Better Than Laughter by Chester Aaron [FIRST PAPERBACK PRINTING] 1973 • Laurel-Leaf

Better Than Laughter by Chester Aaron 

FIRST PAPERBACK PRINTING [1973] DELL • LAUREL-LEAF

Vintage paperback.  Mint and unread.

Chester Aaron writes with the realism most teenagers demand of a book. They should appreciate this author's hard, uncompromising look at an American way of life." -The Boston Morning Globe

Allan, 12, and his brother Sam, 10, live in a world of expensive cars and swimming pools, Japanese gardeners and black maids; a world where any talk about civil rights, Vietnam, and drugs is not permitted.  A world where money and status matter...but xommunication, trust, and love do not.

When life becomes unendurable, Allan and Sam run away from home. Their flight leads them to Horace Butright, the eccentric but self- reliant old caretaker of the county dump, who has devoted his life to the loving reconstruction of the junk discarded by an impatient modern society. Horace shares his world with Allan and Sam, and the friendship that grows between them changes their lives. When they return home, to the reality they now know they cannot escape, they are ready for the confrontation that both tests and confirms all they have learned of their own values.