Tucky Jo and Little Heart
Author: Patricia Polacco
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Reviewer: Christi
Summary: A fifteen-year-old soldier in World War II meets
a sweet young girl in the Philippines who helps him remember what he is fighting
for as he helps her and others of her village avoid starvation, and many years
later she returns his kindness.
Review: Get out the Kleenex. This story
will inspire you to always keep your heart open because sometimes the smallest
thing will remind you why you’re here.The author did an amazing job of telling
one soldiers story. Johnnie is a 15 year
old boy from Kentucky that’s fighting in World War II in the jungle. As he
fights to not let the despair of that get to him he has to deal with the day to
day troubles- like the fact that the ground is damp and mushy and the soldiers
feet are never dry, he’s exhausted, and worst of all is the bugs (the size of
your hand) stinging him and covering him in welts. One day he turns around and
finds a little girl staring at him. Johnnie drank her in because looking at
that innocent tiny girl gave him a peace he hadn’t felt in a long time. She
picked a plant and showed him how to help his bug bites with the goo from the
plant. He tried to tell her his name “Kentucky Jo” that’s what the other
soldiers called him. She couldn’t speak his language so when he saw the heart
shaped birthmark on her arm he named her “Little Heart”. When she finally tried
to say his name it came out like “Tucky Jo”. He whittled her a doll and tried
brighten up her and his life by watching her smile. He would bring her food for
her village from his k rations. He even helped her village get food from the
river. Eventually it was time to go home and for years he wondered about Little
Heart. As he got older his eyesight and hearing were almost gone and he
couldn’t afford to fix it. One day at the Veterans hospital he came across a
new nurse. She told him that she’d had a meeting with specialist and they would
take his case for free and get him the expensive medicine he needed. When he
asked why are doing this for me she showed him her little heart birthmark and
said I’m going to take care of you like you did for me so long ago. She had
looked for him too for years in hope she could thank him for his kindness. This would be a great read aloud to a class
learning about the war or even as a gift to a military family. A must read!
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