Set in the Victorian era, after the seven girls at their finishing school realize that their headmistress and her brother have been murdered with poison, the girls decide to bury the bodies in the backyard. Fearing that they would all have to return to their families if they summoned the police, the young women scheme to try to run the school for themselves and to find the murderer that may live among them.
This book was an enjoyable listen. I was thankful that the girls were given epithets to help identify who they were. I struggle with names as it is.....
Although, some of the epithets were troubling: Pocked, Dour, Disgraceful. But, that was part of the point.
Here's the book trailer:
I thought the ending was a little predictable, but the story was still enjoyable enough that it was good to confirm my suspicions.
The author's note at the end left me wanting to research more about Victorian poisons. This is a good recommendation for students who love this era in history.
Lake, N. (2012). In Darkness. New York: Bloomsbury.
337 pages.
I'm not gonna lie, ya'll. I got stuck in this book. Like crazy cartoon nightmare stuck: The floor and walls all turned to sticky bubblegum and every time I tried to move or read I became more tangled and it turned into a suffocating mess that gets so complicated that you wake up screaming, "I'll never leave gum on the bottom of a desk again!"
Except in this case, it was having to read and not wanting to read and thinking of all the other things I should be doing.
It was bad.
Arguably, my struggles with In Darkness are not solely the book's fault. I was adjusting to a first year in yet another new job, living in a new town, auditioning at the community theater and trying to act for the first time since middle school, etc. But, now that it's summer vacation and given the fact that it still took me longer than it should have to finish this book, I let that stand as evidence of how little I cared for it. Appetizer: Switching back and forth between narratives of "Then" and "Now," In Darkness shares the stories of Shorty, who is trapped in the rubble of a hospital that has collapsed in the 2010 Haitian earthquake and how he got to be there, long ago separated from his twin sister with whom he thinks he shares a soul. It also takes on retelling some of the biography of Toussaint l'Ouverture as he led a rebellion to free Haitian slaves. The two protagonists dream of one another, impacting their choices in their own times.
Here's a dramatic retelling of my thoughts as I began each new chapter of this book:
A now chapter: "Hmmm, he's stuck in the dark, I wonder when he'll get out."
A then chapter: "I do not connect with this character. Hopefully this chapter will be over soon and I'll be able to read about the present."
A now chapter: "Huh, he's still in the dark. Surely, something will happen soon and he'll get out. Otherwise this might become boring, despite the flashbacks to when he was younger.
A then chapter: Ugh. Man, Toussaint was older when this is being depicted. I can't even connect with him as being a young adult character."
A now chapter: "I am so sick of him being in the dark. This chapter feels like filler so that stuff can happen in the other chapters. How much longer until this chapter is over and I can read about someone else?
A then chapter: "I am so bored. I would skim, but that goes against everything I believe in, especially when reading a Printz award book. Plus, I'd hate to miss the moment when this story becomes engaging. Is this chapter over yet? I'd rather read about Shorty being stuck in the collapsed hospital.
A now chapter: Jebus, he's still trapped. Man, there's a lot of dark and serious stuff in this book. I feel nothing for most of these characters and wish this book would be over already.
A then chapter: I feel nothing.
A now chapter: Lalala. My eyes are scanning the page, but I aaam elsewheeeeeere.
A then chapter: LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
A now chapter: I'm sorry, the connection has failed. Please, try again. Please, try again. Please, try again. Please, try again. Please, try again. Please, try again.
And so forth.
I don't want you to think that the writing was bad or the story wasn't well told. My reasons for not liking this book are all due to me instead of the story itself. It just didn't speak to me. And the fact that this book was, in part, depicting a recent tragedy in Haiti and won the Printz award somehow grated on me--like the book was awarded to draw attention to the Haitian earthquake instead of saying this was the best book of 2012. It was a well-written book on an important topic, but it didn't win me over.
From what I could tell, Lake did his research. Admittedly, I'm no expert. But I was left with a deeper understanding of aspects of Haitian culture than any textbook or newspaper has evern given me. Granted, I did find myself wishing for more English translations of some of the French and Kreyol phrases and songs. But nonetheless, a student could learn a lot about Haiti from this book, beyond what is presented in the media.
Dinner Conversation:
"I am the voice in the dark, calling out for your help.
I am the quiet voice that you hope will not turn to silence, the voice you want to keep hearing cos it means someone is still alive. I am the voice calling for you to come and dig me out. I am the voice in the dark, asking you to unbury me, to bring me from the grave out into the light, like a zombi.
I am a killer and I have been killed, too, over and over; I am constantly being born. I have lost more things than I have found; I have destroyed more things than I have built. I have seen babies abandoned in the trast and I have seen the dead come back to life." (p. 1)
"I don't know what happened. I was in bed minding my own zafe, then everything shook and I fell and the darkness started. Or maybe everything else fell." (p. 3)
"On the night that rebellion caught like a flame in Haiti, the slave named Toussaint swung down from his horse. It was a good horse--it had been a gift to him from his master, Bayou de Libertas, and despite its age it still served him well. It was, Toussaint reflected, a fitting horse for him to ride. He, like his horse, was old and had served his master well.
Soon, though, there would be no more masters, and no more slaves. Or so Boukman hoped." (p. 37)
"I can see the whole of Port-au-Prince--the palace, the homes of the rich, the open-air prison of Site Soley. It's all collapsed. The palace is just dust and rubble, the homes are destroyed. Only Site Soley looks the same, and that's cos Site Soley was a ruin to begin with." (p. 54-55).
"Biggie, he was the general of Route 9, and before that he was the right-hand man of Dread Wilme and a big dog in the Site. He did all the shit the government should have done in the slums. He funded the schools, provided security. He punished thieves and rapists.
He sold drugs and killed people.
He made me what I am today.
I have not forgiven him for that, not yet." (p. 71)
Wein, E. (2012). Code Name Verity. New York: Hyperion. 333 pages.
When it came to choosing to read Code Name Verity, descriptions of the story didn't really win me over. I imagined the humorless drama, angst, and depictions of the horrors of war I usually associate with historical war fiction. And I wasn't exactly feeling it. But then there were sooooo many recommendations to read it, I sighed and climbed off my judgmental high chair to read it.
I'm glad I did. Because within the first few pages, although some of horrors of war are certainly present, I found myself chuckling--actually chuckling--at some of the protagonists' narration.
What a wonderful surprise. Appetizer: Scottie has been captured by the Gestapo in France in 1943 two days after the Allied plane that carried her there crashed. Unlike some of the other Allied prisoners being held with her, she takes the "easy route" and immediately reveals what few secrets she knows. Ordered to write her confessions for the Gestapo, Scottie shares about her past leading up to the war and about Maddie; the friend she flew to France with and the girl who led her to this point.
Scottie's confessions reveal her tortures, fears, frustrations, as well as her passions and her intelligence as she awaits her fate.
I was rather surprised when Code Name Verity switched to explore another character's point of view about two-thirds of the way through the novel. I have to admit, despite the dark realities Scottie faced, I would have happily faced them by continuing to read from her point of view. I actually put the book down for several days, it took me by that much of surprise to have to read another character's story. (although, this change in point of view proves essential to reveal Scottie's true nature as well as the strength of her friendship with Maddie.)
Another difficulty I had was the way that the topic suddenly switched or the way Verity would be recording about her past then suddenly switch to insult her captors. It could be a little off-putting, especially for struggling readers.
