Tomás Takes Charge

Tomás Takes Charge, by Charlene Joy Talbot, was my absolute favorite book when I was a kid. It was my sister’s favorite, too, and my kids loved it when I read it to them. You won’t find it on too many lists of the classics, but for some reason it’s like catnip to my family.

To begin with, it’s the sort of story kids love, about a brother and sister living by their wits in an abandoned apartment in New York City. Don’t we all dream of leaving Mom and Dad and the backyards of suburbia and somehow making it on our own? It’s sort of like an urban version of the Boxcar Children. But it was Talbot’s straightforward writing and her eye for the telling detail that really brought this book to life for me.

In the story, Tomás and Fernanda, ages 10 and 14, are motherless children who are left completely alone when their father doesn’t come home from work. After a few days, a kindly neighbor gets involved and arranges for the children to be taken away by Welfare. To avoid this dreadful fate, Tomás and Fernanda make up a story about going to stay with their godmother in Brooklyn but really they just move to an empty apartment on the boarded-up upper floor of a nearby building. Tomás scavenges for food and other items on the street, while Fernanda, who is agoraphobic and won’t go out, takes care of the place.

One of the things that makes this book work is the setting. Tomás and Fernanda live in Washington Market, a wholesale produce district that was razed and displaced shortly after this book was published to make way for the World Trade Center and assorted urban renewal projects. I had never been to New York when I read this book, yet Talbot’s descriptions made the neighborhood seem very real.

My sister points to the food as being a big part of the book’s appeal. Tomás scavenges for fruits and vegetables among the discarded crates of the market, and he turns in bottles to get money to buy rice. Fernanda cooks up exotic (to my Midwestern eyes) dishes on an open fire and later on a cookstove that Tomás finds on the street. Talbot brings bright primary colors into her story a lot: Fernanda’s bright blue nylon dress, the bolt of yellow silk that Tomás finds in his travels. And my favorite description of all, the one that sticks in my head after 40 years, is her picture of the super’s apartment in the building where Tomás and Fernanda start out:

She had brought two boxes from the refrigerator—chocolate ice cream and vanilla. She scooped big spoonfuls into red plastic bowls. Fernanda got more vanilla; Tomás more chocolate. They sat at Mrs. Malloy’s plastic-covered table to eat it.

Almost everything in Mrs. Malloy’s house was plastic. Red roses on the table made every meal like a party. Between the plastic curtains, red plastic geraniums on the window sills never withered, never stopped blooming. Plastic lace doilies on the television and on the end tables made white curlicues against the dark wood. Green plastic ivy curled around the blue television lamp.

Talbot makes some interesting choices as well. There weren’t many books about Puerto Rican New Yorkers in 1967. And while I can’t quite put my finger on it, there’s something about the voice of the book that makes it really sound like the story is being told by a Hispanic narrator—there’s a certain definiteness and directness about it that just rings true.

Tomás is your standard plucky young boy, but Fernanda is another extreme altogether. She is agoraphobic and refuses to leave the house. Instead, she buries herself in scrapbooks, in which she has pasted pictures of houses, clothing, and food from old magazines. Despite being housebound, she reflects the consumer culture of the time, usually in a positive way.

These cave adventures take up most of the first half of the book, but eventually the story has to move on; Tomás meets an artist who illustrates children’s books, and we know the jig is going to be up fairly soon. Still, the ending is fairly satisfying and it’s particularly appropriate that Tomás himself comes up with the idea for the children’s permanent living arrangement.

Tomás Takes Charge is one of those books you sink into. I used to read it over and over, just for the descriptions and the exciting feeling Talbot evoked of going off and living on your own, surviving on your wits and some discarded green peppers. There’s something both exciting and reassuring about that, no matter how unrealistic the story really is.

6 thoughts on “Tomás Takes Charge

  1. This was also my faxorite book as a child. I just remember Tomas making a meal of things like tomatoes and cheese that he’d found in the alleys of hte city. His ability to take care of his sister always has stayed with me. This would be a good read for many of the kids that I work with in the middle school level. So many of them take our abundance for granted, while they are but a heartbeat away from being homeless themselves. Education is the key. I’ve got to get my hands on a copy of this book.

  2. I just remembered this book a minute ago; this was my absolute favorite book as a kid, and I was wondering if it was still in print. Your review’s great; I’m going to try to find a copy for my niece!

  3. i have looked everywhere for this book. i got it in those school order magazines we used to get and i would now like to get it for my grandchildren. needless to say it is a very memorable book.

  4. I have always remembered this book! It made quite an impression on me in the fourth grade and that was over 30 years ago! For so many years I have thought about this book, but could not remember the title! I just recently got in touch with my fourth grade teacher via facebook and she remembered the title. I really want to get a copy.

    I am Upstate in a very old library so I am going to see if they have the book. I loved this book. I still think about the characters and what they had to go through. When I get a copy of this book I am definitely going to read it to my 6th grade students.

    Thank you all for remembering Tomas and having this blog. I am so happy to know that there are other people who loved this book as much as I did.

  5. I loved this book and many others. My mother subscribed me to the Weekly Reader books. Lots of memories. I loved other books, like Reggie’s No Good Bird, many Beverly Cleary books, and one about a girl who was a dog painter. Wish I could remember the title of that book.

  6. I, too, remember this book fondly. I read it to both of my daughter’s and they loved the story. Never having been to New York City, they both commented how they could picture what it looked like. Charlene Joy Talbott used such great imagery to tell her story. As I re-read the story with my daughter’s I remembered how much I love this book.

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