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City Boy: The Adventures of Herbie Bookbinder
Coming-of-age novel.
334 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1948
232 people are currently reading
1174 people want to read
About the author
Herman Wouk
161 books1,390 followersHerman Wouk was a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning Jewish American author with a number of notable novels to his credit, including The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance.
Herman Wouk was born in New York City into a Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia. After a childhood and adolescence in the Bronx and a high school diploma from Townsend Harris High School, he earned a B.A. from Columbia University in 1934, where he was a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity and studied under philosopher Irwin Edman. Soon thereafter, he became a radio dramatist, working in David Freedman's "Joke Factory" and later with Fred Allen for five years and then, in 1941, for the United States government, writing radio spots to sell war bonds. He lived a fairly secular lifestyle in his early 20s before deciding to return to a more traditional Jewish way of life, modeled after that of his grandfather, in his mid-20s.
Wouk joined the United States Navy and served in the Pacific Theater, an experience he later characterized as educational; "I learned about machinery, I learned how men behaved under pressure, and I learned about Americans." Wouk served as an officer aboard two destroyer minesweepers (DMS), the USS Zane and USS Southard, becoming executive officer of the latter. He started writing a novel, Aurora Dawn, during off-duty hours aboard ship. Wouk sent a copy of the opening chapters to Irwin Edman who quoted a few pages verbatim to a New York editor. The result was a publisher's contract sent to Wouk's ship, then off the coast of Okinawa. The novel was published in 1947 and became a Book of the Month Club main selection. His second novel, City Boy, proved to be a commercial disappointment at the time of its initial publication in 1948.
While writing his next novel, Wouk read each chapter as it was completed to his wife, who remarked at one point that if they didn't like this one, he'd better take up another line of work (a line he would give to the character of the editor Jeannie Fry in his 1962 novel Youngblood Hawke). The novel, The Caine Mutiny (1951), went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. A huge best-seller, drawing from his wartime experiences aboard minesweepers during World War II, The Caine Mutiny was adapted by the author into a Broadway play called The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, and was later made into a film, with Humphrey Bogart portraying Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg, captain of the fictional USS Caine. Some Navy personnel complained at the time that Wouk had taken every twitch of every commanding officer in the Navy and put them all into one character, but Captain Queeg has endured as one of the great characters in American fiction.
He married Betty Sarah Brown in 1945, with whom he had three sons: Abraham, Nathanial, and Joseph. He became a fulltime writer in 1946 to support his growing family. His first-born son, Abraham Isaac Wouk, died in a tragic accident as a child; Wouk later dedicated War and Remembrance (1978) to him with the Biblical words, "He will destroy death forever."
In 1998, Wouk received the Guardian of Zion Award.
Herman Wouk died in his sleep in his home in Palm Springs, California, on May 17, 2019, at the age of 103, ten days before his 104th birthday.
Herman Wouk was born in New York City into a Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia. After a childhood and adolescence in the Bronx and a high school diploma from Townsend Harris High School, he earned a B.A. from Columbia University in 1934, where he was a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity and studied under philosopher Irwin Edman. Soon thereafter, he became a radio dramatist, working in David Freedman's "Joke Factory" and later with Fred Allen for five years and then, in 1941, for the United States government, writing radio spots to sell war bonds. He lived a fairly secular lifestyle in his early 20s before deciding to return to a more traditional Jewish way of life, modeled after that of his grandfather, in his mid-20s.
Wouk joined the United States Navy and served in the Pacific Theater, an experience he later characterized as educational; "I learned about machinery, I learned how men behaved under pressure, and I learned about Americans." Wouk served as an officer aboard two destroyer minesweepers (DMS), the USS Zane and USS Southard, becoming executive officer of the latter. He started writing a novel, Aurora Dawn, during off-duty hours aboard ship. Wouk sent a copy of the opening chapters to Irwin Edman who quoted a few pages verbatim to a New York editor. The result was a publisher's contract sent to Wouk's ship, then off the coast of Okinawa. The novel was published in 1947 and became a Book of the Month Club main selection. His second novel, City Boy, proved to be a commercial disappointment at the time of its initial publication in 1948.
While writing his next novel, Wouk read each chapter as it was completed to his wife, who remarked at one point that if they didn't like this one, he'd better take up another line of work (a line he would give to the character of the editor Jeannie Fry in his 1962 novel Youngblood Hawke). The novel, The Caine Mutiny (1951), went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. A huge best-seller, drawing from his wartime experiences aboard minesweepers during World War II, The Caine Mutiny was adapted by the author into a Broadway play called The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, and was later made into a film, with Humphrey Bogart portraying Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg, captain of the fictional USS Caine. Some Navy personnel complained at the time that Wouk had taken every twitch of every commanding officer in the Navy and put them all into one character, but Captain Queeg has endured as one of the great characters in American fiction.
He married Betty Sarah Brown in 1945, with whom he had three sons: Abraham, Nathanial, and Joseph. He became a fulltime writer in 1946 to support his growing family. His first-born son, Abraham Isaac Wouk, died in a tragic accident as a child; Wouk later dedicated War and Remembrance (1978) to him with the Biblical words, "He will destroy death forever."
