Homer Price

Summary

Homer Price is a book of six connected comic stories about a resourceful Ohio boy and the small town of Centerburg. Homer lives two miles outside town at a tourist camp, where his father runs the filling station and his mother looks after the cabins and cooks in the lunch room. His hobby is building radios, and he keeps a pet skunk named Aroma. In "The Case of the Sensational Scent," Homer's new homemade radio brings news of a robbery. Walking through the woods next day, he smells bacon and finds four robbers camped in a cabin, all sleeping in one bed so that none can sneak off with the loot. Homer sets Aroma on their case of money, throws their clothes and guns out of reach, and holds them until the sheriff arrives. In "The Case of the Cosmic Comic," Homer's friend Freddy, who worships the comic-book hero the Super-Duper, rides with Homer in his mother's horse and wagon toward town, where the Super-Duper is to appear in person at a movie premiere. They find the hero's car wrecked by the road, where he swerved to miss a skunk, and the mighty man himself caught in a barbed-wire fence, yelping and quite unable to free himself. "The Doughnuts," the best known story, takes place in Uncle Ulysses's lunch room in Centerburg. Uncle Ulysses loves labor-saving devices and has bought an automatic doughnut machine. While he goes to the barbershop, Homer finishes assembling it. A rich lady arrives in a chauffeured car, mixes up a huge batch of batter from her own recipe, and leaves her diamond bracelet behind in it. The machine will not stop, and the doughnuts pile up by the hundreds. Mr. Gabby, a traveling sandwich-board man, advises advertising; Homer's notion of a hundred-dollar reward for finding the bracelet inside a doughnut sells the whole stack, and a customer named Rupert Black finds it. In "Mystery Yarn," Homer's Uncle Telly and the sheriff, rival string-savers who both court Miss Terwilliger, unwind their giant balls of string around the fairground racetrack to decide whose is longer; Miss Terwilliger enters too and wins by unraveling the knitted yarn of her own dress. In "Nothing New Under the Sun (Hardly)," a long-bearded stranger named Michael Murphy rouses the town's suspicions until Homer befriends him and learns that he has perfected a musical mousetrap whose tune draws every mouse in Centerburg after it, a comic echo of the Pied Piper. In "Wheels of Progress," Uncle Ulysses and Miss Naomi Enders, descendant of the town's founder, put up a whole district of identical mass-produced houses in a day, but a union rule delays the street signs, and the residents can find their homes only by counting houses, all during the pageant honoring the founder Ezekiel Enders. The Viking Press published the book in 1943 with McCloskey's own illustrations; Centerburg Tales followed in 1951.

Plot or Argument

• I. The Case of the Sensational Scent

  Homer hears of a robbery on his homemade radio, tracks the smell of frying bacon to the robbers' hideout, and with Aroma the skunk standing guard on the money case keeps the four men in place until the sheriff comes.

• II. The Case of the Cosmic Comic

  Freddy's idol the Super-Duper, on his way to a personal appearance in Centerburg, wrecks his car avoiding a skunk and turns out to be an ordinary man who gets tangled in barbed wire and says ouch.

• III. The Doughnuts

  Uncle Ulysses's new doughnut machine, loaded with a rich lady's gigantic batch of batter and her lost bracelet, will not stop; Homer and the sandwich man Mr. Gabby turn the flood of doughnuts into a sell-out by advertising a hundred-dollar prize.

• IV. Mystery Yarn

  Uncle Telly's tight ball of string and the sheriff's loose one meet in an unwinding contest at the racetrack, with Miss Terwilliger's hand the private prize, until Miss Terwilliger enters her own yarn and outdistances both.

• V. Nothing New Under the Sun (Hardly)

  The sheriff, who judges people by the shape of their ears, sets Homer to find out about a bearded stranger, who proves to be Michael Murphy, inventor of a musical mousetrap that leads the town's mice away.

• VI. Wheels of Progress

  Miss Naomi Enders and Uncle Ulysses meet the housing shortage with a mass-produced subdivision on the Enders land; the street signs are held up by union rules, and residents count houses to find their way home during the founder's pageant.

Characters

• Homer Price, protagonist

  Practical, unflappable boy who builds radios, keeps a pet skunk and solves the town's messes with common sense.

• Aroma, Homer's pet skunk

  Tame skunk whose threat of a spray keeps four robbers in line.

• Freddy, Homer's friend

  Devoted reader of Super-Duper comics who meets his hero in person.

• Uncle Ulysses, lunch-room owner

  Homer's uncle in Centerburg, who cannot resist the newest labor-saving device.

• Aunt Agnes, Uncle Ulysses's wife

  Brisk aunt whose opinion of the doughnut mess Uncle Ulysses dreads.