Despite these issues (which may solely be mine), I hope history teachers will consider assigning Code Name Verity in their classes; either as a whole class read or as an optional read. It does a wonderful job of revealing women's roles in World War II as well as showing the terrible conditions and tortures that spies and prisoners of war faced. It would also make a great recommendation for students passionate about airplanes or flying.
Assign it, teachers! Assign it!
Read it, young adults! Read it!
Dinner Conversation:
"I am a coward.
I wanted to be heroic and I pretended I was. I have always been good at pretending. I spent the first twelve years of my life playing at the Battle of Stirling Bridge with my five big brothers--and even though I am a girl they let me be William Wallace, who is supposed to be one of our ancestors, because I did the rousing battle speeches." (p. 3)
"I'm just damned. I am utterly and completely damned. You'll shoot me at the end no matter what I do, because that's what you do to enemy agents. It's what we do to enemy agents. After I write this confession, if you don't shoot me and I ever make it home, I'll be tried and shot as a collaborator anyway. But I look at all the dark and twisted roads ahead and this is the easy one, the obvious one. What's in my future--a tin of kerosene poured down my throat and a match held to my lips? Scalpel and acid, like the Resistance boy who won't talk? My living skeleton packed up in a cattle wagon with two hundred desperate others, carted off God knows where to die of thirst before we get there? No. I'm not traveling those roads. This is the easiest. The others are too frightening even to look down." (p. 5)
"You really think I know a damned thing about where the Allies are planning to launch their invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe? I am a Special Operations Executive because I can speak French and German and am good at making up stories, and I am a prisoner in the Ormaie Gestapo HQ because I have no sense of direction whatsoever. Bearing in mind that the people who trained me encouraged my blissful ignorance of airfields just so I couldn't tell you such a thing if you did catch me, and not forgetting that I wasn't even told the name of the airfield we took off from when I came here: let me remind you that I had been in France less than 48 hours before that obliging agent of yours had to stop me being run over by a French van full of French chickens because I'd looked the wrong way before crossing the street. Which shows how cunning the Gestapo are. 'This person I've pulled from beneath the wheels of certain death was expecting traffic to travel on the left side of the road. Therefore she must be British, and is likely to have parachuted into Nazi-occupied France out of an Allied plane. I shall now arrest her as a spy.'" (p. 6)
"And the story of how I came to be here starts with Maddie. I don't think I'll ever know how I ended up carrying her National Registration card and pilot's license instead of my own ID when you picked me up, but if I tell you about Maddie you'll understand why we flew here together." (p. 7)
"There are a few more types of aircraft that I know, but what comes to mind is the Lysander. That is the plane Maddie was flying when she dropped me here. She was actually supposed to land the plane, not dump me out of it in the air. We got fired at on the way in, and for a while the ail was in flames and she couldn't control it properly, and she made me bail out before she tried to land. I didn't see her come down. But you showed me the photos you took at the site, so I know she has crashed an airplane by now. Still, you can hardly blame it on the pilot when her plane gets hit by antiaircraft fire." (p. 14)
Appetizer: To beef up her resume for college, Nora Kane, along with her best friends Chris, Adriane and Chris's kinda creepy roommate Max, are working as a research assistant for a professor. They're studying The Book, the Voynich Manuscript, an ancient and mysterious text in Latin that the professor organizing their research has rested his career upon. Nora's job is to translate letter's of a girl named Elizabeth Weston, the step-daughter of an alchemist who may have authored The Book.
As Nora works to translate Elizabeth's letters, she feels connected to her and reconsiders some aspects of her own life (like how Chris's roommate, Max, may not be as odd as she first thought). As Nora makes strides in her work, events take a dark turn. Some get hurt, others die and it falls to Nora to find a way to save the survivors and herself all while someone is following her.
But that may not be the beginning of her story. Her life is also divided around her older brother Andy's death in a car accident. He'd been drunk when he'd crashed, killing himself and a girl. These events have left Nora's parents despondent and haven't exactly won her a lot of friends at Chapman Prep in Massachusetts.
As for her end? Well, that might be in Europe. Her friends had planned a wonderful adventure to France, but Nora may be the only one able to go. Instead of a fun spring break, she must go to Prague to solve the mystery of what happened to her friends and how it all connects to The Book that seems to have ruined so many lives.
The writing of The Book of Blood and Shadow is wonderful. The opening did a great job of catching my attention and curiosity. Wasserman used a lot of rich and beautiful language. (Although, having said that, I also wouldn't have minded if the novel had been 50-60 pages shorter.)
But still, love.
I approve.
Read it.
It made me feel as though I needed to improve the writing in some of my own manuscripts. This is a compliment to Wasserman, although, it's a little sad for my own writing journey.
This is by no means a perfect text. Some of Elizabeth Weston's letters were a little long, confusing or were a little too conveniently found. Also, two or three twists or reveals of characters' secrets were on the obvious side. But I liked the continuing uncertainty about who Nora could trust as well as her connection to someone in history.
Read The Book of Blood and Shadow and then let me know what you think!
Dinner Conversation:
"I should probably start with the blood.
If it bleeds it leads and all that, right? It's all anyone ever wants to know about, anyway. What did it look like? What did it feel like? Why was it all over my hands? And the mystery blood, all those unaccounted-for antibodies, those faceless corkscrews or DNA--who left them behind?
But beginning with that night, with the blood, means that Chris will never be anything more than a corpse, bleeding out all over his mother's travertine marble, Adriane nothing but a dead-eyed head case, rocking and moaning, her clothes soaked in his blood, her face paper white with that slash of red razored into her cheek. If I started there, Max would be nothing but a void. Null space; vacuum and wind.
Maybe that part would be right.
But not the rest of it. Because that wasn't the beginning, any more than it was the end. It was--note the brilliant deductive reasoning at work here--the middle. The center of gravity around which we all spiraled, but none of us could see." (p. 3)
"Until the September I turned fifteen--the September I enrolled in Chapman Prep--my life could be divided pretty neatly into two eras. Before Dead Brother; After Dead Brother. BDB, I was the youngest in a family of four, father a Latin professor, mother a part-time bookstore manager, both of them teetering on the edge of divorce but sticking together, in that noble tradition of post-boomer bourgeoisie, for the kids. ADB, there were still four of us, it was just that one--the only one anyone cared about anymore--happened to be dead." (p. 9)
"I told myself I deserved some good luck, overlooking the fact that it would call for substantially more than luck to thrust me into one of those narratives where plain-Jane new girl catches the eye of inexplicably single Prince Charming, because somehow the new school has revealed her wild, irresistible beauty, of which she was never before aware.
Spoiler alert: Chris had a girlfriend. An endless string of them, in fact." (pp. 13-14)
"Chris and I got Adriane through advanced Latin, Adriane and I got Chris through remedial chem, the two fo them got me through the new-girl phase with a minimum of muss and fuss, and for two years we were, if no happier than the average high school student juggling APs and SATs and extracurriculars and defective parents, at least not miserable, and not alone. Then Chris went to college (albiet, via the path of least resistance, down the street), I found Max, we all found the Book, and everything went to hell." (p. 17)
"I have been here before. I have done this before. Before.
There were flashing lights, before. Sirens screaming. Someone screaming.