In 1998, Wouk received the Guardian of Zion Award.
Herman Wouk died in his sleep in his home in Palm Springs, California, on May 17, 2019, at the age of 103, ten days before his 104th birthday.
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November 15, 2019
I have owned a copy of The City Boy for at least thirty years. The reason that I know that is because the following is stamped on the first page:
Hubbard’s went out of business about thirty years ago and that’s how I know I’ve owned the book that long. I was one of the store’s best customers, perhaps it’s very best, and there is no doubt that that is where I purchased the book.
Ironically, not only the store has gone out of existence, but so has Flat River. That’s not quite right. The town still exists, but under a different name.
In 1994, Flat River merged with three smaller adjacent communities, which was a good idea because had it not been for the signs one would not have known when one left one and entered another. Now they could have retained the name Flat River for the newly created city (using the term loosely), but there was no way that the citizens of the other three communities were going to stand for living in a town that bore their rival’s name.
Those rivalries were due to several causes but most of them stemmed from years in which their schools competed with each other in athletics. In the late ‘60s, the state had forced them to consolidate their schools with the Flat River school and they couldn’t do anything about that, but they could when it came to the merger of the communities because they were allowed to vote on that issue and they had long memories and they were not going to live in a community named Flat River.
So the call went out asking for nominations of possible names for the newly merged communities. I couldn’t submit one for I didn’t live in any of the communities which are five or six miles north of where I live. But if I could have, out of hardheaded stubbornness, I would have submitted the name of Flat River, which I think is a name of substance and character, one that might be found out West in, say, Oklahoma or, better yet, Nebraska.
The town Flat River, in fact, was named after the Flat River Creek (I agree; it doesn’t make any sense that it is both a river and a creek), that flows through the community. In the original French, the name was Platte, which means flat and since has been anglicized. It is a reference to the flatness of the banks alongside the river (or creek).
Of course the best known Platte River is in Nebraska. Furthermore, the word Nebraska is an Oto Indian word meaning flat water, which was a reference to the Platte River. Therefore, the flat river is located in the flat state.
After the nominations for a new name for Flat River were submitted, the winner was Park Hills. I can’t say that it is a bad name. There are a number of state parks in the area and the community is located in the eastern Ozarks so there are also hills. However, I mourn the loss of Flat River as a place name and can’t help thinking of a cemetery when I hear the name Park Hills.
I apologize for getting off the subject, but we are experiencing record setting low temperatures (11 degrees with sub-zero wind chills) and snowfall (one and one-half inches) for this time of the year. I didn’t have anything else to do so I thought I would tell you about the loss of one of my favorite place names.
One other thing, Ferlin Huskey, a native of the area and a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, even wrote and recorded the song "Flat River MO," and if you don't have anything else to do you can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hiT6...
THE CITY BOY
In those thirty years or more that I owned The City Boy, I moved several times. And even though I had never read the book or even heard of it when I bought it and don't remember even opening it or reading the introduction or the blurbs on the back, I nevertheless packed it up and moved it with my other books and placed it back on the shelf.
I bought it because it was written by Herman Wouk and I knew him. He was the author of one of my favorite WWII novels, The Caine Mutiny, not to mention The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. I figured that someday I might be looking for something to read and that it might fill that need. And the other day it did.
The City Boy (published in 1948) was Wouk’s second book. It didn’t do very well, selling only about 6000 copies. However, it was resurrected after The Caine Mutiny was published in 1952. Since that book won a Pulitzer and was a National Book Award finalist, the second time around The City Boy was read by many more people than the first time and also received some good reviews.
It is a bittersweet coming-of-age story about Herbie Bookbinder, an eleven-year old Jewish boy growing up in the Bronx, New York City. He is a brainy, bright, overweight kid who, because he possesses no athletic skills, spends a great deal of his time reading books. More than anything else he wants to “fit in.” However, because of his weight and lack of athletic skills and because he reads books he is picked on by the tougher, athletic, non-academic types.
One-half of the story is about the final days of his school year and the other half is about his attendance at a summer camp in the Berkshires, one that happens to be owned and managed by the principal of his school. Herbie manipulates his parents into sending him to the camp after he discovers that Lucille Glass, a cute redhead in the class below him, and who had won his heart, was going to be there.
At the camp, Herbie experiences a series of humorous adventures and misadventures, some misfires and many failures, but also some satisfying successes in his effort to “fit in” and, of course, to win the affection of Lucille Glass.
If this sounds like the antics of a Tom Sawyer trying to impress Becky Thatcher, there is a good reason. When Herman Wouk was a child his mother purchased the complete works of Mark Twain from a traveling salesman. Young Herman read them all.
Therefore, when he sat down to write The City Boy, as counterintuitive as it might seem, he modeled Herbie on Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Lucille Glass on Becky Thatcher.
The result is that *The City Boy, like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, can be read and enjoyed by readers of all ages.
-----------
*The title of my copy of the book, published in 1962, is simply The City Boy. Later editions were titled City Boy: The Adventures of Herbie Bookbinder.
