The Baptism

by Shelia P. Moses

Book Overview

When you turn twelve in Occoneechee Neck in Jackson, North Carolina, everything changes. You get to do stuff you couldn't do when you were eleven. And it means it's time to get baptized. Twin brothers Leon and Luke Curry turned twelve last month. Ma has given them one week in which to do right -- to cleanse themselves of their sinning ways and get themselves ready for the baptism. Next Sunday they will go down to the "mornin' bench" at church, sit in front of Reverend Webb, and be saved. It will be a glorious day. But that's only if Twin Leon and Twin Luke can keep themselves out of trouble. Which is easier said than done when you've lost your daddy and have a new stepfather; when you have a bullying big brother who plays tricks on you; and when it's summertime and all you want to do is go fishing instead of working in the fields. How Twin Leon and Twin Luke stick together to face the odds as only twelve-year-old boys can do, managing to save themselves while also unexpectedly saving their entire family in a week's time, is the heart of this moving, often funny, and often poignant novel.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416906711
• ISBN13: 9781416906711
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
• Length: 130 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.9" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

Oh brother, where art thou?

I have a love/hate relationship with the books of Sheila Moses. No. Wait. Let me correct that. More of a love/severe dislike relationship. Which is to say that when she wrote, The Legend of Buddy Bush I loved it. Anachronistic yellow telephone and all. But then she followed it up with The Return of Buddy Bush and I didn't like where she'd taken the novel. In both of those books a Ms. Pattie Mae is the protagonist, telling the tale of her Uncle Buddy's trials (both literal and figurative). By the end of "Return", though, I found I seriously didn't like my narrator anymore. She did not appeal. But remembering how much I liked "Legend", when I picked up the third in Moses's series, I had high hopes. Hopes that were never disappointed. In "The Baptism" we have ourselves an entirely new narrator, a new set of circumstances, and a great little story that deserves a lot more serious attention than it has so far received. "I figure I have six days to sin all I want to. Luke got six days too, if he will go along with the plan." Twin Leon knows the drill. You turn twelve and suddenly you're expected to give up all the fun stuff that goes along with being a kid. Part of that? Getting baptized and sinning no more. Well he knows the deal and he knows he doesn't want any part of it. Sure, it's his Ma's intention to get him on the "morning bench" where he'll be accepted and baptized, but that doesn't fit in with Leon's plans. Plus he has a lot to deal with these days. His older brother (who he's dubbed "Joe Nasty") is a sneak who doesn't do any work. His stepfather ("Filthy Frank") is a no good cheat and gambler. His twin brother Luke ("Twin Luke") is some kind of Mr. Perfect. And his mom is constantly on his case about being good this week and not sinning. In the course of eight days, Leon will get into trouble, fight the elements, escape from work, get pulled away from fun, and witness the breaking apart and coming together of his remarkably strong family. Set in rural North Carolina during the 1940s, this novel explores big themes with a small intricate little novel. If there's one thing Sheila Moses does well it's write characters with minds entirely of their own. The kids in her books are so headstrong and smart that it's a wonder that even their author is able to wrangle them into place from scene to scene. In Twin Leon you have such a great kid. Anyone who can say right at the start that if baptizing means not sinning then they just won't get baptized is going to be fun to watch. But when Leon catalogs his sins you can see that they aren't all lighthearted Dennis-the-Menace-type romps. He lies, and steals extra cookies, and beats up kids cause they're white, and calls his older brother Joe Nasty because he doesn't bathe regularly. Moses slips in the serious with the silly so skillfully you might miss it if you blinked. At the same time, she asks big questions couched in the mind of a twelve-year-old boy. Leon's slow change over the course of a week