Ernie appears in public wearing Doug’s prized Joe Pepitone jacket, stolen by Doug’s father. After another break-in, the police arrest Christopher, but it’s clear to Doug that he’s innocent, and his father’s drinking buddy, Ernie Eco, is the culprit. He struggles to find work in Marysville, but he becomes an assistant coach at the end of the novel when Doug connects him with his gym teacher, who also suffers from PTSD. Meanwhile, Lucas returns from Vietnam with post-traumatic stress disorder, partial blindness, and his legs have been amputated from the knee. Christopher steals the baseball out of his father’s truck and gives it to Doug, cementing Doug’s opinion that Christopher isn’t actually all bad and isn’t to blame for Marysville’s recent string of break-ins.

Ballard gives Doug’s father Doug’s winnings, a signed baseball and $100, but Doug never receives these rewards. Doug’s gym teacher, however, torments him and eventually rips Doug’s shirt off when he refuses to play on the “skins” team, revealing a tattoo that Doug’s father gave him to humiliate him: a chest tattoo that reads “Mama’s Baby.”ĭuring a work function, Doug’s father anticipates winning a Babe Ruth trivia contest, but Doug wins along with his teammate, and the company’s owner, Mr. Ferriss and Miss Cowper, the latter even teaching him to read. By the end of the novel, Doug retrieves all of the pages from their respective owners and returns them to the library.ĭespite some suspicion surrounding Doug because of Christopher’s supposed crimes, Doug finds acceptance at school from certain teachers, like Mr. Doug is sad to learn that the library is cutting pictures out of the book and selling them off. Powell, Doug begins learning to draw and paint the birds. Under the tutelage of a worker there, Mr. He also visits the library regularly, where an illustrated book of birds by John J Audubon is kept behind glass. On one such delivery, he meets and befriends the eccentric writer, Mrs. Doug’s mother worries that when Lucas returns from fighting in Vietnam, there will be no room for him in their new, smaller home.Īt Marysville, Doug meets Lil, the daughter of a local deli, and he begins making deliveries for her father. Doug’s mother breaks up her beloved garden plot, and Doug’s best friend, Holling Hoodhood, gives him Joe Pepitone’s jacket as a parting gift. As the story opens, Doug’s father loses his job, forcing the family to move to Marysville, New York. Christopher quickly stole the hat and passed it around to his friends, devastating Doug.

Doug relates that his most prized possession came from Joe Pepitone, a major league baseball player who visited Doug’s high school and left him his baseball cap. Doug’s soul comfort is making his mother, an avid homemaker and gardener, smile. Doug Swieteck, a middle schooler, is the child of an abusive, alcoholic father with two abusive, trouble-maker brothers, Christopher and Lucas.

Okay for now book