Hubbard’s Book Store
16 East Main St. Flat River, Mo.
Buy
Sell
Trade
1 FOR 2
431-5472
Hubbard’s went out of business about thirty years ago and that’s how I know I’ve owned the book that long. I was one of the store’s best customers, perhaps it’s very best, and there is no doubt that that is where I purchased the book.
Ironically, not only the store has gone out of existence, but so has Flat River. That’s not quite right. The town still exists, but under a different name.
In 1994, Flat River merged with three smaller adjacent communities, which was a good idea because had it not been for the signs one would not have known when one left one and entered another. Now they could have retained the name Flat River for the newly created city (using the term loosely), but there was no way that the citizens of the other three communities were going to stand for living in a town that bore their rival’s name.
Those rivalries were due to several causes but most of them stemmed from years in which their schools competed with each other in athletics. In the late ‘60s, the state had forced them to consolidate their schools with the Flat River school and they couldn’t do anything about that, but they could when it came to the merger of the communities because they were allowed to vote on that issue and they had long memories and they were not going to live in a community named Flat River.
So the call went out asking for nominations of possible names for the newly merged communities. I couldn’t submit one for I didn’t live in any of the communities which are five or six miles north of where I live. But if I could have, out of hardheaded stubbornness, I would have submitted the name of Flat River, which I think is a name of substance and character, one that might be found out West in, say, Oklahoma or, better yet, Nebraska.
The town Flat River, in fact, was named after the Flat River Creek (I agree; it doesn’t make any sense that it is both a river and a creek), that flows through the community. In the original French, the name was Platte, which means flat and since has been anglicized. It is a reference to the flatness of the banks alongside the river (or creek).
Of course the best known Platte River is in Nebraska. Furthermore, the word Nebraska is an Oto Indian word meaning flat water, which was a reference to the Platte River. Therefore, the flat river is located in the flat state.
After the nominations for a new name for Flat River were submitted, the winner was Park Hills. I can’t say that it is a bad name. There are a number of state parks in the area and the community is located in the eastern Ozarks so there are also hills. However, I mourn the loss of Flat River as a place name and can’t help thinking of a cemetery when I hear the name Park Hills.
I apologize for getting off the subject, but we are experiencing record setting low temperatures (11 degrees with sub-zero wind chills) and snowfall (one and one-half inches) for this time of the year. I didn’t have anything else to do so I thought I would tell you about the loss of one of my favorite place names.
One other thing, Ferlin Huskey, a native of the area and a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, even wrote and recorded the song "Flat River MO," and if you don't have anything else to do you can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hiT6...
THE CITY BOY
In those thirty years or more that I owned The City Boy, I moved several times. And even though I had never read the book or even heard of it when I bought it and don't remember even opening it or reading the introduction or the blurbs on the back, I nevertheless packed it up and moved it with my other books and placed it back on the shelf.
I bought it because it was written by Herman Wouk and I knew him. He was the author of one of my favorite WWII novels, The Caine Mutiny, not to mention The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. I figured that someday I might be looking for something to read and that it might fill that need. And the other day it did.
The City Boy (published in 1948) was Wouk’s second book. It didn’t do very well, selling only about 6000 copies. However, it was resurrected after The Caine Mutiny was published in 1952. Since that book won a Pulitzer and was a National Book Award finalist, the second time around The City Boy was read by many more people than the first time and also received some good reviews.
It is a bittersweet coming-of-age story about Herbie Bookbinder, an eleven-year old Jewish boy growing up in the Bronx, New York City. He is a brainy, bright, overweight kid who, because he possesses no athletic skills, spends a great deal of his time reading books. More than anything else he wants to “fit in.” However, because of his weight and lack of athletic skills and because he reads books he is picked on by the tougher, athletic, non-academic types.
One-half of the story is about the final days of his school year and the other half is about his attendance at a summer camp in the Berkshires, one that happens to be owned and managed by the principal of his school. Herbie manipulates his parents into sending him to the camp after he discovers that Lucille Glass, a cute redhead in the class below him, and who had won his heart, was going to be there.
At the camp, Herbie experiences a series of humorous adventures and misadventures, some misfires and many failures, but also some satisfying successes in his effort to “fit in” and, of course, to win the affection of Lucille Glass.
If this sounds like the antics of a Tom Sawyer trying to impress Becky Thatcher, there is a good reason. When Herman Wouk was a child his mother purchased the complete works of Mark Twain from a traveling salesman. Young Herman read them all.
Therefore, when he sat down to write The City Boy, as counterintuitive as it might seem, he modeled Herbie on Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Lucille Glass on Becky Thatcher.
The result is that *The City Boy, like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, can be read and enjoyed by readers of all ages.
-----------
*The title of my copy of the book, published in 1962, is simply The City Boy. Later editions were titled City Boy: The Adventures of Herbie Bookbinder.
October 31, 2023
I just remembered that I read this book as a teenager. It was a present but I cannot remember who gave it to me. Obviously someone who knew about books. I can still remember things from the book but it might be time for a re-read.
September 28, 2011
Lots and lots of thanks to El for mentioning City Boy in her review of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. How did I go through all of my life without ever hearing of this book? This is my favorite kind of book! I mean, I've read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn several times.
