Things Will Never Be the Same (26 Fairmount Avenue Series) Book

This book is somewhat different from the first four in the 26 Fairmount Avenue series. At the end of the previous book, Young Tomie received a new diary for Christmas, and a fair amount of the writing in this volume is done in the form of Tomie's realistically pencil illustrated diary entries from the year 1941.

As with its predecessors, Things Will Never Be the Same is positively brimming with the beautiful charm of Young Tomie's 1930s-40s childhood. The freshness of his perspective about his world in general is fantastic and original, as much fun as riding a roller coaster (like little Tomie does in the book, at Savin Rock amusement park!). Then again, what else would one expect from a seven-year-old with Young Tomie's quirky and artistic mindset? At times, this book really made me wish that I were seven years old in 1941, living on Tomie's street as a neighbor of his and experiencing with him the things that he experienced first hand. I think that this sort of longing is the sign of an extraordinary book.

Things Will Never Be the Same takes us all the way through the year 1941 in Young Tomie's life, though moving much more rapidly than the previous installments in the series. Tomie continues to grow into an amazing child artist, and his affection for all things Shirley Temple and Disney never fades, though it does begin to broaden just a bit. Tomie's new favorite actors are Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, and the theatrical release of Walt Disney's third full-length animated masterpiece Fantasia gives him an entirely new perspective on cinematic excellence.

This book is the first in the subsection of the 26 Fairmount Avenue series labeled The War Years. As Christmas of 1941 approaches, the Japanese attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor shatters the peace of our nation and of Tomie's world, greatly distressing the grownups in Young Tomie's life and changing the way that everyone views the war situation overseas. Even though Tomie might not know what a "fleet" is, he certainly does know what it means that thousands of American militia members have been killed. As Young Tomie's mother tearfully whispers to him at the end of the book, "Things will never be the same!" I suppose they never were.

In my view, this is the second best book of the series to this point, behind only On My Way. Little Tomie's charm sparkles in rare form, and the subtle emotion of his response to the Pearl Harbor attack is heartfelt, captured to stunning perfection in the subdued illustrations of the moment that author Tomie dePaola has created for this book. Those drawings, one facing the final page and the other on the title page, just really say it all. I would give two and a half stars to Things Will Never Be the Same.