Trig

Trig #1

by Robert Newton Peck

A young girl living on a Vermont farm relates the events of the day her uncle brought her a genuine "Junior G-man machine gun."

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Robert Newton Peck is an American author of books for young adults. His titles include Soup and A Day No Pigs Would Die. He claims to have been born on February 17, 1928, in Vermont, but has refused to specify where. Similarly, he claims to have graduated from a high school in Texas, which he has also refused to identify. Some sources state that he was born in Nashville, Tennessee (supposedly where his mother was born, though other sources indicate she was born in Ticonderoga, New York, and that Peck, himself, may have been born there). The only reasonably certain Vermont connection is that his father was born in Cornwall.

Peck has written over sixty books including a great book explaining his childhood to becoming a teenager working on the farm called: A Day no Pigs would Die

He was a smart student, although his schooling was cut short by World War II. During and shortly after the conflict, he served as a machine-gunner in the U.S. Army 88th Infantry Division. Upon returning to the United States, he entered Rollins College, graduating in 1953. He then entered Cornell Law School, but never finished his course of study.

Newton married Dorothy Anne Houston and fathered two children, Anne and Christopher. The best man at the wedding and the godfather to the children was Fred Rogers of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood fame.

A Day No Pigs Would Die was his first novel, published in 1972 when he was already 44 years old. From then on he continued his lifelong journey through literature. To date, he has been credited for writing 55 fiction books, 6 nonfiction books, 35 songs, 3 television specials and over a hundred poems.

Several of his historical novels are about Fort Ticonderoga: Fawn, Hang for Treason, The King's Iron.

In 1993, Peck was diagnosed with oral cancer, but survived. As of 2005, he was living in Longwood, Florida, where he has in the past served as the director of the Rollins College Writers Conference. Peck sings in a barbershop quartet, plays ragtime piano, and is an enthusiastic speaker. His hobby is visiting schools, "to turn kids on to books."

—From Wikipedia

For more information, please see http://www.answers.com/topic/robert-n...

Reviews

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elizabeth Trigman's Uncle Fred gives her a genuine "Junior G-man machine gun" one summer day and life won't be the same after she forms a gang of Junior G-men with neighbor boys Bud and Skip. Every time I read this story I laugh out loud.

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars -- I heehawed through this story of a young girl named Elizabeth Trigman 'Trig', who lives with her mom and dad on a farm in Vermont. She is an only child, and her two friends are ornery boys named Bud Griffin and Skip Warner. She is definitely not a girly-girl. She wants to be a Yankees catcher like her idol Bill Dickey at the beginning of the story. By the end, however, she wants to be a G-man like Melvin Purvis, "the most fearless / head G-man in the 48 states of the US of A". That is because her mother's brother, her beloved Uncle Fred, brings her a present: a genuine Melvin Purvis official Junior G-man machine gun. And HILARITY ensues. The whole story has shades of A Christmas Story and Ralphie's Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle (BB gun). :P

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as a kid and really enjoyed it. It has been so long that I've forgotten most of it but the details that stick out in my mind are how goofy-in-love Trig was for Melvin Purvis, how she mused on whether to nickname him Mel or Pur, and how she wrote a little love poem to him: "Hey darlin sugar lump/You make my heart go thump". Good stuff!

Update: just reread this book, and couldn't find the reference to the little love poem mentioned above- I guess that was in another book, and I was mistakenly attributing it to this one.

[Jocelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

An old favorite, still hilarious. This book is where I learned the word "puny." My copy came from a first grade book fair.