I can see why one book reminded her of the other. They share a soul of bittersweet pain. Like if it hurt too much to fall in love but your days are too long without it and you never stop looking for someone or something else to fill the sharp edges of the bottomless pit. You can't help it. It doesn't matter that it couldn't be returned. The world must work for the pursuit of happiness. Also, fat boys who fall in love a lot and live in the Bronx. City Boy has been out for a long, long time. My grandparents could have read it in their youth (they probably didn't. My grandfather gave me a lot of books and this was not among them). It has been rerereread. Where have you been? What about me?!
I wanted a comfort read but it had to be a special kind of comfort read. No Mary-Sues so fantasy was out. If I was going to feel the sting of my inferiority complex it would have to be a hell no. Maybe a sweet pain kind of comfort read like Blue Castle or 'Oscar'. Sometimes I really love this website. I really loved City Boy. I feel like I'm in a young person's world and not as the adult or the kid. Maybe scanning the room for someone to root for, rather than relate to, and there's Herbie Bookbinder.
I probably would have hated Herbie if I was one of his class mates. It was enough that he comes from a family with money. I would have resented that. I wouldn't have identified with him as I should, or seen past the front he put up to protect himself. The first time he used his "garbage gang" status to bully me I would have started doing impersonations of him for the class before the bell rang (I was only secretly nice). Think hall monitor or patrols, if you're American. I guess the UK and Oz versions are prefects. It sounds a lot like patrols. Prefects are respected, right? (My UK school knowledge is all due to Harry Potter.) I was a patrol as a last pick for the last term of the school year. Hardly prestigious. I used it to leave class early. I was like Herbie. He used it for freedom in the halls. He was not in the top tier of school authoritative system with the garbage band. He was a laughing stock. He couldn't really bully anyone with his position and tried to do it anyway. So much for the freedom. So I was saying that if he tried to use his pitiful position of litter clean up staff to tell me where I could and couldn't be between classes it would have been over for us. He was also the teacher's pet and can you get worse than that?
I guess City Boy does have an air of teacher's pet about it in Wouk's writing. He's the adult that feels pity for poor, fat Herbie. The good kind of pity! Not the kind that is like feeling like shit after you've been caught crying. Wouk sees the longing in his eyes and hopes that things will be better for him some day. The best part about City Boy is that it isn't from Wouk's place and the teacher's pet stuff is mostly in the background. Thankfully it really sucks to be Herbie. We are in Herbie's place. Maybe he's looking at us for something to relate to. He falls in love with a girl he can't have. There's no way that's the end of it. That is going to be his life. Yes! (I'm sadistic. Hey, I told you I have an inferiority complex.) He goes to summer camp and he gets in a lot of trouble. I haaated summer camp (I only went for two and a half days).
I loved the lying. I loved the stuff that I would have hated Herbie for when I was a kid. The way he tried to talk himself into the rules of the way things worked. Getting out of trouble, staying ahead. A lot of talking out of and figuring out what works by trying it out. That's the way to live! The sharp edge void living stuff. It's great to see it from that place instead of seeing the swotty fat boy who has rich parents with a high priced lawyer. It'd be easy to squint and picture an adult Herbie I'd hate. But I know he can be so miserable and now I love him because I know he's more than that. If only one could feel like the teacher at the front with the wider view more often (as opposed to the kid caught sneaking around ugh).
City Boy gets shit for being too rosy viewed about Jewish life in the Bronx in the 1940s. But we already know life sucks! It's not rosy to take a look at this kid and see the hope and the pain stuff. It's going to be lots and lots of that! Just because it is a happy kind of misery read. It's my kind of comfort read is what it is. You aren't embarrassed because someone saw empathy and I don't know what color that is but it probably isn't rosy.
Listen, Herbie has moments like this:
He was not seen again that merry morning, for he spent it lying on a flat rock near the shore, hidden by thunderbrush. A lonesome, quiet situation, you might say, yet he had plenty of company. Misery sat at the fat boy's right hand, and Shame at the left; and they made the morning mighty lively for Herbie between them."
I'd do my encouraging smile for Herbie now. I hope he fucks up a whole lot more.
P.s. Okay, so I don't think it is a good idea to be too hard on Lucille. She's only eleven. The plot blurb is ridiculous. It's not like there weren't boys doing the same thing. There was one in my class who had a different girlfriend every day.
P.s.s. I recommend Fat Kid Rules the World if you like City Boy. That book is awesome.
I can see why one book reminded her of the other. They share a soul of bittersweet pain. Like if it hurt too much to fall in love but your days are too long without it and you never stop looking for someone or something else to fill the sharp edges of the bottomless pit. You can't help it. It doesn't matter that it couldn't be returned. The world must work for the pursuit of happiness. Also, fat boys who fall in love a lot and live in the Bronx. City Boy has been out for a long, long time. My grandparents could have read it in their youth (they probably didn't. My grandfather gave me a lot of books and this was not among them). It has been rerereread. Where have you been? What about me?!
