Book Story

Imagine a summer that never quite ends. A town where the sidewalks are cracked just right, the maple trees whisper secrets, and the air smells faintly of chalk dust, Crayola, and the distant hum of a lawnmower. Now imagine a boy with red hair brighter than a fire engine and a girl with a name no one can pronounce. Together, they build a world.

This is not a story. It is a memory, pressed between the pages of a Crayola box. A Norwegian-American girl named Mari “Zooey” Bjørk and a boy named Billy Buck—part Huck Finn, part Atticus Finch, all heart—navigate the 1950s in Ames, Iowa. They build a cemetery for dead birds. They construct a chapel in a tree. They bury a bald eagle. They write poems. They whisper secrets. They grow up.

And then, as all things do, it ends.

But not before it becomes something more: a lyrical, jigsaw-pieced ode to childhood, friendship, and the kind of kindness that doesn’t ask for anything in return. Told in stanzas like a patchwork quilt, stitched with nostalgia, humor, and heartbreak, this is a book that doesn’t just tell you a story—it hands you a shoebox full of memories and asks you to carry it carefully.

Perfect for those who still believe in the Tooth Fairy, who remember the smell of a freshly sharpened pencil, and who know that sometimes the best way to say goodbye is with a poem.

Details

• • Set in 1950s Ames, Iowa 
  • Told in poetic vignettes 
  • Features a cast of unforgettable characters, including a hobo, a scarecrow, and a taxidermied owl 
  • Includes a postscript that will break your heart in the best way

Care Instructions

Read slowly. Handle with wonder. May cause spontaneous weeping and/or the urge to write a haiku.

About the Book (by the author)

Ode to Billy Buck/Ode til Billy Buck is a bilingual English/Norwegian Bøkmal (facing pages of English on the left, Norwegian Bøkmal on the right) story about the friendship between two children in Ames, Iowa, USA during the 1950s. The story is inspired by my own childhood, but it is not purely autobiographical. I’ve cut jigsaw pieces out of reality, jumbled them well, and glued them onto each page of this book in intentional patterns. Although we share nicknames, Mari Bjørk is not quite me, and her family is not quite mine. All the characters in this book are results of my jigsaw-jumbling — except, of course and may be, Billy Buck.

I have described Ames of the 1950s as true to reality as my memory allows me seven decades later, well assisted by Ames History Museum’s goldmine of a website and other sources. The buildings, stores, parks, and streets all have their 1950s names and locations. The weather is accurate for any given date in this narrative. I might have exaggerated the cornfields surrounding Ames a bit, since they are seen through the eyes of a child way back in those olden days.

The language in the Norwegian version is the same transitional variant of Bokmål that Mari’s parents would have used in the 1950s. All colors in the English version are spelled exactly as they are written in Mari’s Crayola box and kept in a matching mode in the Norwegian version. And yes, I’ve broken some grammatical and orthographic rules in both versions. That’s because I’ve followed Mari’s perception of the way things are.