"Norman Tuttle On The Last Frontier is a great and funny collection of stories and Bodett's an expert teller of tales of boys and their lives."
--Gary Paulsen (Author of Newbery Honor book, Hatchet and dozens of other fine adventures for young readers)

 

"Most of us have known Norman--or have been him. I loved Norman's funny, touching, oh-so-true story of the perils of growing up male."
-Karen Cushman (Newbery Medal winning author of The Midwife's Apprentice)

"From the time Norman finds it's no trouble at all to fall off a fishing boat to the moment his childhood is over: 2:35 pm on January 18, we live the highs and lows of being male and thirteen. While there's no cure for puberty, Tom Bodett reminds us that humor's the best medicine."
--Richard Peck (Author of Newbery winner A Year Down Yonder)

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"What is Norman good for?"

When Norman Tuttle overhears his father's stinging words, he cringes. Norman knows exactly what he's good for. He's good for falling off his dad's fishing boat into icy Alaska waters. He's good for quietly sweating on gorgeous Laura Magruder at the school dance. He's good for getting on the bad side of Leonard Kopinski, an overgrown eighth grader who shaves. He's good for messing up just about everything.

Norman gets grounded so often his life feels like a prison work-release program. As he contemplates a long and lonely adolescence on the Last Frontier, he's sure there's more to life than being the most awkward kid in Alaska. In fifteen closely linked stories that follow Norman from age thirteen to going-on-sixteen, Tom Bodett combines rugged Alaskan adventure with a warm and funny coming-of-age story of a boy who may not be as lonely as he thinks.

 

To Begin With

Norman Tuttle grew up in a place called Alaska. You’ve probably heard of it – The Last Frontier – all that stuff. I bet you’ve never heard of Norman Tuttle. He was just a kid there. Kids in Alaska don’t know they’re growing up on the Last Frontier. It’s just what they see on the license plates, and it’s something tourists like to say a lot because they’ve never been around so many mountains and moose before.

It’s not like Alaska isn’t wilderness – it mostly is. But most Alaskans don’t live in the wild. They live on the edge of the wild in towns with schools and cable TV and stores and dentists and roller rinks sometimes. It’s just like anyplace else, only with mountains and moose. At least that’s what it feels like if you grow up there like Norman Tuttle did.

Norman’s dad was a fisherman and the family owned their own boat, the Francine, named after Norman’s mom. The boat was wooden, and usually smelled bad, but that didn’t make it bad. Fishing boats smell that way no matter who you name them after. Fishing was a busy job. Uncle Stu and Norman’s dad were gone a lot of the time from May to September chasing after salmon. Then in the fall they would change the gear on the boat from nets to longlines and they’d fish for halibut, then cod until deep into the winter. The boat always needed something: props, rudders, engines, radar, paint and putty. It kept his dad and Uncle Stu pretty busy even when they weren’t gone fishing. It seemed to Norman that his dad had a lot more time for fishing than he had for anything else.

Norman’s mom did everything moms do, only probably more of it, like most women who marry fishermen. Norman helped with the housework and keeping track of the littler kids and if anybody asked her about him she would have to say he was a good kid.

Fishing was a pretty decent way to make a living and Norman had everything he needed and a few things he didn’t, including his little brothers, Franky and Caleb, and middle sister, Jessie. Their house was a normal, square, straight up and down house-type house on a dirt road on the edge of town. Norman had his own bedroom which looked toward the bay and the mountains across it, and it probably was one of the most beautiful views on the planet Earth. If you were into views.

Norman’s best friend Stanley lived just down the road. They’d spend most of their time together ranging through the fields of fireweed playing war, or jigging for flounder down in the boat harbor, or riding their bikes to the Saturday movies. It was a normal childhood for a place like that, and it’s hard to say exactly where it ended.

It’s like driving to Alaska from someplace else. You get to Canada first, which looks just about like where you just were only now it’s called Canada. Then after awhile it starts to look like something else again. There are less buildings, more mountains and blue glaciers. Tundra bogs and wildflowers and large goofy looking moose appear alongside the road, and then pretty soon a sign comes up that says Welcome to Alaska. The Last Frontier. Where does one thing end and the next one start? Wherever they say it does.

It’s the same thing with growing up. One day you’re a kid going along like you always do with everything looking the same as it’s been, and then something happens to you. This is what happened on the Last Frontier to a kid named Norman Tuttle.

 

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