Product Description

In the year 1976, war has been declared between truck drivers and pushcart peddlers in New York City.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35773 in Books
• Published on: 1987-06-01
• Released on: 1987-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780440471479
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Publisher
The pushcarts have declared war! New York City's streets are clogged with huge, rude trucks that park where they want, hold up traffic, and bulldoze into anything that is in their way, and the pushcart peddlers are determined to get rid of them. But the trucks are just as determined to get rid of the pushcarts, and chaos results in the city.

The pushcarts have come up with a brilliant strategy that will surely let the hot air out of their enemies. The secret weapon--a peashooter armed with a pin; the target--the vulnerable truck tires. Once the source of the flat tires is discovered, the children of the city joyfully join in with their own pin peashooters. The pushcarts have won one battle, but can they win the war against a corrupt mayor who taxes the pins and prohibits the sale of dried peas?

From the Inside Flap
The pushcarts have declared war!  New York City's streets are clogged with huge, rude trucks that park where they want, hold up traffic, and bulldoze into anything that is in their way, and the pushcart peddlers are determined to get rid of them. But the trucks are just as determined to get rid of the pushcarts, and chaos results in the city.



The pushcarts have come up with a brilliant strategy that will surely let the hot air out of their enemies.  The secret weapon--a peashooter armed with a pin; the target--the vulnerable truck tires.  Once the source of the flat tires is discovered, the children of the city joyfully join in with their own pin peashooters.  The pushcarts have won one battle, but can they win the war against a corrupt mayor who taxes the pins and prohibits the sale of dried peas?

Customer Reviews

Not Just For Kids!
I read THE PUSHCART WAR as part of a reading program when I was in fifth grade, and of all the books I read that year, this is the one of only two that stuck with me.

In the late eighties I found the book back in print, and I snatched the copy off the shelf to read to my then-seven year-old son. When I did, I made a wonderful discovery... that THE PUSHCART WAR was even more fun to read as an adult... so much so that this book would have an impact on my own writing.

THE PUSHCART WAR is not just for kids. I am in my forties now, and I still find myself going back to re-read this one. I have read it to both of my children and they love it, too. And I hope they're eavesdropping when I read it to their children -- and discover the whole subtle world of adult satire that this delightful book conceals.

Placing the push before the cart
When I decided to read all the great children's books written in the English language (this project isn't going as quickly as I had hoped it would) I made a list. While writing it, something in the back of my mind reminded me that when I was a kid a book often mentioned was the 1964 title, "The Pushcart War". I had never read it when I was younger, but I had clear memories of people discussing it with vim and vigor. Seeking it out, I decided to read it for my very self. What I discovered was that this book has been unmercifully forgotten. Here we have one of the greatest parables of the 20th century and how many kids today have read it? How many kids will read it in the next 30 years? Ladies and gentlemen, if you know a child, any child, that has the ability to read you must make it your American duty to seek out a copy of this book, purchase it, and thrust it into the hands of your young acquaintance. This is one of the best books I have ever read.

Now I'm glad I read a 1964 edition of this book because it gets a little confusing at the beginning. The book begins with a Foreword by Professor Lyman Cumberly of New York University (author of "The Large Object Theory of History"). This Forward, dated 1986, reflects on the events of the New York Pushcart War and offers some insight. Here I am, 26 years of age, and I honestly thought that this was a real professor writing a real preface. Then I saw the copyright date and I figured it out. This was a fictional professor writing some 20 years in the "future" when the town was able to sort out the events as they occurred. Still, the book is written in a somewhat original and scholarly fashion. There are photographs and scripts and letters to editors and all sorts of cool little touches that make it seem like a real historical document. Which of course makes the story itself that much more amusing.

The events of the Pushcart War began when trucking companies in New York starting making their trucks bigger and bigger. This, in turn, made traffic far more congested and for the trucking companies there was a definite danger that people would insist that the trucks no longer stay so large. In a sense of misguided self-preservation, the truckers decide to blame the simple pushcart vendors on the streets for the traffic. By carefully spreading misinformation and attacking the pushcarts with a series of "accidents" the pushcart vendors find themselves in trouble. Their only recourse is to fight back, and they do so with a series of clever ideas. As the war escalates, so too do the pushcart vendors' strategies. In the end, not a single person has been killed and for once the little guy has beaten the bigger one.

