Jack Stillerman

Yankee Doodle Boychik Jack Stillerman

Jackknown on the street as Jake and Boychik to his ma, was born on the Fourth ofJuly on Chicago's Southside, smelling distance from the stockyards. Yankee Doodle Boychik starts in1919.¿ Jack is four and living packed "like herring in a barrel" behind Pa's shoe store.¿ The struggles and triumphs, poignant and funny, to become a realAmerican boy are portrayed through his eyes.¿The story takes the reader through forty chapter stories to his barmitzvah when he invites the neighbors to their first Jewish party. Itwas the magic time of radio and Babe Ruth, of Paul Whiteman's band serialmovies on Saturday morning.¿ Jakeconfronts his immigrant Ma's old country values, convincing her that there istime in his day for sports as well as study and its all right for a Jewish boyto play the sax in a jazz band, rather than a fiddle in a concert hall. Thisis not the usual coming of age story.¿In Yankee Doodle Boychik, aJewish boy grows up in a functionalfamily.¿ Discipline is tempered byMa's love and conflicts resolved without sacrificing religious principle. Bythe last chapter, the reader will have laughed and cried with Jake as hepursues the wins and losses of his dreams.