There was blood, before, blood on the road, blood I imagined and blood I saw, blood that shimmered under streetlights as we sped by, tires crunching over broken glass, my father grim and pale behind the wheel, my mother with one hand cupped to her ear, like she was still hearing, or trying not to hear, the call that had summoned us from before to now, to after." (p. 105)
Before even starting to read this middle grade, historical novel, it had a lot working towards its advantage:
1. It was written by Christopher Paul Curtis. As the author of The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963, Bud, Not Buddyand Elijah of Buxtonand who has repeatedly brought history to life with humor and compassion, I expected more of the same from The Mighty Miss Malone.
2. The audio book is narrated by Bahni Turpin. I absolutely loved the way that her narration brought The True Meaning of Smekdayto life. It's one of my favorite audio books EVER.
3. Curtis tends to feature Michigan heavily in his books. Since Grand Rapids, MI is my hometown, I'm always happy to see my home-state represented. (This book is no exception since it features a baseball team from GR, a journey to Flint, brief visits to Detroit and Lansing and a note about how proud Michigan people are to talk about how they're from Michigan Woo-hoo!)
So, I started listening to The Mighty Miss Malone with high expectations.
Appetizer: In 1936, Deza Malone is 12. She, her fifteen-year-old brother--Jimmy--and their parents live in poverty in Gary, Indiana during the Great Depression. They can get through anything as long as they have one another. Even though her dad is having trouble finding a job. Even though her brother stopped growing several years ago, can sing like an angel and stole a pie. Even though Deza's teacher thinks she's intended for greatness. Even though Deza's teeth are rotting in her mouth since the family can't afford to take her to a dentist. And even though (last one, I swear) they have to eat buggy oatmeal that their mom gets from the government.
After Deza's dad goes on a fishing trip that ends in tragedy, their situation becomes more precarious. He most return to his home town of Flint, Michigan to try and improve their family's situation, but after they don't hear from him for over a month, the Malone family decides their only choice is to follow him in the hope of reuniting and finding their way through their difficulties together.
Given the current economic climate, there's a lot that rings true about The Mighty Miss Malone: The uncertainty and stress of trying to have everything you need, seeing hopes that have to be set aside for practicality and the struggle to keep a family together.
As with Curtis's other historical novels, The Mighty Miss Malone includes many touches of humor (although, I must admit, I was hoping for even more...but then, nothing can live up to the tongue stuck to the side view mirror of a car in the Michigan cold scene from The Watsons Go to Birmingham). On the plus side, there are a couple of scenes where Miss Malone's path crosses with Bud and Bugs from Bud, Not Buddy. I'd been wondering if that would happen.
There was a lot of rich history to explore: The biography of boxer Joe Lewis, the Great Depression and the government's programs for the poor, Hoovervilles, riding the rails, the realities of prejudice, literacy, etc.
As an audio book reader, Turpin didn't disappoint. I was once again impressed by her ability to use different voices and bring the protagonist to life.
Gantos, J. (2011). Dead End in Norvelt. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.
341 pages.
Appetizer: Set in 1962, little Jack Gantos (a kinda-sorta-fictional character who is prone to nosebleeds) gets himself grounded forever. (It was a bit of a crazy situation, although there were other factors, Jack was following his father's orders to plow down his mother's corn to create a runway for the plane he...obtained.) Practically the only freedom Jack is allowed is to help old Miss Volker, the medical examiner and obituary writer, who roots for the original founders of Norvelt to die. (When Eleanor Roosevelt founded the town she tasked Miss Volker with watching over the residents and now, decades later, Miss Volker is ready to move on.)
Norvelt itself is a very interesting character of a town; a bit of history brought to life that embodies different political and economic views. (For example, Jack's mother favors the barter system, a fact that sometimes embarrasses Jack and his father feels that the town--founded on the principal of putting poor people in a position to help themselves--is a failed Communist experiment.)
Several times throughout the historical novel, Jack talks about the way he engages with books--both fiction and nonfiction--demonstrating the value of both history and literacy. There was one scene in which he and his best friend discuss the way books smell and sniff the gutters of various books. This reminded me of my father, who judges the quality of a book based on the way it smells.
Overall, a very enjoyable book. Some of the plot details threw me for a few loops: The Hell's Angels make a few appearances. The story turns into a murder mystery. That made me ponder a little.
Jack Gantos's--AKA the actual author's--reading of the audiobook was great. He kept the focus on the story (as opposed to some crazy inflections or accents some authors or voice actors use). The story was fun and hilarious--enough so that I chuckled out loud several times. In particular, I'm trying to find a way/reason that I could share the dear hunting chapter with my students. Although I think the book would appeal to both boys and girls, I can't help but think--with the occasional icky detail or bathroom humor--it was written to target boys.
Dinner Conversation:
"School was finally out and I was standing on a picnic table in our backyard getting ready for a great summer vacation when my mother walked up to me and ruined it" (p. 3).
"I was a nosebleeder. The moment something startled me or whenever I got over-excited or spooked about any little thing blood would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames" (p. 8).
"'You're looking at the original Norvelt," she said. "There are two hundred and fifty houses in five sections on this map with the names of the original owners. If you count up the red pins you'll see that all but nine--eight now that Mrs. Slater has passed--of the original owners have died or left since 1934" (p. 35).
"'Miss Volker," I said about as politely as I knew how, "do you think you will outlast the rest of these original people?"
"I have to," she said. "I made a promise to Eleanor Roosevelt to see them to their graves, and I can't drop dead on the job--so let's get going" (p. 36).
Sedgwick, M. (2009). Revolver. New York: Roaring Brook Press.
201 pages.
Appetizer: Sig's father is dead. He died in an accident on the arctic ice. He died falling through thin ice that he should have--must have--known better than to cross over. 14-year-old Sig doesn't question the tragedy of his father's death too much until the very next day, when a strange and threatening man arrives at the family's cabin while Sig is there alone with his father's dead body. The man insists Sig's father took something from him and Sig must decide whether or not to use the revolver that his family has kept hidden for ten years.
Goodness gracious, ya'll! What a well-structured and tense little book.
Told in short chapters and in interweaving periods between 1899 when Sig's father first got the revolver and 1910 when Sig must decide whether he's going to use it, Revolver makes wonderful use of allusions, foreshadowing and a stark mood to create a wonderfully tense story as Sig contemplates the moral implications of using his father's gun.
Srsly, everyone, I heart it.
That doesn't mean Revolver is perfect. I wasn't too crazy about the flashbacks to 1899 and the omniscent narration that jumped among characters' perspectives all willy-nilly. But still, bravo. I approve.
Dinner Conversation:
"Even the dead tell stories.
Sig looked across the cabin to where his father lay, waiting for him to speak, but his father said nothing, because he was dead. Einar Andersson lay on the table, his arms half raised above his head, his legs slightly bent at the knee, frozen in the position in which they'd found him; out on the lake, lying on the ice, with the dogs waiting patiently in harness." (p. 1)
"If.
The smallest word, whcih raises the biggest questions." (p. 3)
"It was at these times that Einar told Sig important things. The things a son should learn from his father. It was at these times that he told him about the gold days, and the gold lust, or about the revolver, which sat in its original box, like a princess's jewels in a case. And Sig, like a good pupil, would listen, always listen, with maybe a rare question now and again.
"A gun is not a weapon," Einar once said to Sig. "It's an answer. It's an answer to the questions life throws at you when there's no one else to help" (p. 8).
