Dispatches from the 80s #3
Betsy Byars' The Animal, the Vegetable, and John D Jones
Clara sat in the backseat of the Mercedes, staring out the window. In the front seat her father and sister had been having a discussion about television for twenty miles.
—The Animal, the Vegetable, and John D Jones, by Betsy Byars
A couple of weeks ago, for the first time in decades, this book popped into my mind. Despite having read and re-read it borderline obsessively during my middle grade years, I didn’t remember a single thing about it except one of the characters being swept out to sea on a yellow inflatable raft—I even had to Google around to find the author and exact title.
Today, on what is forecast to be the only somewhat sunny morning sandwiched between two full weeks of rain, I picked it up, meaning to just read a chapter or two.
But no, it was so great that I ended up reading the whole thing.
It opens with Clara in the backseat feeling bored and left out, while her older sister chatters at their father in the front. They’re on their way to a beach vacation:
The trips with their father, since the divorce, were always like this, with both of them trying to get his attention. And it wasn’t fair, Clara thought. Deanie was two years older, two years smarter, two years funnier, and always managed to sit in the front seat.
Right from the first chapter, the sibling dynamics and character notes are so fantastically specific and perfect:
Deanie laughed. In the backseat Clara silently imitated the three notes of her sister’s laugh.
John D Jones, Jr., was packing his suitcase. The bottom layer was a thick slab of paperback books, comic books, paper, pencils, notebooks, electronic games—all the things he would take if he were going into solitary confinement.
—The Animal, the Vegetable, and John D Jones, by Betsy Byars
Meanwhile, John D Jones, Jr., and his mother are prepping for the same vacation. Turns out, Delores is dating Clara and Deanie’s father, this is the first time everyone is going to be introduced to one another, and John D is not planning on having a good time. Which I guess is unsurprising, considering that he’s either a future serial killer or Dwight Schrute’s long-lost little brother:
“I cannot understand anyone trying to be nice,” he said. “I pride myself on the fact that I have never tried to be nice in my whole life.”
To really give you a feel for the character: he’s writing a book called “Simple Ways to Get What You Want” which contains lines like, “A runny nose is particularly ineffective,” and chapters called, “You are Smarter Than Your Teachers” and “How to Conceal the Fact That You Are an Idiot: Ten Simple, Basic Rules of Behavior That Will Conceal the Stupidity That Lurks in All of You.”
That second chapter title is followed up with:
He did not write “in All of Us” because he felt no stupidity lurked in him.
So, yes: he’s a peach.
Hilariously, after he tells his mother that he’s not going to be rude, that of course he’ll politely respond to the girls if they speak to him or ask him questions—but only in sentences “containing exactly five words,” we get this:
John D’s mother stood in the doorway, watching him. Her look was regretful, as if she were a potter whose clay had hardened before she got it the way she wanted it. She closed her eyes, then opened them to the same scene.
While they’re at dinner—at Howard Johnson’s!—Clara and Deanie’s dad tells them that they’re going have have company on their vacation. WHICH, HOLY COW, WHO JUST SPRINGS THAT ON THEIR KIDS LIKE THAT?? WHAT DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO HAPPEN, DUDE?
And just like that, the girls shift from Sibling Rivalry Mode:
Suddenly it occurred to her that Deanie had probably tricked her into ordering the scallops in order to ruin her supper. She had really wanted a steak. It was Deanie who had said, “Oh, look, that woman’s having scallops. They look delish. That’s what I’m having.”
Then, after Clara had ordered scallops too, Deanie had said, “Oh, I believe I’d rather have steak.
Clara looked up and caught her sister with a faint smile on her face.
to Sibling United Front Mode:
The two girls looked at each other. Their eyes, the soft brown eyes of their mother, shifted to look at their father. He was signaling the waiter for another glass of wine.
And this moment, not even twenty pages in, made me SO PROUD of my younger self for having such great taste in books. Because that sibling shift is absolutely something that my sister and I did over and over and over again as kids. We’d be fighting about something, one of our parents would step in and read whoever seemed to be the aggressor the riot act, and we would BOTH immediately turn on the parent, hahaha. I’m so grateful that we still have that kind of relationship—way less squabbling now, but we always have one another’s back.
