The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken Peggy Cort, librarian, is lonely and feels unneeded. When James Carlson Sweatt, boy giant, walks into her library and shows a genuine interest in her help in finding books for him, Peggy Cort has found her purpose. As he grows older and taller, he needs more help, and Miss Cort is happy to give it. His hight becomes problematic, and eventually kills him. Before he dies, he becomes a star, an attraction, a freak. Peggy is there the whole time, nursing a crush on him over eight years, helping him out in any way she can, and just recording his story.
Although Peggy Cort is our narrator, and her feelings are expounded on at length in this book, this story is also about being the tallest boy in the world, and the fame that goes with it. This story is often dark and sarcastic, because Peggy Cort does not love mankind. Her views are often unsettling, and not only becasue they are set in the 50s. Despite her bad opinion of world in general, Peggy Cort gives us a full view of the goodness contained in this world. Or rather, Elizabeth McCracken does.
Happy reading.