"He'd come for the gold, and he hadn't meant to stay. These things never lasted long, Einar knew. Just like the Klondike, by the time the rest of the world got to know about the gold, it would be too late; all the best strikes found, the land claimed, the easy pickings gone. All that would be left would be the struggle to survive in a world of danger, both natural and man-made, with the occasional speck of gold dust coming his way. Just enough to keep that stupid dream of easy money alive, the dream of fantastic wealth, of ease and luxury and fine things for the rest of his days, but in reality not enough to live on for even a week." (p. 45)
"Maria woke and propped herself up. Her movement disturbed Sig, who woke too, to witness one of the few scenes from his early childhood that he would remember forever, and clearly.
He remembered the look on his mother's face as she saw what Einar had bought. Only many years later would he finally be able to put a word to that look. Despair.
"What is it?" Anna repeated. "Is it food? Is it for when the food runs out?"
"No," Einar muttered. "It's something else. For when the faith runs out." (p. 50).
"He ran out of things to say, and Wolff stayed exactly where he was.
"I don't think you understand. Since your father is no longer with us, that makes you his heir.
"That means my business is with you." (p. 83)
Fixmer, E. (2010). Saint Training. Grand Rapids, MI: Zonderkidz.
233 pages.
Appetizer: It's the spring of 1967 and sixth grader Mary Clare O'Brian has begun to write letters to the Mother Superior of a convent asking for advice. Mary Clare has the goal of becoming a saint. But with all the daily complications of having to look after her many brothers and sisters, her mother's fascination with reading The Feminine Mystique and a competition to write an essay on "What a religious vocation means to me...," Mary Clare is having trouble living up to her saintly aspirations.
She starts to realize how complicated life can be. Not only in terms of being good, but also in terms of her own family. Her mom, who is pregnant for the umpteenth time, wants to do other work than caring for her many kids at home and Mary Clare is left to do a lot of the work of caring for her siblings and wondering how her family can afford to care for another child. One of her brothers wants to enlist to go to Vietnam with his best friend, while another older brother wants to get status as a conscientious objector to the war.
The author, Elizabeth Fixmer, does an excellent job of presenting Mary Clare's faith as she goes from blind obedience and making deals with God to questioning aspects of Catholicism, earning "saint points" and beginning to view how complicated issues of faith in the real world can be.
For a reader who might not be very religious, a lot of the Catholicism could be a little overwhelming. I also felt like an older reader or adult would have to explain a bit about feminism for a younger reader to get the book. (In fact, the only aspect of this book that might not have to be discussed, is the historical setting. This book was a little too history--light for my personal tastes. Especially since the opening paragraph is about racial tensions and how Mary Clare imagined herself providing support to a black student she imagined being integrated at her Catholic school. I felt like a promise made early in the story was dropped, allowed to roll under a chair and forgotten until the very end.)
My favorite part of Saint Training was the exchange of letters between Mary Clare and Sister Monica. As the story continued, Mary Clare began to ask a lot of important questions. I found this very engaging.
But toward the end of the book, this also became frustrating, because Mary Clare revealed major plot developments in her letters without them being mentioned in the narration before. I found myself flipping back and forth between pages, wondering if I had missed something.
Overall, I liked that Saint Training took on issues of faith and social justice. I liked Mary Clare's childlike faith and the way that she took on adult concerns and worries over her family. But I did find some of the religion and jumps in the narrative to be a bit overwhelming at times.
Dinner Conversation:
"March 25, 1967
Dear Reverend Mother.
My name is Mary Clare O'Brian. I am in sixth grade and I am writing because I want to become a Good Shepherd nun. I like the Good Shepherd nuns best because you work with unwed mothers and their babies. I love little babies." (p. 7)
"Mary Clare finished her Social Studies test and turned it upside down to wait for the rest of the class. It was easy, mostly easy, and on the subject that Mary Clare had heard a lot about at home around the dinner table: civil rights. She couldn't believe that Negroes had to sit on the back of the bus in the South and even drink from different water fountains. They were fighting for basic rights, especially the right to vote. Mary Clare liked to imagine that a Negro girl entered her very class at Saint Maria Goretti School. She would show her around, become her friend, even hold the drinking fountain on for her.
Now her face scrunched into a yawn she fought to control. She was tired from being up almost all night--first listening to her parents fight, then praying for the perfect plan to make things better for her family. After she came up with the perfect plan, she couldn't sleep at all.
She was going to become a saint." (p. 11)
"Lord, help my family. Please, please give us enough money so Mom and Dad can be happy again.
She stopped. She was sick of this prayer. Why wasn't God answering? HE used to answer her prayers all the time." (p. 15)
"Now she knew the problem: God would only listen to her if her soul was pure. If she was going to make her mother happy again, she would have to be a saint right away.
She made a plan. She would study, she would practice saint-like behavior, and she would become a nun. Many of the girl saints had been nuns before being sainted, so she figured becoming a nun was the perfect stepping stone to her real goal. She'd be so darned good she wouldn't have a thing to confess on Saturdays.
Mary Clare explained the deal to God. If you take care of my family--give them enough money, make my parents happy...I'll become a saint. She repeated it several times in case it was hard for God to hear through all of her sins." (p. 16)
"Don't just tell them what you think they want to hear, Mary Clare. Don't get into the roles everybody expects from a woman--where your identity is what the Church tells you it should be. 'God's servant, and God's bride'...that's all part of the feminine mystique," she said. "Everybody knows what nuns do and the vows they take. Go inside your heart and tell them who you are."
Mary Clare was confused. She didn't know what the feminine mystique was, and she was pretty sure that to win this contest she had to pretty much say what the judges wanted to hear, but she did want to be real." (p. 79)
Appetizer: Set over approximately four years (between 1988 and 1991, through the middle school years and up into the beginning of Sophomore year) in San Francisco, Smile is a memoir of Raina's tween years and her painful quest to shape her teeth into a smile that wouldn't cause her embarrassment. It begins simply enough: Raina is to get braces. This plan is complicated when Raina trips while chasing a friend and lands on her face, damaging her two front teeth. Complications ensue.
Many complications.
Aside from the issues with finally getting her smile to be the way Raina wants it to be, she's also dealing with acne, having a crush, realizing what she wants to do with her life, needing her first bra, learning that some of her friends are not so much friends as they are frienemies AND getting her ears pierced. This book kind of reminded me of a puberty book (like Sex, Puberty and All That Stuff or What's Happening to My Body), but would be much less awkward for a young girl to receive or discuss with an adult.
At one point, Raina notes the need to talk about how tweens feel awkward about their bodies:
I feel like that is exactly what Smile does: starts a conversation to help girls to feel a little less freakish.
This memoir felt so honest and made me reflect on my own memories of being eleven-twelve-thirteen-fourteen-ish (for better or for worse). (For better...I focused in on the day I got my braces off in eighth grade. My teeth felt so slimy! Then, after I went back to school, Mike P., the boy I kinda-sorta had a crush on, was the first person to notice that my braces were gone. Very exciting.)
I really liked the way Raina's continuing battle to get her teeth problems under control provided a unifying conflict to bring the story together. The one aspect that weakened the text for me was the narration at the very end. The equivalent of a voice over, on p. 206 Raina makes comments like "Instead, I threw my passion into things I enjoyed, rather than feeling sorry for myself" and "I realized that I had been letting the way I looked on the outside affect how I felt on the inside."
*Barfs a little.*
I, of course, agree that these are important messages to give to tween (and even some adult!) readers, the way the narration came in to sum-up the message felt a little too overty/teachy-preachy/didacticy for my tastes.