I wanted a comfort read but it had to be a special kind of comfort read. No Mary-Sues so fantasy was out. If I was going to feel the sting of my inferiority complex it would have to be a hell no. Maybe a sweet pain kind of comfort read like Blue Castle or 'Oscar'. Sometimes I really love this website. I really loved City Boy. I feel like I'm in a young person's world and not as the adult or the kid. Maybe scanning the room for someone to root for, rather than relate to, and there's Herbie Bookbinder.
I probably would have hated Herbie if I was one of his class mates. It was enough that he comes from a family with money. I would have resented that. I wouldn't have identified with him as I should, or seen past the front he put up to protect himself. The first time he used his "garbage gang" status to bully me I would have started doing impersonations of him for the class before the bell rang (I was only secretly nice). Think hall monitor or patrols, if you're American. I guess the UK and Oz versions are prefects. It sounds a lot like patrols. Prefects are respected, right? (My UK school knowledge is all due to Harry Potter.) I was a patrol as a last pick for the last term of the school year. Hardly prestigious. I used it to leave class early. I was like Herbie. He used it for freedom in the halls. He was not in the top tier of school authoritative system with the garbage band. He was a laughing stock. He couldn't really bully anyone with his position and tried to do it anyway. So much for the freedom. So I was saying that if he tried to use his pitiful position of litter clean up staff to tell me where I could and couldn't be between classes it would have been over for us. He was also the teacher's pet and can you get worse than that?
I guess City Boy does have an air of teacher's pet about it in Wouk's writing. He's the adult that feels pity for poor, fat Herbie. The good kind of pity! Not the kind that is like feeling like shit after you've been caught crying. Wouk sees the longing in his eyes and hopes that things will be better for him some day. The best part about City Boy is that it isn't from Wouk's place and the teacher's pet stuff is mostly in the background. Thankfully it really sucks to be Herbie. We are in Herbie's place. Maybe he's looking at us for something to relate to. He falls in love with a girl he can't have. There's no way that's the end of it. That is going to be his life. Yes! (I'm sadistic. Hey, I told you I have an inferiority complex.) He goes to summer camp and he gets in a lot of trouble. I haaated summer camp (I only went for two and a half days).
I loved the lying. I loved the stuff that I would have hated Herbie for when I was a kid. The way he tried to talk himself into the rules of the way things worked. Getting out of trouble, staying ahead. A lot of talking out of and figuring out what works by trying it out. That's the way to live! The sharp edge void living stuff. It's great to see it from that place instead of seeing the swotty fat boy who has rich parents with a high priced lawyer. It'd be easy to squint and picture an adult Herbie I'd hate. But I know he can be so miserable and now I love him because I know he's more than that. If only one could feel like the teacher at the front with the wider view more often (as opposed to the kid caught sneaking around ugh).
City Boy gets shit for being too rosy viewed about Jewish life in the Bronx in the 1940s. But we already know life sucks! It's not rosy to take a look at this kid and see the hope and the pain stuff. It's going to be lots and lots of that! Just because it is a happy kind of misery read. It's my kind of comfort read is what it is. You aren't embarrassed because someone saw empathy and I don't know what color that is but it probably isn't rosy.
Listen, Herbie has moments like this:
He was not seen again that merry morning, for he spent it lying on a flat rock near the shore, hidden by thunderbrush. A lonesome, quiet situation, you might say, yet he had plenty of company. Misery sat at the fat boy's right hand, and Shame at the left; and they made the morning mighty lively for Herbie between them."
I'd do my encouraging smile for Herbie now. I hope he fucks up a whole lot more.
P.s. Okay, so I don't think it is a good idea to be too hard on Lucille. She's only eleven. The plot blurb is ridiculous. It's not like there weren't boys doing the same thing. There was one in my class who had a different girlfriend every day.
P.s.s. I recommend Fat Kid Rules the World if you like City Boy. That book is awesome.
September 29, 2022
Rated by teenage me. This is another off-the-beaten-path book I found in my school library in the 1980s. I loved it and I recall extolling its virtues to my peers at the time - to no avail as even then I was known for my eclectic taste, and mostly ignored. :)
February 19, 2013
Years ago I loved The Winds of War, War and Remembrance, and Inside, Outside. Then I was disappointed by The Hope and The Glory and quit reading Wouk's books. Recently my son put me onto City Boy and, seeing it had been written early in Wouk's writing career, I thought to give it a try. I'm really glad I did. Wouk has a way of describing the life events of children that really rings true with wit and humor.
Here is an example involving the book's hero, Herbie, and his on again, off again girl friend, Lucille. They are together inside the top of the Statue of Liberty and Davey, a handsome neighborhood friend of Lucille's, has just strode by and conversed briefly with Lucille, to the discomfiture of Herbie:
"'O.K.,' he said bitterly. 'Why dontcha go home with him? He lives right on your block. Cliff [Herbie's cousin who is nearby] an' me'll have more fun without a girl taggin' along, anyway.'
"'Herbie, why are you so crazy? I hardly ever spoke to Davey. I don't even know which is his house. Are you going to spoil all our fun again?'
"The previous occasions implied by the word 'again' were not specified. But Herbie was placed in the class of a surly brute with the simple word, and was silenced. These are devices that a little girl is incapable of learning or inventing. She knows them as a wasp knows how to build a nest."