• The sheriff, town lawman

  Barbershop regular and string-saver who claims to read character from the shape of a person's ears.

• Uncle Telly, Homer's uncle Telemachus

  String-saver whose tightly wound ball rivals the sheriff's for size and for Miss Terwilliger's favor.

• Miss Terwilliger, town lady

  Knitter courted by Uncle Telly and the sheriff, who enters and wins their contest herself.

• Mr. Gabby, sandwich man

  Traveling advertiser who wears signboards and advises Homer to create a market for the doughnuts.

• Rupert Black, customer

  Doughnut buyer who finds the diamond bracelet and claims the reward.

• The Super-Duper, comic-book hero in person

  Costumed star of the comics and films whose road accident shows him to be only human.

• Michael Murphy, bearded stranger

  Inventor who has spent his life perfecting mousetraps, ending with one that plays music.

• Miss Naomi Enders, town benefactor

  Descendant of Centerburg's founder, who welcomes Uncle Ulysses's ideas and pays to build new houses.

Lessons

• Common sense in a crisis

  When the doughnut machine runs wild and the bracelet goes missing, the grown-ups fret while Homer thinks. His sign offering a prize for the bracelet inside a doughnut solves both problems at once. The story shows that a calm mind looking for a simple answer can beat panic and fancy schemes.

  • What two problems does Homer have at once in the lunch room?
  • How does Homer's idea fix both of them?
  • What do the grown-ups do while Homer is thinking?

• Machines that run ahead of people

  Uncle Ulysses buys every labor-saving device, and in Wheels of Progress he helps build a whole neighborhood the way factories build cars. McCloskey laughs at what happens when no one can stop the doughnut machine, or tell one new house from the next. New inventions are fun, but they still need wise people in charge of them.

  • Why does Uncle Ulysses love new gadgets so much?
  • What goes wrong when all the new houses look exactly alike?
  • Can you think of a machine that saves work but can also make a mess?

• Heroes and ordinary people

  Freddy believes the Super-Duper can do anything, until he sees him stuck in a barbed-wire fence after swerving to miss a skunk. Meanwhile Homer, an ordinary boy, really does catch four robbers with a pet skunk and some quick thinking. The book gently teaches children to admire real courage and good sense more than costumes and posters.

  • How do Freddy's feelings about the Super-Duper change on the road to town?
  • Who is the real hero of the robber story?
  • What makes someone a real hero?

• Judging a stranger

  The townspeople stare at Michael Murphy's long beard and the sheriff tries to judge him by his ears, but Homer gets to know him and learns that he is a harmless, hardworking inventor. The story pokes fun at suspicion built on looks.

  • Why is the town suspicious of the man with the beard?
  • How does Homer find out who he really is?

Context

The stories picture a small Midwestern town at the end of the 1930s and in wartime: a lunch room and barbershop where the men talk, a tourist camp on a state highway, homemade radios, comic books and movie premieres, a county fair, and the housing shortage that led to factory-built houses. Centerburg is often said to draw on McCloskey's hometown of Hamilton, Ohio, and on his own boyhood love of gadgets.

Composition

McCloskey wrote and illustrated the stories after the success of Lentil (1940) and Make Way for Ducklings (1941). The Viking Press published Homer Price in 1943 with his full-page and spot drawings; the sequel, Centerburg Tales, with more stories of Homer and Grampa Hercules, followed in 1951.

Reception

The book became a steady favorite in American schools and libraries, and The Doughnuts in particular has been reprinted in many school readers and anthologies and adapted for film. Its gentle humor about gadgets, small-town rivalries and boyhood ingenuity made Homer one of the best-loved boy heroes of mid-century children's fiction.

Comparisons

• make-way-for-ducklings

  McCloskey's Caldecott picture book of two years earlier shares the same drawing hand and the same affection for a friendly town, with Officer Michael stopping Boston traffic as Homer manages Centerburg's crises.

• mr-poppers-penguins

  Both books set an ordinary American household on its ear with one absurd new arrival, Mr. Popper's penguins or Uncle Ulysses's doughnut machine, and both play the comedy completely straight.

• the-adventures-of-tom-sawyer

  Tom and Homer are small-town American boys with an eye for a scheme; Tom works his fence-painting trick for glory, while Homer's reward sign saves his uncle's business.

• the-moffats

  Published two years apart, both are episodic books about children in a small American town during the same years, built of separate comic adventures rather than one plot.