You had me until page 206, Raina Telgemeier. Page 206.
Selznick, B. (2011). Wonderstruck. New York: Scholastic Press.
629 pages.
Appetizer: Set in Gunflint Lake, Minnesoa in 1977, Ben is missing his mother who recently died in a car accident. During a stormy night he walks to his old home from his aunt's house. Among his mother's stuff, he finds her rainy day fund and a book called Wonderstruck with a hand-written note that mentions a man named Danny and a bookstore bookmark of a store in New York City. With these few clues, Ben hopes that he may finally find and know his father. Just as he picks up the phone and try to call the number for the bookstore, lightning strikes the house and Ben's life is once again changed.
This picturebook/novel is also the story of a lonely girl named Rose in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1927. She admires an actress in a silent film named Lillian Mayhew. After learning that Lillian will be in a play in New York City, Rose decides to run away to see her.
Both of their quests will take Rose and Ben to New York City and to the American Museum of Natural History.
Ben's story is told almost entirely in text and Rose's story is told almost entirely in illustrations. Despite the differences in settings, there are moments when the tales connect and (eventually) unite.
When I began reading, I was frustrated because of the seemingly wide gaps between the two stories. Initially only images like stars and lightning connect the two. My brain was desperate for the two stories to unite. Part of what made me fall totally and completely in love with Selznick's previous giant-picturebook/novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, was the way the setting, medium and content all worked together to add meaning to the story. By the third or fourth time that I read The Invention of Hugo Cabret, I was still finding new meanings and connections among the different aspects of the story.
I can't say the same will happen with Wonderstruck.
Don't get me wrong, this novel is still impressive. It has a E.L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler feel to it. It just didn't *capture* me the way Selznick's Hugo Cabret did.
As a book, it does demonstrate a love of astronomy, dioramas, wolves, and museums, expresses a sense of loneliness and searching that I found very relatable and shows examples of the experience of being deaf in different times.
But still, Wonderstruck didn't capture my imagination or impress me the way The Invention of Hugo Cabret did. (Not that books should always be compared. But since these two stand alone in terms of their form, it's hard not to make comparisons.)
I'd be curious to know what some of you thought of the book, Few But Dear Readers. Am I alone in my stance?
For the time being, here's one of the early moments when the stories overlap for you to enjoy. Mary is watching a movie of a storm and Ben is in his mother's house, looking through her stuff as a storm approaches. Enjoy.
(pp. 120-126)
Dinner Conversation:
"Something hit Ben Wilson and he hopened his eyes. The wolves had been chasing him again and his heart was pounding. He sat up in the dark room and rubbed his arm. He picked up the shoe his cousin had thrown at him and dropped it on the floor.
"That hurt, Robby!" (p. 16).
"Ever since the accident, the wolves had appeared, galloping across the moonlit snow, red tongues wagging and white teeth glistening. He couldn't figure out why they were stalking him, because he used to love wolves. He and his mom had even seen one once from the front porch of their house. The wolf had looked beautiful and mysterious, like it had stepped out of a storybook" (p. 17).
"He had believed his mother when she told him he'd never be lost as long as he could find the North Star. But now that she was gone, he realized it wasn't true.
The mysterious quote from his mom's bulletin board echoed again in his mind. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" (p. 27).
"Was it days later or only a few minutes when his aunt Jenny appeared? Her eyes were red and watery. She sat on the bed and stroked his hair. He thought he could smell the food she'd been cooking at the lodge as she ran her fingers down his cheek just like his mom used to. He watched her lips move. He looked at the nurses talking to each other. His head felt like it was full of leaves. He opened his mouth to say he couldn't hear but nothing came out.
The nurse handed Aunt Jenny a piece of paper and a pen. She wrote a note and handed it to Ben. "I know you can't hear. Don't try to talk. Just lie still."
Ben's head throbbed. How did she know what he'd been thinking? "You've had an accident. You're going to be okay, but you were hit by lightning." (p. 175)
Cole, B. (1997). the facts speak for themselves. New York: Puffin Books.
184 pages.
Appetizer: Thirteen-year-old Linda was escorted into the police interrogation room with blood still under her nails. After being interrogated about the deaths of two men (a murder-suicide situation between the boyfriend and boss of her mother that Linda is somehow at the center of), Linda is separated from her little brothers and mother, who need her to watch over them, to stay at a center run by nuns.
She has meetings with a social worker to discuss her childhood of abuse, discrimination, abandonment and responsibility over her brothers.
Linda's story is touching, heartbreaking and the amount of responsibility she took on at such a young age is shocking.
This can be a wonderful book to give voice to the secret pains and dark scars that many children and adults have.
Although, as I was reading, I did wish that quotation marks were used to better mark dialogue.
This book may be dark, but it is also real...and difficult to put down after you start reading. (I know that if it were a movie, I'd hate it. It's kind of like Requiem for a Dream. You just know things are going to get worse and worse.)
Dinner Conversation:
"The woman policeman says why don't you come in here, and so I went. It was a little room with a table and some chairs. That was all. Instead of a window, there was a big mirror. I wouldn't look at that. I didn't want to see myself. I sad down and folded my hands. There was still blood under my nails, so after a minute I put them under the table" (p. 9).
"Listen, young lady, Sister says. You're not in charge anymore. This is a difficult situation, and it's going to take a little time to straighten out. Two men are dead, she says and bites her lip. What two men? Mr. Green and Mr. Perry. That was how I found out. Jack had died in the ambulance and Frank had walked down into the basement of the parking ram and shot himself" (p. 20).
"I gave her the facts, and she wrote them up in a preliminary report. I know, because I got it out of her bag when she came back one afternoon to warn me about what was going to happen. There's going to be a hearing, she says, and I want you to be as straight with the judge as you are with me" (p. 23).
"I want to write my own preliminary report, I said. She looked at me a long time. I think that's a very good idea, she says finally. Will they read it? Yes, she says. I'll make sure they do" (p. 25).
"Looked at in a certain way, the whole history of the world seemed arranged so we could meet that first time. He said we were doomed by circumstance. Our fate was in the facts" (p. 141).
As a way to get to know my new state of residence, I've been trying to read literature about Louisiana.
(The selection has proven to be a little...pathetic. There's not much of a selection. Especially since I'd like to read about more than just New Orleans.)
First off, let me tell you that my general knowledge of Louisiana was very limited before moving here: Hurricane Katrina, other hurricanes, cajuns, Remy from the X-men, alligators, oil spill, Mardi Gras, True Blood/The Southern Vampire series (which, admittedly I've seen every episode of/read every book).
It's a pretty limited view of an entire state.
I actually had to bite my tongue during my initial Skype job interview to stop myself from asking if alligators and hurricanes were something I should worry about in the area I would be moving (Answers: Not too concerned unless a hurricane displaces the alligators and Yes, be concerned: power outages possibly lasting weeks, high winds and rain during the storms.)
So, I was left feeling like I wanted to see some of the other ways that my new state is presented. I--of course--turned to children's literature.
I decided to begin my acquaintance (and this new series of reviews) with Louisiana in children's literature by listening to the audiobook of Kimberly Willis Holt's My Louisiana Sky. She's the author of When Zachary Beaver Came to Town, which I read five or six years ago and remember enjoying.
