"Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer" by John Grisham: Book Review

"Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer" by John Grisham
Dutton Children's Books, 263 pp., $16.99
Reviewed by David Marshall James

When a boy's parents are both lawyers, he's either going to emulate them or one-eighty on them in his career pursuit.

Eighth-grader Theodore Boone, resident of a small (seems Southern) fictitious city, Strattenburg (pop. 75,000), is doing a bit of both.

He couldn't be more caught up in the law; indeed, his favorite hangout (aside from his own "office" in his parents' onetime-house-turned-law-office) is the courthouse.

However, Theo (only his Mom calls him "Teddy") isn't interested in following in his parents' footsteps, per se.

His Mom is a divorce attorney, and most of her clients are women. Therefore, she only appears in the non-jury setting of family court.

Meanwhile, Theo's Dad is a property lawyer, so he doesn't argue cases in court at all. Rather, he's more of a glorified paper-rustler.

Theo's aspiration is to do something unlike his parents' occupations, yet within their profession: A criminal defense or prosecuting attorney who partakes in the full-blown drama of jury trials.

If that doesn't work out, he would settle on being a judge.

In his first novel for a nonadult audience, John Grisham does a nice job of developing Theo's family dynamic. The emerging teenage protagonist loves and respects his parents while remaining fully aware of their entrenchment in routines, their overall nondomesticity, and their approaches to their work. Grisham delivers a nice touch when Theo lands in a super-duper ethical bind and heads not to his parents, but to his ersatz-hippie, disbarred, and generally disgraced uncle for advice.

All the characters-- particularly Theo's teachers and the courthouse workers-- are well drawn in a novel that centers largely on a sensational murder trial.

Theo's in the thick of it when one of his classmates confides key evidence to him against the defendant-- a husband indicted on charges of strangling his wife for a big insurance payoff-- at the eleventh hour of the trial.

As the reader would well expect, the chief virture of the story is Grisham's explication of criminal-justice proceedings for his target audience. By couching his didacticism in such an interesting story, he provides an excellent government-and-civics lesson for youngsters who might not absorb it via a textbook.

Yet, unlike the denouements of Theo's favorite TV show, "Perry Mason," real life does not tidy up so neatly, particularly not in the realm of jurisprudence.

Readers may well expect this case to carrry over to the next Theodore Boone adventure.

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