Pinocchio's Sister, Another Great Vaudeville Story by Jan Slepian

Last week I shared my response to Jan Slepian’s novel for grades 4-6, The Mind Reader. This unique story was about a family whose popular vaudeville act involved mind reading. In a surprising twist, it turned out that the son actually could read minds, a talent that led to all sorts of problems, but finally to a happy ending. Slepian has written a second book about vaudeville, Pinocchio’s Sister. In both books Slepian draws on material from relatives in her family who actually performed in vaudeville. As in The Mind Reader, she convincingly depicts the hardships of being on the road in different theaters, staying at different boarding houses. A reader can identify with the anxiety about whether one’s act will stay or be dropped, the bullying by theater managers, the poor pay, the comradery andcompetition between performers of various acts.

But Pinocchio’s Sister, is a darker, more poignant tale than The Mind Reader. Like the latter, Pinocchio’s Sister was written in the 1990’s, but has the swift pace and vivid writing we expect from today’s writers. Theoretically it’s for 8-to-12-year-olds, but School Library Journal suggests it might be better for older audiences because of its underlying theme of emotional abuse. I found it a profoundly moving story that lingers in your mind long after the last page. This is literature at its finest.

The story: Ten-year-old Martha Rosedale travels with her father on the vaudeville circuit and is part of his act. The book opens at a new theater and a new boarding house. But someone else is ever present in the act—the puppet, Iris, who sits on Mr. Rosedale’s lap and says smart-aleck remarks the audience loves. Martha’s father does all the talking—and even singing—but he’s such an adept ventriloquist, he makes audiences suspend disbelief. Martha’s mother died when she was small. For a short time, her father remarried, but his new wife ran off with another actor, leaving Mr. Rosedale with only Martha and . . . Iris.

In the vaudeville act Mr. Rosedale created, Iris wears pretty dresses and has a blonde curly wig. Martha wears a tattered dress and implores him to come home to a family he seems to have abandoned, while Iris zings one-liners at Martha. Audiences love Iris and her smart mouth, although they feel for poor, tattered Martha and join in the plea for him to go home. Iris, meanwhile, has a punchline – “Help, help” – always said sarcastically. This punchline becomes significant later in the story in a way that is nothing short of heart-breaking. 

Since Iris is the family breadwinner, so to speak, Mr. Rosedale lavishes more attention on her than on his own daughter. Jealousy eats at Martha. Still, her life is brightened by another family in the show: a group of Polish acrobats. The twelve-year-old boy in the act, Stashu Pliska, becomes Martha’s friend. Unwittingly, Stashu is pulled into Martha’s desperate plan to deal with Iris. Meanwhile, the proprietress at the boarding house, Mrs. Pelosi, becomes sort of a surrogate mother to Martha. Mrs. Pelosi was a former vaudeville singer and is drawn so vividly, you feel she could actually be running a boarding house just down the street, even though those days have long vanished.  

This is wonderful story, grippingly told, with memorable highs and lows and both a sad ending and a happy ending. Jan Slepian was a brilliant writer. The two books I’ve read by her have sent me on a quest to find more of her books in hopes of learning more about how she works her magic. 

I can remember when I was a kid listening to Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy and being entranced by the idea of puppets and ventriloquism. How about you? Did you have favorite puppet shows? Did you ever hear or know a ventriloquist?