Fairly clean, blatantly Christian, some references to violence and alcohol.
Plot
The Sugar Creek Gang, a club of playful boys from Indiana, gets a chance to vacation in Chicago and have one of their number sing on the radio. The Windy City is quite an experience — but there may be trouble waiting for them there.
Morality
The morality here seems good. Many of the characters are Christians and not afraid to talk about it. Families are seen as special, even when they have problems. One character commits a crime, and faces the consequences. An enemy is forgiven. Some teasing happens among the boys, but there is nothing that the people being teased don’t recognize as good-natured.
Spiritual Content
Christian. The gang are all churchgoers, and seem to all be believers. A less well-behaved gang, who refer to themselves as “The Hellfire Gang,” condescendingly refer to the boys’ raft as “a choir loft.” One of the boys gives someone a tract. The narrator’s family has daily devotions in the morning, and his dad says it is because Sunday School by itself wouldn’t add up to very much Bible instruction out of all the days in the year. The contents of one of these devotions is discussed. Hymns and gospel choruses are sung. Characters pray. Jacob’s ladder, Jesus as the way to heaven, and the creation story are mentioned. The gang visits a rescue mission. One of the boys says he wants to declare war on the devil. The narrator thinks about Jesus on the cross in reference to a friend’s sacrificing to help an enemy.
Violence
A boy who wants to be a doctor discusses blood transfusions. The story of an accident with a harvesting machine is related, and another accident involving a bad fall is seen in real time. One boy attempts to punch another. The boys desire to fight, but don’t act on it, when some other boys have vandalized their gang’s property. It is mentioned that they have fought with these boys in the past. The fighting ability of an older boy in the gang is spoken of with respect. A younger boy is curious whether figures of people in a museum could be real people who were stuffed. Another boy seems shaken by the sight of a stuffed eagle with its stuffed prey.
Drug and Alcohol Content
It is said that the father of one of the boys in the gang has a drinking problem, and another boy’s father and a man whose testimony they hear used to struggle with alcoholism as well. There are a lot of signs advertising liquor in the neighborhood of the mission the boys visit.
Sexual Content
Boys strip to use the swimming hole, but nothing is made of it. A boy likes the minister’s daughter, and another boy is embarrassed when he thinks about his friend’s sister.
Crude or Profane Language or Content
Swearing is mentioned but the words themselves are not written.
Conclusion
A lot of the impression left by this book has to do with the fact that it is written in first person. The speaker is a member of the gang, a young farm boy, playful and earnest and a little bit hotheaded, and adamantly religious. He doesn’t tell a neatly packaged narrative. He rambles about his silly dream, past incidents with so-and-so, and what his dad has to say about an issue. He sometimes gets ahead of himself, and this passes for foreshadowing. There are many moments in this book which could feel “preachy” or heavy-handed, but which may be lightened by being the conversational outpouring of the narrator’s beliefs.
Because of the narrator’s mindset, the story’s outlook stays positive, although it does address some serious things and at one point a character is visibly in peril of his life.
Tastes will vary on whether this book, with its rabbit-trails and its all-male protagonists, will be appealing; but when I first read this series, at about age 10, I felt like I was best friends with the gang. As I am re-reading the book now, it hasn’t totally failed the test of time.
This review is brought to you by Lily A..