The premise is that Tiger Anne--a girl living in Saitter, Louisiana--faces a choice. She and her grandmother have always had to look after Tiger's mother and father who are both "retarded" (to use the dated language in this historical novel). When tragedy strikes, Tiger must face the choice of moving to Baton Rouge to live with her stylish aunt and staying home to care for her parents.
An angsty premise that is one-part coming of age story and two-parts character figuring out her own identity through a major decision story. I could get into it.
I especially liked that Tiger was a tomboy who played baseball better than most of the boys.
I downloaded and started listening...and absolutely *hated* the tones the narrator used to voice the various characters. Sometimes her Southern accent didn't match the Louisiana accent I've been enjoying for the past few weeks. Often when she gave voice to minor characters, she spoke in tones that made them sound completely and unnecessarily idiotic.
I was not a big fan. I probably would have enjoyed the story more if I read it.
I did eventually ease into the story. Especially when a character died of a heart attack after seeing a coral snake. (So...coral snakes...is this something I have to worry about now?)
Louisiana, please advise.
Then towards the end of the book, there was a hurricane.
Sigh.
At least there weren't any alligators.
How much I learned about Louisiana: Not too much. How much I felt comforted about some of the supposedly-scary aspects of the state usually presented by the media: Also not too much.
I have since discovered there was a children's movie made of the My Louisiana Sky, starring Juliette Lewis and a younger Michael Cera, among others.
...
Netflix guesstimates I'd give the movie two stars.
...
I did add the movie to my queue. It will stay at the bottom and I'll get to it when I get to it.
Vanderpool, C. (2010). Moon Over Manifest. New York: Delacorte Press.
342 pages.
I finally got around to reading the current Newbery winner. When Moon Over Manifest was announced as the winner, only one person I knew had read it (one person out of at least a dozen who spend their time trying to read as much children's literature as is humanly possible. This book wasn't just a sleeper agent. It was the unexpected chaos factor). That one-person-out-of-a-dozen's reaction? "Baaaaaaaaah, they keep picking books that are beautiful to adults but BORING to kids. All of the people and their different names are confusing. Bah humbug."
Okay, I'll admit. I added the bah humbug to the end of that quotation. As far as I know, I'm the only person (not in a famed Christmas novel or movie adaptation) who uses the phrase bah humbug.
Then, as other people I knew got around to reading the book before me, their comments pretty much confirmed what Person One already said: "I'm an adult and I'm confused. How will an eleven-year-old tolerate this book?"
So, when I finally got around to reading the book, I was a little hesitant. I had my pen ready to take notes on who was who in the cast of characters. Because I would defeat this book! I will not be confused!
...for once.
Appetizer: In May of 1936, Abilene Tucker has been sent to Manifest, Kansas to stay while her dad works on the railroad. He'd often told her stories about the town where he grew up, but Abilene is surprised by the dusty town she finds. on her first night there, she discovers a box of mementos. Abilene begins to seek out the history of the objects and her father's history in the town. She relies upon the stories of a psychic, old newspaper articles and other methods to try to learn her family's past.
Since the novel is set during the Great Depression, I was strongly reminded of Out of the Dust (but without poetry). Visually, I also kept thinking about the TV show Carnivale (which is in no way appropriate for wee little ones), and which represents the 1930s well.
Moon Over Manifest is such a good social studies teacher book. I could talk about the KKK, the Great Depression, World War I, treatment of immigrants, coal mining, newspaper writing, small town life, the importance of storytelling, prohibition, finding a sense of belonging or home...and on and on.
But there are also a lot of difficulties with the book. There are flashbacks within flashbacks, some difficult vocabulary. Characters who have multiple names. And even though there is a list of characters at the beginning of the book, not everybody is included. (If used as a read aloud, I would strongly recommend creating extensive character list worksheets to have students fill-out as we go through the book.)
I did enjoy the ending of the novel though. The interweaving plots came together nicely and reinforced the importance of story, knowing the past and creating a sense of home.
I was left feeling as though the book took on more than it should have. I thought that if it were trimmed down by a hundred pages, the humor and the central story would have been brought out more and would probably engage young readers a little more. As it is, I was left reading a book that had some nice moments (KKK+Dark Outhouse+Plus switching toilet paper with poison ivy leaves=AWESOME!) but that also left me feeling pretty bored. It was a book I felt like I had to get through, instead of one I was actually enjoying. Which is not good.
As it is, I have to agree with my anonymous friend that I mentioned at the beginning of the post. Moon Over Manifest feels like a winning novel for the adults, not for the kids.
Dinner Conversation:
"The movement of the train rocked me like a lullaby. I closed my eyes to the dusty countryside and imagined the sign I knew only from stories. The one just outside of town with big blue letters: MANIFEST: A TOWN WITH A RICH PAST AND A BRIGHT FUTURE.
I thought about my daddy, Gideon Tucker. He does his best talking in stories, but in recent weeks, those had become few and far between. So on the occasion when he'd say to me, "Abilene, did I ever tell you 'bout the time...?" I'd get all quiet and listen real hard. Mostly he'd tell stories about Manifest, the town where he'd lived once upon a time." (p. 1)
"I knelt on the floor, and with a fairly easy push and pull, the floorboard popped up enough for me to get my fingers under it and pull it up. It would have been the perfect hiding spot for one thing. There was already something there.
I pulled the something out, slow and gentle, and held it up to the moonlight. It was a Lucky Bill cigar box and inside were papers and odds and ends. There were letters, thin and folded neat. One bigger page looked like a map. The odds and ends clanked inside the box." (p. 21)
"Let us put your mind to the test as well. It seems everyone is fond of a good story, dead bodies on trains notwithstanding. Therefore, your assignment will be to write a story of your own. You may select the topic and it will be graded for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and creativity. It will be due September first." (p. 31)
"An honest to goodness spy!" cried Lettie as the three of us crouched behind the wooden Indian in front of the hardware store. "Right here in Manifest! Why, I've never heard anything so exciting." (p. 41)
"It was interesting piecing together fragments of stories I'd heard from Miss Sadie. Noting what had changed and what had stayed the same. But for some reason, these stories all made me sad and more than a little rankled. It rankled me that everyone in this town had a story to tell. Everyone owned a piece of this town's history. Yet no one mentioned my daddy. Even when Gideon had been here, he hadn't really been here. I couldn't find much of a sign of his ever even having set foot in Manifest, let alone having left an impression." (pp. 245-246)
Tasty Rating: !!!
Also, since we're quite a way into 2011, I figured it was time to start working on some of those challenges I wanted to participate in. This may be pushing it, but I had wanted to read this book ever since it was announced as the Newbery winner all the way back in...January. Yes, January.
I know I just wrote about how I'd accepted a challenge for 2011 a few days ago.
And now I've decided to accept another one. HAHAHA! Aren't I optimistic about 2011?!
I know these posts are close together, but the challenge organizers like to see the post informing you, Few But Dear Readers, of my plans.
It's almost as though someone doesn't trust me to come through on my promises. (See m non-existent, twitter story about...something...a mermaid? I don't remember.)
Any-hoo, in 2011 I am going to try to read 5 historical novels intended for children or young adults. I think this should be very do-able. Possibly. Most likely.
This challenge is sponsored by YA Bliss. If you click on the link, you'll notice that I chose the option that involved the fewest number of historical novels. I call this "the slacker level." That is me!
While the books don't have to be published in 2011, I may try to sing at two birds with one tweet (yay! my own non-violent version of an idiom that is nonsensical!) by reading a couple of historical books that will be published next year to save myself some time. Because I iz smortz.