• Centerburg Tales (Robert McCloskey)

  The 1951 sequel returns to Homer, Freddy, Uncle Ulysses and the doughnut machine, and adds Grampa Hercules and his tall tales.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• Every gadget in the book, from Homer's radio and Uncle Ulysses's doughnut machine to Michael Murphy's musical mousetrap, and whether it helps or makes trouble.
• Aroma the skunk, and the other skunk in the road that causes the Super-Duper's accident.
• The signs Homer and Mr. Gabby make in The Doughnuts, and how people in the street react to them.
• The sheriff's habit of judging people by their ears, and whether he ever turns out to be right.
• McCloskey's pictures: the heap of doughnuts, the giant balls of string, and the rows of matching houses.

Key terms and names

Centerburg

The small Ohio town where Homer's uncle keeps the lunch room and where most of the stories take place.

Tourist camp

A group of small cabins beside the highway for travelers to sleep in. Homer's parents run one outside town, with a filling station and lunch room.

Labor-saving device

A machine meant to do work people used to do by hand. Uncle Ulysses buys every new one he can, including the doughnut machine.

Sandwich man

A person paid to walk the streets wearing two advertising boards, one in front and one behind. Mr. Gabby is one.

String-saver

Someone who saves every scrap of string and winds it onto one ball. Uncle Telly and the sheriff have both done it for years.

Mass production

Making many identical things quickly, as factories make cars. Uncle Ulysses says doughnuts and houses can be made this way too.

Pageant

A town show acting out its history. Centerburg's pageant honors its founder, Ezekiel Enders.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension How does Homer find the four robbers, and how does he keep them from getting away?
2. Comprehension Why won't the doughnut machine stop, and how does the rich lady's bracelet end up in a doughnut?
3. Comprehension How does Miss Terwilliger win the string contest at the racetrack?
4. Interpretation Freddy's hero, the Super-Duper, gets stuck in a barbed-wire fence. Do you think Freddy still likes him afterward? Why or why not?
5. Interpretation Why is the whole town so suspicious of Michael Murphy, and what does Homer do differently from the grown-ups?
6. Interpretation In Wheels of Progress, everyone gets a new house but nobody can find the right one. What is McCloskey poking fun at?
7. Big Question Homer is a boy, but he often has more sense than the grown-ups around him. What is the difference between being clever and being wise?

Faith Connections

• Ecclesiastes 1:9 (Scripture)

  The title Nothing New Under the Sun comes from the Preacher's saying that there is no new thing under the sun. Michael Murphy's wonderful new mousetrap leads the mice away like the old tale of the Pied Piper, so the newest invention turns out to be an old story after all.

• 1 Samuel 16:7 (Scripture)

  The Lord tells Samuel that people look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. The sheriff reads character from ears and the town stares at a beard, but Homer gets to know Michael Murphy and finds a gentle inventor.

• Ecclesiastes 4:4 (Scripture)

  The Preacher notices that much hard work comes from rivalry with a neighbor. Uncle Telly and the sheriff have spent years winding string just to beat each other, and the contest shows how silly such rivalry can become.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Grown-ups in Centerburg trust gadgets, posters, appearances and old rivalries, and each time those things lead them into a mess: a machine that will not stop, a hero who cannot help himself, a stranger wrongly suspected, a town of houses no one can tell apart. Homer trusts plain observation and common sense, and each time it gets them out. Therefore the stories suggest that good sense matters more than cleverness, machines or show.

Rhetorical device: hyperbole. In The Doughnuts the machine's output grows past all reason until the lunch room is heaped with doughnuts, and McCloskey's illustration of the towering piles makes the exaggeration part of the joke.

Debate: Resolved: Uncle Ulysses's labor-saving devices caused Centerburg more trouble than they saved.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Choose two stories in which Homer solves a problem, such as the robbers and the doughnuts, and explain what he notices or thinks of that the grown-ups miss.

Comparison with Mr. Popper's Penguins: Uncle Ulysses gets a doughnut machine and Mr. Popper gets a penguin. Compare how each surprise turns a quiet household upside down and how each mess is finally solved.

Medical Lens

The stories contain no illness or medical episode of note.

Creative Prompts

• Fiction

  Write a seventh Centerburg story in which Uncle Ulysses buys another labor-saving machine, and Homer has to rescue the town from it.

• Classroom

  Design the sign Homer puts in the lunch room window and the signboards Mr. Gabby carries, then hold a class vote on which advertisement would sell the most doughnuts.

• Essay

  Was the Super-Duper a fraud, or just a man doing a job? Use the wrecked car, the barbed wire and Freddy's comic books to decide.

• Dialogue

  Write the barbershop conversation in which the sheriff explains to Uncle Ulysses how he reads a man's character from his ears.

Further Reading

• Centerburg Tales, Robert McCloskey

  The 1951 sequel.

• Lentil, Robert McCloskey

  McCloskey's first picture book, about a harmonica-playing boy in a small Ohio town.

• Make Way for Ducklings, Robert McCloskey