is killing the rats and making his grand pap sick. My favorite part of the book was when the banana warehouse exploded. It was my favorite part because it brought a lot of suspense it brought to the story, and of all the commotion it caused on the strip and how much people wished for it to rain for the nasty smell to disappear- I thought that it was pretty funny. I really liked this book because it was really suspenseful and it left my hanging every time I had to close the book, it was great story that had a lot of suspense and somewhat of a mystery. I would recommend it to any body who likes a story with a lot of suspense because it was a very well written book. I would give this book five stars because it had a lot of suspense and mystery.

This book is good

Macaroni boy is a very good read. I think everyone should read it. It tells about life during the great depression. We had to read as a class book, so everytime we stopped i wanted to read some more.

Historical Fiction Can Be Fun

Katherine Ayres specializes in "period piece" kid fiction. Like her SILVER DOLLAR GIRL, this one takes readers into the crisis zone with lots of details. This Depression story opens up pssiibilities for teachers to tie in a lot of history. Asking kids to ask their grandparents about THEIR years in the Dpression would be a good ending to the story, or take off on the tangent of how DOES a depression happen, who controls money, where does it come from and where does it go could be another one.