See, you in 2011! *Does some more fist pumps* My arms are going to be looking goooooo-ooooood.
Cushman, K. (2010). Alchemy and Meggy Swann. New York: Clarion Books.
Hark! Mistress Cushman, you are a luminous scribe, a queen who is greatly skilled at abracadra to summon your reader across ages back into the days of....
That's enough of making your eyes suffer and bleed by me writing super ol' school. What was I trying to say there? Cushman is AMAZING at allowing her readers to enter into the past. Cushman uses historical vocabulary, tries to maintain the authentic voice of her characters and the keeps the worldview of the 1500s and still manages to make her books interesting and relatable.
Appetizer: Meggy Swann has just arrived in London to live with her father. Her mother didn't want her. And it would seem her father would have preferred a boy who could serve him instead of a girl who felt pain with every step.
As Meggy adjusts to life in London and struggles to get around on her crutches to find food for herself and her goose, Louise, her father hides himself away in his workroom, trying to transform metal into gold and find the elixir for immortality.
When Meggie stumbles upon the fact that her father may be connected to a plot to assassinate a noble person, readers can reflect on what they would do if they were in Meggie's position, facing her difficult choice.
The fact that Meggie is sent to be raised by a single-parent is a modern parallel that a lot of readers could relate to. Plus, the fact that Meggie had to deal with bilateral hip dysplasia can begin a lot of great conversations about the history of medicine and the way that people with disability have been discriminated against in the past (and now!). Also, since Cushman's Author's Note does a great job of exploring how the study of alchemy would lead the way toward scientific inquiry and the study of chemistry.
I'd actually consider pairing Alchemy and Meggy Swann with the first Harry Potter book to compare both the fantasy and history of alchemy.
To go a Language Arts direction, I'd also use the book to study ballads and have my students write their own.
I enjoyed the book. As I attempted to say in my bad Elizabethan English, I was very impressed by the way Cushman managed to draw me into the story. For the past several months, I'd felt like I'd lost my ability to engage with historical novels, but this book proved that not all hope was lost.
I really liked Meggy's struggle to try to understand her father and to try to know how to reveal the assassination plot without putting someone she cares about at risk.
BTW, "Ye toads and vipers" will now be a regular part of my vocabulary. I also plan to start calling annoying people Master or Mistress Peevish. You should be prepared for me to say these things to you, World.
Dinner Conversation:
"Ye toads and vipers," the girl said, as her granny often had, "ye toads and vipers," and she snuffled a great snuffles that echoed in the empty room" (p. 1).
"Her name was Margret Swann, but her gran had called her Meggy, and she was newly arrived from Millford village, a day's ride away. The bit of London she had seen was all soot and slime, noise and stink, and its streets were narrow and dark. Now she was imprisoned in this strange little house on Crooked Lane. Crooked Lane. How the carter had laughed when he learned their destination" (p. 2).
"I do not allow beggars at my house" was the first thing he said to her. "Begone and clear my doorstep."
"Pray pardon, sir, we are not beggars," the carter had told him. "If you be Master Ambrose this be your daughter, come at your bidding" (p. 7).
"Just what does he do in the rooms upstairs?
He searches for the aqua vitae, the elixir of life that can rid substances of their impurities and make all things perfect." Roger took another bite of bread. "Transformation, he says it is, changing things in their essence."
"And that will turn metal into gold?"
Roger nodded.
You have seen him do it?" Meggy asked.
"Nay, he still has not the method, although he swears he is close to finding it" (p. 20).
Wiles, D. (2010). Countdown. New York: Scholastic Press.
377 pages.
Appetizer: The first book in the Sixties Trilogy, Countdown is set in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis and when Americans were certain that at any minute the Russians would bomb the U.S. Franny is an eleven-year-old with her hands full. As the middle child, she often feels ignored by her parents and teachers. Her big sister, Jo Ellen is keeping secrets from her. Her Uncle Otts is having trouble remembering that he's not a soldier anymore and she's not certain that her best friend Margie wants to be her best friend anymore. Plus, her crush, Chris, has just moved back into the neighborhood.
Wiles refers to Countdown as a "documentary novel." That seems as fitting a term for it as any. Surrounding the chapters of Franny's story are posters, song lyrics and biographical sketches of major figures from that time period.
When I first picked up Countdown to read, I was a little nervous. It is a thick book, my friends. Did I have time for this? The energy? Then I opened it and was greeted by pages and pages of images, newspaper headlines and quotes. I was reminded of Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret, a 540-page long picturebook.
Also, as a random note: Here's a picture of a boy that looks a lot like Hugo. How fun is that? Brian Selznik, when will you immortalize me in a masterpiece?
Apparently the boy's name is Max and he wasn't cast for the Hugo movie. Oversight!
Internetz: Brain! What are you supposed to be doing?
ShelBrain: *sheepish* Reviewing Countdown.
Internetz: Don't you think you should be doing that then?
ShelBrain: Fiiiiine.
Countdown is more text heavy the Hugo Cabret of course. As a reader, I did find myself tempted to skip over some of the biographical sketches (I know I would have when I was eleven), but I remained strong.
About 100ish pages in, I had a child-like reaction to the book. (AKA juvenile!) My inner 10-year-old boy reared his wee pimple-free head. (I don't mean to imply I actually am part boy. Rather, I often react to books like a young male reader.) My inner ten-year-old rebelled, saying "Deborah Wiles! You're trying to trick me into learning! I don't like to be tricked! There are too many words! What happened to the pictures! I want more pictures! I like being able to skip through ten pages in under a minute! Bring the pictures back or I'll stop reading!!!!!!"
I stopped reading the book for over a week. I was frozen. Dead in the water. With sharks circling and me clinging to a piece of drift wood, weeping and praying for rescue.
I suspect that most readers don't have the problem I had. Most reviews of Countdown have been so sparly, glowy that you have to wear sunglasses just to read them. I think I wound up with skyscraper-high expectations, when I should have been expecting to be able to enjoy a nice two-story suburban home.
(I have no idea where that housing metaphor came from. I think all the talk of the housing crisis has finally invaded my brain synapses. Or other brain anatomy stuff. Oh, science.
Despite the fact that the book didn't meet my expectations, I was still surprised by the world Wiles created. I couldn't believe the lack of privacy Franny had throughout the story. There was also this scene where Franny mentions that some of the students actually brought her teacher apples. My response was, Really?! Really?! ...how come nobody give me gifts.
Dinner Conversation:
"I am eleven years old, and I am invisible.
I am sitting at my desk, in my classroom, on a perfect autumn afternoon--Friday, October 19, 1962. My desk is in the farthest row, next to the windows" (p. 16).
"It's the air-raid siren, screaming its horrible scream in the playground, high over our heads on a thousand-foot telephone pole--and we are outside. Outside. No desk, no turtle, no cover. We are all about to die" (p. 21).
"What's worse: your best friend doesn't feel like your best friend anymore, or the whole neighborhood thinks your family is an embarrassment? Or maybe it's worse that you wouldn't acknowledge your uncle, Franny.
Maybe I'll just stay here, hidden behind the bush, forever" (p. 45).
"Nobody asks about my hard day," I say. I apply Jo Ellen's red lipstick thickly to my thin lips. "Nobody even cares that I was stuck outside during the air-raid drill and everybody panicked and cried and bled to death. But no...that's not important in this family, because I'm not important. Daddy hardly said two words to me today, but he plays a whole ball game with Drew" (p. 84).