Insights such as those conveyed by the last 2 sentences of this sample are sprinkled liberally throughout the book. They are a delight to read and ponder. If you like the little snippet I've quoted, you will love this book. Get it. Read it. You won't regret it.
Here is an example involving the book's hero, Herbie, and his on again, off again girl friend, Lucille. They are together inside the top of the Statue of Liberty and Davey, a handsome neighborhood friend of Lucille's, has just strode by and conversed briefly with Lucille, to the discomfiture of Herbie:
"'O.K.,' he said bitterly. 'Why dontcha go home with him? He lives right on your block. Cliff [Herbie's cousin who is nearby] an' me'll have more fun without a girl taggin' along, anyway.'
"'Herbie, why are you so crazy? I hardly ever spoke to Davey. I don't even know which is his house. Are you going to spoil all our fun again?'
"The previous occasions implied by the word 'again' were not specified. But Herbie was placed in the class of a surly brute with the simple word, and was silenced. These are devices that a little girl is incapable of learning or inventing. She knows them as a wasp knows how to build a nest."
Insights such as those conveyed by the last 2 sentences of this sample are sprinkled liberally throughout the book. They are a delight to read and ponder. If you like the little snippet I've quoted, you will love this book. Get it. Read it. You won't regret it.
August 22, 2017
This story is labeled as a novel. Herbie Bookbinder is real! Why isn't this book considered a classic? I could read this book over and over and never get tired of it. During these uncertain times, nostalgia is so valuable and Herbie Bookbinder and his friends makes the reader feel hopeful again. Thank you Herman Wouk!
January 25, 2024
There is some debate whether this is really fiction; it might be memoir, however it was published as a novel.
If this was published today it would be considered YA and I have rated it as such. It is a little whimsical and suitable as a moralistic lesson for earnest teenagers.
If this was published today it would be considered YA and I have rated it as such. It is a little whimsical and suitable as a moralistic lesson for earnest teenagers.
October 30, 2011
With the first paragraph of this coming of age book, the image of Herbie Bookbinder is almost enough to make any group of teenage girls "aw" in choral. A chubby, broken-hearted boy who detests everything about female kind finds love in a red-head named Lucille and spends the rest of the book running through his thoughts and problems in his young adolescent life. I personally quite enjoyed this book from the very beginning. With it's long and complex sentences, Wouk provides enough clarity for each setting and description of character to allow me as a reader to see the world of Herbie's 11 year old life. The use of alliteration in this book is a constant, as seen in one of my favorite sentences "Bulldog, Bulldog" was duly sung in draggy discords."
With the way this book allows you to see into the heart and mind of the main character and his life in the 1920's, I can only say that this is a book that I highly recommend for people of all ages.
With the way this book allows you to see into the heart and mind of the main character and his life in the 1920's, I can only say that this is a book that I highly recommend for people of all ages.
July 23, 2022
An all time favorite book. Read it when I was young, and have reread it several times since. Recommended to all who like the author, like New York, and/or like semi-autobiographical novels.
Addendum: This almost 75 yr old novel still continues to charm. Being read several times over the years (first time was in 1969), it still retains the humor, pathos, and poignancy it invoked so many years ago. It is reminiscent of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn; and equal to many coming of age novels. A truly underrated classic.
Addendum: This almost 75 yr old novel still continues to charm. Being read several times over the years (first time was in 1969), it still retains the humor, pathos, and poignancy it invoked so many years ago. It is reminiscent of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn; and equal to many coming of age novels. A truly underrated classic.
July 16, 2008
My favorite coming of age novel about a charming 11 year old boy in the Bronx, circa 1925. His trials and tribulations still ring true today. The book has real wisdom and is the best depiction of the mind of a boy I know.
October 17, 2007
I read this as part of my "read everything ever written about the Bronx" kick, but found that it also fit into another one of my favorite subgenres: boy's stories in which the underdog rises above his station and becomes a hero.
The big difference, though, is that most authors in this genre are hacks, while Herman Wouk is a great writer. His main character, Herbie Bookbinder is a fantastic creation, and it takes little imagination to make the jump from the bookish Herbie to an imaginary "Hermie" Wouk growing up in a similar situation. Because of this grounding in reality, Herbie's heroics aren't really reliant on deus ex machinae, astounding coincidences, or the like. Rather, they are completely realistic, and all the more enjoyable for that reason.
The big difference, though, is that most authors in this genre are hacks, while Herman Wouk is a great writer. His main character, Herbie Bookbinder is a fantastic creation, and it takes little imagination to make the jump from the bookish Herbie to an imaginary "Hermie" Wouk growing up in a similar situation. Because of this grounding in reality, Herbie's heroics aren't really reliant on deus ex machinae, astounding coincidences, or the like. Rather, they are completely realistic, and all the more enjoyable for that reason.
March 1, 2023
Definitely a period piece of a Bronx childhood but some parts were laugh out loud delightful. I read it in memory of my father who lived just where the book takes place: along the Bronx River in the time before WWII when neighbors knew each other and relatives lived on different floors of the same apartment buildings and parents spoke with the accents of their European birthplaces. The city was an adventure place with fishing in the river and empty lots for games of cops and robbers and movies with several features and cartoons.
