Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

Ratings Explanation

Language: Frequent use of every kind of swear word.  Also, several uses of racially derogatory slurs.

Violence: Todd (age 16) is physically abused by his father.  Political and environmental activists plan and carry out a protest.   Participants get carted off by the police.

Sexual Content:  Marshall’s father has a continual string of mostly live-in girlfriends after his wife Rose leaves.  Marshall sleeps in the next bedroom and hears them having sex.  References to a pornography, sex among neighbors/peers and prostitutes.  Todd is in love with his teacher, Miss O’Hare, and shows physical signs of his interest.  Sexual swear words.

Adult Themes: References to drinking, physical abuse of Todd, inappropriate teacher/student relationship, Sam’s promiscuity, and Marshall’s attempt to cope with a mother who abandons the family.

Synopsis

Marshall Fields is a 16 yr. old boy living in a lower class neighborhood near St. Louis in the mid ‘80’s.  This story chronicles a year-in-the-life of Marshall after his mother leaves the family and moves to Las Vegas to pursue a long-stifled singing career.  Alone, Marshall and his father, Sam, continue life on their own.  Sam copes by courting a string of girlfriends, some who are friendlier to Marshall than others.  Marshall copes by holding up a tough front, but is clearly hurt and confused by his mother’s actions.  He and his two friends have ample free time for mischief.  A radical English teacher encourages Marshall and his friends to join her political and environmental causes.  Rose continues to be a shadow over the family through phone calls and letters.  Marshall and his friends learn the value of friendship, love and that saving each other on the home front is more important than saving the world.

This book seemed slow-paced.  The quantity of unnecessary swear words bothered me.  It was a Minnesota Voices Project winner.