Williams-Garcia, R. (2010). One Crazy Summer. New York: Amistad.
215 pages.
Appetizer: During the summer of 1968, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two little sisters are on their way to Oakland to spend a month with their mother who left them and their father almost six years ago.
The woman that meets Delphine, Vonetta and Fern at the airport is a bit strange, keeping her face hidden. Her house is also a bit unusual and their mother, Cecile, won't let the girls go in the kitchen. It doesn't take long for Delphine to realize that their mother is crazy. But soon after that, they realize that there may be a reason behind some of Cecile's strange behavior: she may be involved with the Black Panthers.
This book (currently being talked about as a potential winner for both the Coretta Scott King and Newbery awards) has a lot of social studies tie-ins. Rather than list them in a boring way, I thought I'd make a word cloud:
It was also easy to relate to Delphine emotionally. She's responsible for her sisters and takes her job very seriously. I also felt so awful for these girls after they arrived in Oakland. Hungry after a long flight, their mother refuses to feed them unless they give her all of the money their father had given them.
It gave me the nervy-creepers.
And I realized that if this woman, if Cecile, were my mother. I would have died a slow painful death to starvation.
I would not have been able to trust that woman, but I also would not have been able to fend for myself. Not when I was eleven. Not now. During my last visit to my parents house I finally and really-truly, for reals realized that I will forever be a child in my parents house.
This does not mean that they treat me like a child. They, in fact, do not.
Shel: Can I go over to Holly's?
The Mother: I don't care.
Shel: Is it okay if I go over to Holly's?
The Father: You don't have to ask permission.
Shel: So, it's okay if I go?
The Father: You're not a prisoner.
Shel: So then I can steal your car?
The childlike behavior is all on me.
When I'm in Columbus, living alone, I am a somewhat-mature adult. I clean (usually a randomly selected portion of a room) once-ish a month (twice if I'm really mature that month). I clean my cats' litters every night. I shop for groceries and cook--even some "fancy" stuff like roasted asparagus.
At my parents house, none of this happens.
The mother and I engage in passive aggressive battles of who will cave and finally load the dishes in the sink into the dishwasher. (I always win, since I'm the one who doesn't mind the mess) I wait for the cat litters to actually become smelly-gross before carrying the entire tray outside and dumping it behind the shed.
And, worst of all, the source of quite a bit of suffering on my part, I will not eat unless a parent is there to serve me food. I'm like a baby bird, beak open, chirping for Mommy to return to the nest with a worm. And if the mommy bird doesn't make it home, the baby DIES.
Somewhere within the several hundred miles between my home and my parents', I lose all ability to forage for myself.
I suffer from head aches, listlessness and drowsiness waiting for my parents to arrive home, god willing with Chinese take-out in hand.
I suppose I could cook. But a bit of fear sets in at the mere thought. Since I didn't do the shopping, I don't know that the house is stocked with the foods I prefer. Plus, my parents remodeled the kitchen after I already left for college. I don't know where any of those pots and pans thingies are kept. And The Mother will yel--speak with great authority and conviction if she feels I have misplaced one of her colanders.
Also, since I only figured out how to boil water a couple of years ago, when I do cook, there's always some suspense to it, as far as The Parents are concerned. Will the baby burn down the kitchen? Will the baby's meal be edible? Will the baby spray too much Pam on the baking sheet? Will the baby drop the oven mit in the marinara sauce again? None of these questions are actually asked out loud.
My parents do not arrange to bring me dinner. They long ago got their own lives and play an evening round of golf. I just expect them to provide food for me.
Now, I'm not saying I'm the weakest little beastie, drawn toward extinction due to my bad genes. I still find a way to survive. Mostly, I eat from a giant bag of carrots on one of the refrigerator's drawers:
Notice how the bag is torn open, with bunny-like little claws and how I have never bothered to tie the back closed to prevent the carrots from becoming scaly white. That would be too mature.
It's far more child-like to nibble on a few disgusting carrots and then call The Father to ask when he'll be home.
Baby carrots, my Few But Dear Readers, that is how I am still alive after six weeks of starving in my parents' house.
Frankly, I'm surprised I didn't turn orange from eating too many carrots before I returned to Ohio.
Mentioning skin color (turning orange!), one of the subplots of the book involves Fern carrying around her beloved doll, Miss Patty Cake. This causes some trouble for her and her sisters since the doll is white. Delphine narrates:
"No one could call Fern White Baby Lover even though Miss Patty Cake was a white baby and Fern loved her. No one could call Fern a Big Baby but Vonetta and me...But I didn't care. Fern could love Miss Patty Cake all she wanted. We could call ourselves Vanilla Wafers, Chocolate Chips, or Oreo Cookies for all I cared about black girls and colored girls" (p.67).
I thought this element of the text (as well as some others) would be a great way to begin discussing how race is perceived in this country. I'd probably pair this portion of the book with this video of a recreation of Clark's Doll study:
So, I have to admit, while there are a lot of awesome uses for this book in a classroom and while Delphine is a relatable and well-constructed character who shares about an important aspect of history well, nothing about this story drove me I-can't-put-this-down-I-love-this-book-crazy. I read it to get through it. And I think my childhood-self would have approached the book in the same way.
I think it drove me a little crazy to see exactly how responsible Delphine was for caring for her sisters. As I was reading, I'd think "What about Delphine?! Nobody puts Delphine in a corner!" and the like. The girl was a nanny machine. I suppose my difficulty connecting with her could be the fact that I'm an only child or the fact that in the presence of my mom I revert to being a baby (metaphorically speaking, of course). So, despite Delphine's struggles over what to believe and the fact that her superhero ability to care for her siblings was addressed, she just felt like a too perfect character who never really got a chance to breathe. Ever.
But that's just me. My personal reaction certainly won't stop me from recommending this book to...oh, everyone.
Dinner Conversation:
"Good thing the plane had seat belts and we'd been strapped in tight before takeoff. Without them, that last jolt would have been enough to throw Vonetta into orbit and Fern across the aisle. Still, I anchored myself and my sisters best as I could to brace us for whatever came next" (p. 1).
"Mother is a statement of fact. Cecile Johnson gave birth to us. We came out of Cecile Johnson. In the animal kingdom that makes her our mother. Every mammal on the planet has a mother, dead or alive. Ran off or stayed put. Cecile Johnson--mammal birth giver, alive, an abandoner--is our mother. A statement of fact.
Even in the song we sing when we miss having a mother--and not her but a mother, period--we sing about a mother. "Mother's gotta go now, la-la-la-la-la..." Never Mommy, Mom, Mama, or Ma.
Mommy gets up to give you a glass of water in the middle of the night. Mom invites your friends inside when it's raining. Mama burns your ears with the hot comb to make your hair look pretty for class picture day. Ma is sore and worn out from wringing your wet clothes and hanging them to dry; Ma needs peace and quiet at the end of the day.
We don't have one of those. We have a statement of fact" (p. 14).
"I was sure they were Black Panthers. They were on the news a lot lately. The Panthers on TV said they were in communities to protect poor black people from the powerful; to provide things like food, clothing and medical help; and to fight racism. Even so, most people were afraid of Black Panthers because they carried rifles and shouted "Black Power." From what I could see, these three didn't have rifles, and Cecile didn't seem afraid" (p. 45).