Loved living my dad's childhood and remembering the stories he told me. It brought him back to me.
Loved living my dad's childhood and remembering the stories he told me. It brought him back to me.
July 27, 2008
I came across this one at a thrift store in Estes Park. I had never heard of it and didn't expect much, but ended up loving it. It's a funny, coming-of-age story about an overweight Jewish boy going to summer camp and trying to win a girl's heart. Very well-written, with subtle humor and recognizable characters.
October 29, 2017
I've been a Wouk fan for years, so I'm not sure how I missed this little charmer, one of his earliest works. My boyfriend found it in a library sale and bought it for me for a quarter. Money well spent, particularly since a quarter will no longer buy you candy and a "frap." Ha.
January 22, 2009
I loved this little book.. an easy and pleasant read, and a nice escape (from dreary, cold January) to the summer of 1928 in the Bronx. Reminded me of all the pleasures of being a kid again.
July 27, 2021
Charming, sweet, funny and sad by turns, and just utterly delightful. How is it I'm just discovering Herman Wouk!
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September 19, 2021I used to read this book over and over for comfort when I was a kid. Funny to read it now and still remember individual lines and scenes. I can’t remember anything I have read in the last ten years but this book I haven’t looked at in 35 years is still right there in my head. So strange and sort of sweet, like time traveling, not just back to the Bronx in the 1920s (100 years ago MY GOD) but time traveling back to who I was in the 1980s (40 years ago MY GOD).
December 31, 2023
Much more lighthearted than the novels he's famous for, Herman Wouk has brought his signature talent for writing about a highly specific period in a way that is at once unique and universal. The quote on the front of the book says "A Bronx Tom Sawyer." Nah. So much better than that! I am an unapologetic super-fan of Herman Wouk's World War II novels; this showed another side of one of my favorite authors. Highly recommend!
December 13, 2017
A nice little read. Herman Wouk has become one of my favorite writers over time as the winds of war and war and remembrance are epic monster novels. But this was a completely different feel of course being about an 11 year old boy. The preteen humor and situations are hysterical because I once thought that way too. Just a solid story for any age really.
July 31, 2020
A very underrated book
This is one of my all time favorite books. Herman Wouk is a wonderful story teller. This book has great characters and a great story. Wouk take a you to a place and time that is unrecognizable from today. But Herbie Bookbinder is a character that is timeless. A must read.
This is one of my all time favorite books. Herman Wouk is a wonderful story teller. This book has great characters and a great story. Wouk take a you to a place and time that is unrecognizable from today. But Herbie Bookbinder is a character that is timeless. A must read.
July 16, 2017
What a terrific read! I've read several of the author's books and this one is definitely one I'd read again. There were several spots that struck me as hilarious and I found myself in tears I was laughing so hard. It's a quick read so check it out. You won't be sorry.
March 19, 2022
Wouk never disappoints and his Herbie Bookbinder is an eleven year old to love. I smile just thinking about him.
April 19, 2022
What a fun book
When I saw someone compared it to Tom Sawyer I bought this book. It was fun to read and reminded me of my youth. Good plot and I loved the characters.
When I saw someone compared it to Tom Sawyer I bought this book. It was fun to read and reminded me of my youth. Good plot and I loved the characters.
November 11, 2023
Cute children’s story and conveyed a real innocence. I listened to it via audio and the narrator was great. It was too long however and could have been edited down.
October 25, 2025
This early Herman Wouk novel (pre-Caine Mutiny, 1948) is delightful. It’s set in the mid-1920s and it’s about the adventures of Herbie Bookbinder, a smart, fat 11-year-old Bronx resident.
The jacket copy says that Herbie has been frequently compared to Tom Sawyer, and that is apt.
Very funny, and it all rings true.
The jacket copy says that Herbie has been frequently compared to Tom Sawyer, and that is apt.
Very funny, and it all rings true.
January 30, 2019
It was a bit slow and it finally picks up the last third of the book.
February 7, 2013
I can't remember exactly how I came upon this book but I was surfing around on the internet about a week ago and discovered it. I think I had heard of it before because the main character's name, Herbie Bookbinder, sounded familiar to me, but I had never read it.
This is the story of the last half of the school year when Herbie is 11 and the summer that follows it when he goes to a summer camp run by his school's pricipal. It takes place in 1928 and is told from Herbie's point of view with observations and explanations by the author. Some have compared it to Tom Sawyer and I see the comparison.
Although, I never lived in a big city like New York and I never went to summer camp I was able to relate to Herbie and his adventures and experiences. How many of you remember childhood superstitions and rituals? How many of you guys have been in love with the "cute little girl" and done stupid things to impress her? How many of you have complained the whole time you were participating in something (In Herbie's case summer camp.) and then looked back on it with fondness?
Herbie is neither completely the hero nor the villan. That, I think, is why his story is so engaging and so enjoyable. I could not put the book down and felt every joy and every diappointment along with Herbie as the book progressed.
This is the story of the last half of the school year when Herbie is 11 and the summer that follows it when he goes to a summer camp run by his school's pricipal. It takes place in 1928 and is told from Herbie's point of view with observations and explanations by the author. Some have compared it to Tom Sawyer and I see the comparison.