Pop Culture references & other things from The Past
M*A*S*H, specifically McLean Stevenson
Hoss, from Bonanza
Bee Gees
John Travolta
a flight attendant says “please extinguish all smoking materials” and is also referred to as a stewardess
Anyway, everyone arrives—when I hit the scene where Delores and John D arrive just in time to witness Clara and Deanie having an EPIC fight, it turned out that the whole thing was absolutely still in my brain, as I knew it almost by heart—all three kids have a few days of ABJECT MISERY while their parents are revoltingly schmoopy. And then Clara falls asleep on a yellow inflatable raft and accidentally floats out to sea.
It’s so clear, even from the first two chapters, that John D and Clara have a LOT in common—that they have the potential to not just be great friends and allies, but a terrifying team of obnoxiousness. Byars doesn’t lampshade it until the last third, when John D recognizes that she’s just as miserable as he is, but it’s so clear in the characterization and behavior. She shows such confidence and trust in her reader, which makes for a profoundly pleasurable read.
If I’d quoted everything I wanted to, I’d basically be sending you the entirety of the book; there are gems on every single page.
John D Jones, Jr., had never been bored in his life. This was because he had the constant companionship of the most intelligent, witty, and creative person in the world—himself.
—The Animal, the Vegetable, and John D Jones, by Betsy Byars
Given the publication year—it came out in 1982—there are, for sure, some things that don’t age well: some terminology has changed, there are some insults that mostly aren’t used now.
The big one is the conversation between the two girls about fatness and body image—neither is pleased with their own legs:
“You can have a pound off the tops of mine. I’ve got dinosaur legs.”
“Wouldn’t that be great?” Deanie said, sitting up straighter. “I mean, what if you could just go out and grab some pounds off of somebody? Here, I want some of your fat!” she said. She pretended to grab a pound from an imaginary person and deposited it on her legs, smoothing it out with a wave of her hand. “There, perfect.”
None of it—not even the extended bit that follows in which they expand on the idea, including a whole few paragraphs where Deanie acts out what she thinks would happen if a fat person decided to unload on a skinny person—is unrealistic conversation, especially for the era. But it definitely made me, in 2023, want to pull a blanket over my head. It made me cringe so much that I couldn’t even bring myself to type it out here.
Three more hits from John D
He put a period at the end of his sentence and circled it. That was a sign to himself that this sentence was perfect and should never be changed.
He smiled. He had not had this much pleasure since he had caught his English teacher in a series of grammatical errors.
Even Einstein must have had such days. After all, there were idiotic girls back then too.
As she lay there, arms and legs trembling with fatigue and cold, she noticed something printed on the float. She blinked her eyes to clear them. NOT TO BE USED AS A LIFE PRESERVER, she read. She rested her face against the letters. Now they tell me. She closed her stinging eyes.
—The Animal, the Vegetable, and John D Jones, by Betsy Byars
The three kids get almost equal time as the focus, with Clara and John D getting a smidge more than Deanie, and John D maybe getting a smidge more than Clara. Clara gets an arc that culminates in her overcoming her feelings of inadequacy and childishness compared to Deanie; John D gets an arc that culminates in his allowing himself to start making connections to other people. Her growth comes from her life being threatened; his comes from a moment of empathy:
All day long John D had felt as if he were in a pocket of misery as individual as a crater on the moon, and now abruptly she was in it too. He watched her with the wary eyes of an animal whose burrow has just been invaded.
He’s uncomfortable in that moment—and immediately acts out—but it’s the beginning of a huge shift for him.
All that, and it’s so light and so funny, there is (again) so much nuance in the characterization, so many small moments who show you EXACTLY who these people are, EXACTLY what their relationships are. AND, like so many of my favorite children’s books, it contains plenty of accurate complaints about adults:
What did adults expect? she wondered. They throw perfectly strange kids together and can’t understand it when these perfectly strange kids don’t become instant friends.
Previously:
Dispatches from the 80s #1: Anastasia Again!
Dispatches from the 80s #2: Anastasia At Your Service
I really need to do these more often, they’re so much fun.
More soon, probably,
Leila
AaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! A Byars I haven't read!!!!!
*disappears in a flash of library books*
I read so many Betsy Byars books, but I have no memory at all of this one and I have got to read it. Also, those illustrations are great, and the book covers are not -- who wears tube socks at the beach, even in 1982?? Maybe John D. Jones does. I just really hate tube socks. They are the worst.