In the Foreword, this sentence sums up the book: "...big wars are caused by the same sort of problems that led to the Pushcart War". True enough, some wars ARE caused by the problems found in this book. There are some wonderful touches in this story that will give adult readers an extra laugh. For example, the mayor of New York is in the pay of the big truckers and gives a speech about them while running for reelection. In it, he explains that big trucks mean bigger business, and hence - progress. If you want to ship a lot of peanut butter, you need a big truck. The candidate then goes on to say, "My opponent, Archie Love, is against trucks. He is, therefore, against progress. Maybe he is even against peanut butter". We've all heard fifty different versions of this speech in our time. Chalk this silly little sentence up to Jean Merrill's sly writing skills.

I love the characters in this story and the silly battles that are pitched. Because it was written in 1964 there is the odd reference once to "lady drivers", but it comes off as quaint rather than offensive. This is also definitely a New York creation. The original illustrations by Ronni Solbert look like nothing so much as small New Yorker cartoons turned into illustrations. Honestly, if you want a way of explaining to kids how some wars are begun (recent wars, unfortunately, don't quite fit this mold, but that's okay) this is a great way to do it. I was especially taken with the pushcart vendors' non-violent response, culminating in a honest-to-goodness peace march near the end.

Why don't more people know about this book? Why is it slowly but surely being forgotten by the masses? People, if I had my way I'd assign this book to every man, woman, and child living in the United States today. I'd shout its wonders from the rooftops and glorify it in song. I would, in short, force the world to admit that it's a classic tale. Until I'm able to do so, however, I urge you to read it yourself. You'll be delighted by its wit and wisdom as well as author Jean Merrill's great storytelling skills. Never forget it again.

"This is a peaceful pea plant...and nobody is going to shut us down without a fight."
I first read THE PUSHCART WAR as a politically-aware sixth grader in 1971 at the nadir of America's involvement in Southeast Asia. As an indictment of, and a primer on, the causes of war, THE PUSHCART WAR is unparalleled. This little-known book should be on everyone's bookshelf, next to THE ENORMOUS EGG, another children's classic on American democracy. THE PUSHCART WAR is written as an actual history, from a vantage point ten years in the future.

THE PUSHCART WAR takes place in a New York City choked with traffic and secretly controlled by powerful business interests (the truck line owners Big Moe Mammoth, Louie Livergreen, and Walter "The Tiger" Sweet) that have co-opted the political machine of Mayor Emmett P. Cudd. "The Three" are determined to see their trucking businesses entirely dominate the city. To that end, they create a Master Plan to eliminate all other competition for the New York streets, first pushcarts, then cars, taxis and buses, and finally even small trucks.

The war begins with The Daffodil Massacre, as Morris The Florist's pushcart is destroyed and the hapless Morris finds himself upside down inside a pickle barrel. It does not take long for the pushcart owners to realize they are being targeted. They soon organize, fighting back with peashooters against the marauding trucks. Along the way, the pushcart warriors (almost all New Americans with names like Peretz, Moroney, Jerusalem, Carlos, and Hammerman) are aided by a high-profile celebrity (the movie star Wanda Gambling), a political aspirant (Mayoral candidate Archie Love), a disaffected trucker (Joey Kafflis), a Police Commissioner quietly engaging in Civil Disobedience against his own leaders, and finally the general public, who engage in a massive letter-writing campaign that topples The Three.

Although the premise seems absurd, author Jean Merrill takes each cartoonish incident and carefully constructs for the reader a tale about a democracy threatened with collapse from within, in which a hastily organized but morally motivated resistance force is able to overcome a numerically superior, more technologically advanced, but ethically bankrupt oligarchy. If this sounds subversive, it is, but in the Spirit of '76.

THE PUSHCART WAR has rarely been more relevant than nowadays. I recommend it for everyone, child and adult alike.

The original illustrations by Ronni Solbert are "New Yorker" Magazine-like in tone and structure, and evoke a sense of the city in the early 1960s that is now nostalgic. I note that in my 1966 Tempo Books edition of Merrill's 1964 story, the "future" Pushcart War took place in the spring of 1976, concluding with a general peace on July 4, 1976, America's Bicentennial, a very symbolic ending. However, more recent editions date the Copyright as 1954, and the Pushcart War in 1986. Wikipedia states that the changes (to 1998 in some editions) were made to keep the story always "in the future." If so, this is a thoughtless choice, and undermines a very subtle but crucial link to our national consciousness.