Sunday Book Review: The Moon Butter Route, by Max Yoho

It has been my intention to talk about books I've been reading for some time now. I love to read, I especially enjoy books by Kansas authors, and if I get a signed copy for my bookshelf, I'm just in la-la land. So in honor of a new year and resolutions and such, here is my first Sunday Book Review. Let's hope it's the first of many.

The Moon Butter Route, by Max Yoho

It’s not that I consider myself to be without a sense of humor, I’ve just never been much of a laugh-out-loud kind of person. I’m the type who grins silently… or just sits nodding my head at the joke, maybe with a smile on my face. However, Wally Gant, the 12-year-old protagonist in Max Yoho’s most recent book, The Moon Butter Route, had me laughing, giggling and sometimes even kicking my feet with delight.

I was hooked by page one, where one of Wally’s indiscriminate goats pees on top a hearse carrying the remains of the Reverend Walter Walters. Wally has quite a way with words and, through him, Max Yoho spins quite a story. Page after page I found myself reading passages out loud to my hubby and anyone else who would listen.

Take this passage, for instance, one of my favorites:

(Wally, upon turning 13)
“Well, day broke and with it broke my most precious dreams. There was no B-flat cornet. There was a package from my grandfolks, which contained a billfold embossed with a picture of a rose and a dollar bill in it. I knew that sooner or later I would have to write a thank you note telling them that I had spent most of my adult life wishing for a damn, dingle-brained, sissy, damn, double-damn, sissy, sissy, sissy quadruple-damn billfold with a puke picture of a rose on it.

On the heels of that wonderment, my mom presented me with such a multitude of socks and underpants—enough—enough that I could finally relax. No longer would I toss and turn at night, wondering where my next double-dingle-brained damn pair of underpants would come from.”

Max Yoho puts together words that run off the tongue like poetry. Reading his stories makes me want to read out loud and read for an audience. They take me back to a time when I sat at my grandfather’s knee and listened to tales of scandal and wit that always left me wondering just how much was truth and how much was pure story.

In the category of best humor – this book ends with all the right pieces. Wally finds both love and fortune. It’s a happily-ever-after delight.

The Moon Butter Route was selected as a Kansas Notable Book in 2006 by the Kansas Center for the Book. Max’s first novel, The Revival, won the J. Donald Coffin Memorial Award of the Kansas Authors Club in 2002.

http://www.dancinggoatpress.com/
ISBN:0-9708160-4-9