Although, I never lived in a big city like New York and I never went to summer camp I was able to relate to Herbie and his adventures and experiences. How many of you remember childhood superstitions and rituals? How many of you guys have been in love with the "cute little girl" and done stupid things to impress her? How many of you have complained the whole time you were participating in something (In Herbie's case summer camp.) and then looked back on it with fondness?
Herbie is neither completely the hero nor the villan. That, I think, is why his story is so engaging and so enjoyable. I could not put the book down and felt every joy and every diappointment along with Herbie as the book progressed.
June 17, 2022
This book was selected by my book club, and I am glad for that. I had never, to the best of my memory, previously read anything by Herman Wouk. Now that I have "discovered" his writing, I will try to read more.
The main point about this book is that it perfectly captures the mind and emotions of an 11-year old boy! The plot details (set as they are in the Bronx, and in a Jewish summer camp in the Berkshires) are almost all completely outside of my own experience, and yet I could relate to most of them from my own childhood. And in fact, the plot is nearly incidental -- this is about the inner torments of a child dealing with his peers, his school (including his crush on a teacher), his first "love" for a girl his age, his parents, and most of all with the traumas and joys of his first summer camp experience. The plot merely serves to illustrate the boy's feelings and responses as he navigates through one summer of youth.
I could relate to the character, Herbie, not just because I was once an 11 year-old boy, but because like him, I was terrible at sports but better than most at the scholastic side of things. For Herbie and for others like him, this is a tremendous burden, a trial that is well and truly portrayed by Wouk, and which still resonates with me nearly seven decades later. Now that is good writing!
The main point about this book is that it perfectly captures the mind and emotions of an 11-year old boy! The plot details (set as they are in the Bronx, and in a Jewish summer camp in the Berkshires) are almost all completely outside of my own experience, and yet I could relate to most of them from my own childhood. And in fact, the plot is nearly incidental -- this is about the inner torments of a child dealing with his peers, his school (including his crush on a teacher), his first "love" for a girl his age, his parents, and most of all with the traumas and joys of his first summer camp experience. The plot merely serves to illustrate the boy's feelings and responses as he navigates through one summer of youth.
I could relate to the character, Herbie, not just because I was once an 11 year-old boy, but because like him, I was terrible at sports but better than most at the scholastic side of things. For Herbie and for others like him, this is a tremendous burden, a trial that is well and truly portrayed by Wouk, and which still resonates with me nearly seven decades later. Now that is good writing!
October 10, 2021
Who doesn’t love a ‘coming of age’ story? Certainly not me. This book seemed to have all the ingredients it needed for an amusing romp through earlier adolescence in the 1920’s. We’ve got our chubby, intelligent hero growing up in his ethnic neighborhood. He goes to PS 154, where he heads his grade, making him the target for the local bully. He’s got a best friend. And, of course, there’s the ‘little red haired’ girl.
Sounds like a ‘can’t miss’. But there’s one more thing. We need a story teller. And here in lies the problem. Herman Wouk can set the stage, relate the facts, & draw you a timeline, but he just doesn’t make you, the reader, feel the story. Teenage embarrassment, I want to feel uncomfortable for the hero as I see what’s coming and cringe when it’s sprung on him. I want to feel the pride as I would in my own child as he stands shoulder to shoulder with his best friend as they face up to adversity and succeed. I want to get a little missy eyed with remembrance during the ‘first kiss’ scene. But no, nothing, zilch, zero. I may as well be reading a Wikipedia article.
Apparently, according to the introduction to the 50 year anniversary edition, this book was seriously panned when first released. In this case, they were right.
Could not finish. (Read 25%)
Sounds like a ‘can’t miss’. But there’s one more thing. We need a story teller. And here in lies the problem. Herman Wouk can set the stage, relate the facts, & draw you a timeline, but he just doesn’t make you, the reader, feel the story. Teenage embarrassment, I want to feel uncomfortable for the hero as I see what’s coming and cringe when it’s sprung on him. I want to feel the pride as I would in my own child as he stands shoulder to shoulder with his best friend as they face up to adversity and succeed. I want to get a little missy eyed with remembrance during the ‘first kiss’ scene. But no, nothing, zilch, zero. I may as well be reading a Wikipedia article.
Apparently, according to the introduction to the 50 year anniversary edition, this book was seriously panned when first released. In this case, they were right.
Could not finish. (Read 25%)
September 12, 2019
There are underrated books and this is one. This is (at least) my fourth time through this book, the first being when I was less than 10 when my dad read it aloud (yes. We were that nerdy and it was lovely). The City Boy is a classic book about a boy growing up in Brooklyn. He’s nerdy. He’s fat. He’s Jewish. And somehow he makes it work in his favor after a thousand mishaps and so many hilarious mistakes. If you’ve forgotten what is it like to be 10 and to be in love, this is the book for you. If you need a little levity at the end of the day, this is the book for you. If you loved camp, this is the book for you. If you hated camp, this is the book for you. Back in the 50’s my dad’s teacher read this book aloud. Two generations later, my children loved it. Underrated yet amazing. Enjoy it. Thank you!
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