Petey by Ben Mikaelson
I read the book Petey by Ben Mikaelson. The main character in this book is Petey Corbin. This book tells of Petey’s life story from when he is a little toddler through his old geezer days. When Petey was born, he didn’t look anything like a regular baby should. Petey was diagnosed as an idiot and was also diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Petey is in a wheelchair his whole life and almost never leaves it. The only times when he isn’t in his wheelchair is when he is getting cleaned or changed.
Petey has blue eyes, medium long brown hair, and his tongue is always swollen. He cannot speak using actual words, so, he says things like, “ooooooo, pferr gooo, and aye”.
Petey’s caretakers were smart enough to realize that he was trying to speak to them. These things that he was babbling meant, “No, pretty good, and okay”. Petey is a very sweet character and cares for everyone else before himself.
There are many workers and volunteers that Petey is very fond of. First, there was Esteban who worked in Infant’s Ward, taught Petey how to respond to words, and gave him chocolate when he did a good job. When Petey is moved into Men’s Ward, he finds a very good friend, who turns out to be his best friend, named Calvin who is also in a wheelchair, but can speak. In the Men’s Ward, Petey finds that if you leave crumbs and food scraps on the ground around you or on yourself, mice will show up and eat all of the little leftovers. Petey names all of the mice that show up and finds more and more coming each night. The next nurse that shows up is Joe who acts like a father to Calvin and Petey. The three of them all celebrate Calvin and Petey’s first Christmas together. He gets each of them toy pistols because they always play cowboys with each other. The next caretaker that gets very involved with Petey is Cassie. They fall in love with each other but Cassie has to leave Petey. She goes to live in New York with her husband. The last nurse that took good care of Calvin and Petey was Owen. Petey and Calvin were about 40 years old when they befriended Owen. Owen had to leave because he was growing too old. Petey has to move into a retirement home when he turns 70 back into his home town in Bozeman, Montana.
The point of view is coming from the author throughout the whole book. I don’t know why the author chose this type of point of view because I would think that it would have been easier if the author wrote the book in the point of view of Petey- first person. The story would have been different if it was in Petey’s perspective or Calvin’s perspective because the reader would know a lot more about what the character is thinking, while when the author is telling the story, the reader barely knows what the characters are thinking. Throughout the book the author does not have any feeling when using his point of view. Only at a few places in the novel it is touching like when all of Petey’s nurses leave him and when Petey is getting snowballs thrown at him by the teenagers that are making fun of him for being a cripple. It is touching when Trevor Ladd stops the kids from throwing snow at Petey. Petey wants to befriend Trevor because he sees some good in him and something a lot alike with Calvin- his best friend. I did not like the way Ben Mikaelson wrote on the point of view because it did not make sense to me and I did not like it. I would of rather had him write in Calvin’s perspective because then I would know what he thinks of Petey, being best friends with Petey, and having to clean up all of his messes all of the time. I did not like the book very much. It told of his whole life and everything moved way too fast. I wished that Mikaelson would’ve kept the story going through his younger years and not over half of the book when he was older.
