Folk of varying degree of eccentricity people Gordon's (When JFK Was My Father) intermittently down-to-earth and outlandish novel, narrated by the decidedly down-to-earth Jason. When his recently widowed aunt, who makes theater costumes for a living, invites him to spend the summer, the boy questions her motive: "Maybe because she felt sorry for me, an only child with busy parents, not so many friends, not good at things." Jason immediately feels at home in his aunt's tiny apartment—littered with fake fur as a result of her commission to create 30 gorilla costumes—and he likes the music that floats from the nearby park. She explains that the park's mysterious owner, Otto Pettingill, a talented musician, plays various instruments and amplifies the music via speakers in the park's trees. The park offers refuge of various sorts to the characters who befriend Jason. These include Gareth, a take-charge kid who recruits Jason to play for his baseball team; Pettingill's wild-tempered ward, Liesl, who spends her days drawing chalk portraits on the park's sidewalks; Mitch Bloom, a flower vendor who lives in an expansive tree house; and Pettingill himself, who teams up with Jason to foil a pair of villains who want to turn the park into a mall. Though the plot occasionally meanders and contains extraneous detail, this story is often funny, and Jason's gradual discovery of his own worth is satisfying. Ages 8-12. (May)
