Carry Me Home

by Sandra Kring

Book Overview

The love of family. The heartbreak of war. The triumph of coming home. 1940. Rural Wisconsin. Sixteen-year-old Earl "Earwig" Gunderman is not like other boys his age. Fiercely protected by his older brother, Earwig sees his town and the world around him through the prism of his own unique understanding. He sees his mother's sadness and his father's growing solitude. He sees his brother, Jimmy, falling in love with the most beautiful girl in town...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385338139
• ISBN13: 9780385338134
• Release Date: December 2004
• Publisher: Bantam Dell
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Carry Me Home

This story was both heartbreaking and heartwarming. Earwig may have been simple but his wisdom and sensitivity made him a hero. I finished this book and took it with some baked treats to my 80 year old uncle. The next day he called and asked where I ever found this treasure.

Carry home"Carry Me Home"

Earl"Earwig" Gundersen, 16, is mentally slow due to a high fever as a baby, but he is one of the wisest characters I have read. In his simplicity is a guilelessness, a gentleness, an intuitive ability to aid without reward. As our narrator, Earwig is our compass back to the 1940's in the height of WWII. Once content to play with his 8 year old friend, Eddie, finding tadpoles and sticking suckers, Earl's big brother's enlistment in the army changes Earwig's family dynamic forever. Under the pressures of his parents constant bickering, the townspeople angst of lost, and his brother's subsequent return home a shell of his former self, Earwig is forced into responsibilities that surpass his once perceived abilities. His intuitiveness to simply love and accept balms the situations that threaten to destroy a family and a town. Sandra Kring writing is magical. It is unique. In the publishing world of formulaic writing she breaks the rules and writes with a fervor that ignites the same in her readers. She straps us in a roller coaster and takes us on a wild ride while we give in glady to her centrifugal force. It becomes nearly impossible to put down the book once you begin and that kind of writing is exhilarating. Buy the ticket; take the ride; you will not be disappointed.

Book Description

From Publishers Weekly: Earnestly narrated by brain-damaged 16-year-old Earl "Earwig" Gunderman ("Ma said that after the fever was gone, my brain was like meat cooked too long, and it just fell apart whenever I tried to learn something new"), Kring's heartfelt debut explores the effects of WWII on a smalltown Wisconsin family. Earwig, whose intellectual difficulties are balanced by his sharp emotional intelligence, gets a significant assist in the growing-up process from his older brother, Jimmy. But after enlisting in the National Guard on a drunken whim, Jimmy is shipped out with one of the first ill-equipped units to be sent to the Philippines. When his unit is overrun in Bataan, his fate is assumed to be grim. At home, Earwig sighs about rationing, discovers a dark family secret and hopes for Jimmy's safe return. And Jimmy does come home, but, shell-shocked after years as a POW, he drowns his sorrows in drink. It takes Earwig's devotion and a tender new relationship with young widow Eva Leigh to turn him around. Kring's narrative is familiar at first, but hits its stride after Jimmy's homecoming, capturing family tensions and the divisive town dynamics when Jimmy and his fellow soldiers criticize the government for abandoning them in Bataan. Strong characters, a clear community portrait and a memorable protagonist whose poignant fumblings cloak an innocent wisdom demonstrate Kring's promise. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Fantastic!

I have been trying unsuccessfully for about a year to get my 12-year old son to read. I have bought him book after book in the hope that he would become interested. No luck. Until I drove out of state and listened to this book on tape. My son became enthralled. Now he can't read enough. And as for myself, I loved this book. Thank you, Sandra Kring.

Perfect for Book Clubs

I often wonder why some books make the bestseller list when they shouldn't and others don't when they should. Carry Me Home should have. It's an eloquent story that's filled with sensitivity, humanity, and emotional depth. Set in a small town in Wisconsin during WWII, Carry Me Home lets us enter the lives of sweet and perceptive 16-year-old "Earwig," his parents, his brother Jimmy, and friends. When Jimmy goes off to war and becomes a POW, Earwig learns to become a man and takes a job at the bowling alley. He becomes friends with the lovely widow Eva Leigh and her somewhat promiscuous sister. Although it deals with the, regretfully, timeless issue of war and how people on the homefront deal with loss and hardships, it's not just about difficult times. This is a story about a family that loves and supports each other and deals with life with humor and compassion. The result is a tender novel of love, loss, and the pain of growing up. Kring's characters are colorful and enchanting, and Earwig's family and friends became my family and friends. This outstanding and inspiring book will stay with me for a long time.

A Beautiful Story!

It seems I'm only moved to write a review when I award 4 or 5 stars, but I do love to recommend good books to readers. It's hard to believe Carry Me Home is Ms. Kring's first novel. I've never read a book quite like it, and look forward to future books from this author. Earwig and his family are good people living in difficult times. Although Earwig is mentally slow, we could all learn from his observations of life and people; the world would be better off.