Book Log 2021 #15: Henry Reed's Journey by Keith Robertson

Henry Reed is a teenage boy who lives abroad, as his father is a diplomat.  Henry spends his summers with his aunt, uncle, and cousin Midge in Grovers Corner, New Jersey. Except for the summer in this book, where he meets the family in California for a cross-country drive back to New Jersey and records what happens in journal style.

This was one of my favorite books as a kid, and as I had my own kids I bought a used copy of the edition I'd grown up reading. They never quite took to it, and I decided to reread it. 

Suffice it to say that parts of the book did not age well. There is a near-constant griping by the uncle about the shopping habits of women, and a plot involving Native Americans goes about as you'd expect for a book published in 1963. Still, many of the stories are entertaining and not cringe-inducing, so I think the book would be worth introducing to current kids (with an appropriate amount of context-setting).

This is the second book in a five book series, but it's the only one I really got into (I have vague memories of reading Henry Reed, Inc.). The first four books in the series include illustrations by Robert McCloskey, which always led me confuse the Henry Reed books with the two books McCloskey wrote and illustrated featuring another teen boy who gets into adventures, Homer Price (Home Price and Centerburg Tales). I liked those, too, but haven't gone back to reread them. Yet.