‘The whole business with Kiffo and the Pitbull’ by Barry Jonsberg

‘The whole business with Kiffo and the Pitbull’ by Barry Jonsberg book explores the unlikely friendship, born out of a shared understanding of loss and loneliness, between two year ten students, Kiffo and Calma.  Kiffo is a disruptive student from an abusive home, and Calma is a gifted student, raised by an over-worked single mother. Appearing at first to have little in common, the two are not only connected by past events, but by their dysfunctional families and social isolation. Jonsberg gradually reveals the complexities and histories of Kiffo and Clama’s relationship, pieced together by the audience through flashbacks of their primary years. 

Calma narrates the part journal, part detective story in a way which is intriguing and relatable. The social hierarchies and bullying within the school yard, Calma’s ironic humour and personal writing style, Kiffo’s colloquial language and academic struggles, it all acts to create a certain familiarity for the intended audience allowing for increased identification and empathy with the characters.   

Aimed at young adults, Jonsberg’s use of ‘teen-relevant’ themes and innovative structure throughout ‘The whole business with Kiffo and the Pitbull’ fosters the adolescent perspective. Many adolescents may be able to identify with Calma and Kiffo due to familiar issues such as social class, friendships and family dynamics at a level which helps to breakdown pre-existing boundaries. This juxtaposition of familiarity and unfamiliarity allows for the reader to place themselves in the protagonist’s, position when tragedy strikes.

When the intimidating new teacher Ms Payne (The Pitbull) enters their classroom, Kiffo and Calma, brawn and brains, together engage in a series of hilarious but increasingly dangerous escapades to prove her involvement in an ‘underworld’ drugs trade.

 When tragedy strikes, taking the life of Kiffo, Calma’s sardonic narration remains, and we are encouraged to examine our ideas about relationships, how they challenge, change and sometimes define who we are and what we can be.

Calma sought comfort from Kiffo after her life had been “flushed down the toilet” (Jonsberg p.83) by a vicious rumour, and he offered her this advice: “Hell, I am what I am. I don’t look for peoples approval and you shouldn’t neither” (Jonsberg P.85).                                   

 Foster, Finnis and Nimon (2005 P.76) suggest “It is though literature for children and adolescents that ways in which to cope with one’s present and future social relations are offered to readers.” These authorial ‘words of wisdom’ are prominent within the text, focussing on social and family dynamics. Jonsberg attempts to “socialise [his] readers, to assist them in overcoming current problems and to prepare them for later life” (Foster 2005 P.77) such as the school yard bully of which Calma fell victim.