Laura Purdie Salas

Small Reads for Brighters Days

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You are here: Home / My Reading Life / One Book I Love: I Am the Messenger

One Book I Love: I Am the Messenger

December 8, 2009 By Laura

I loved Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, and now I’m a giant fan of I Am the Messenger, too (both Printz Honor books). Ed Kennedy is a 19-year-old slacker, working as a cabbie, living with his smelly dog, The Doorman, in a hovel, fairly content to silently worship his best friend Audrey and drink with his friends.

He’s a passive guy, which usually makes for an annoying character. But then he begins receiving anonymous playing cards in the mail with cryptic directions to fix things. As he reluctantly becomes involved in fixing other people’s lives, Ed becomes more active, more assertive. The change is realistic and touching. And he never loses the humor that made me stick with the book despite not liking him all that much in the book’s beginning.

Reading the book, I cared not only about Ed but about his friends and the people he helps, from the mom and daughter living with an abusive man, to the old lady with Alzheimer’s, to the priest with the empty church. It’s a mixture of humor, mystery, and melancholy. And somehow, Zusak drew me right into a character whose life is so unlike mine, but whom I identified with completely by the end of the book. And it takes a lot of skill to make me identify with a slacker 19-year-old guy. The smelly dog part is only natural, since Captain Jack Sparrow smells a little ripe some days!

Tagged With: novels

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MAY NEWS

All 3 of my 2023 books are out now! Thank you to everyone who's celebrated with me, shared the books, or read/reviewed them. <3

Right now, I'm recovering from National Poetry Month! I'm also working on 2 tricky picture book revisions, and I'm preparing for a bunch of speaking events and storytimes! Join Yvonne Pearson and I for two loon-themed outdoor storytimes on June 6 and August 1. And on July 14, I'll be storying up a storm at Robert Trail Library! Hope to see you there!

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