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It’s a Story, Folks, Not a How-to Manual

Jan17

In the front of my paperback copy of Snipp, Snapp, Snurr Learn to Swim by Maj Lindman, Brown Bear Daughter found the following disclaimer:

“A note to grownups: In this story, the characters are not wearing personal flotation devices or practicing some of the other water safety measures we now consider essential. While reading this book with children, you may want to use the story as a springboard to discuss safety around water and boats.”

O.K. Or you could just read the story, first published in the U.S. in 1954, and enjoy the old-fashioned Scandinavian setting and the self-reliant triplets and the lovely illustrations. Nanny does try to ensure the boys’ safety in the water —by having them learn to swim!

Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool

Jan12

So, on Monday Moon Over Manifest was something of a surprise winner of the Newbery Medal for “the most distinguished American children’s book published the previous year” (2010). And I just happened to have a copy of the winning book in my library basket, a leftover from the Cybils Middle Grade Fiction panel that I hadn’t been able to find before the deadline in late December for our shortlist to be finalized. I read the book yesterday.

I can now say that if the publisher (Delacorte) had seen fit to send a review copy, I might very well have pushed to put Moon Over Manifest on our shortlist. Of course, that’s easy to say now, hindsight and all. But I haven’t been too excited about or fond of some of the recent Newbery Award books. And I said so. Last year’s book, When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead was great, but of course, I’m a Madeleine L’Engle fan, so I would like anything that paid tribute to A Wrinkle in Time. I tried to read Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book three times year before last and never got past the first few chapters. Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! seemed sort of, dare I say it, boring, and The Higher Power of Lucky was just O.K.

Moon Over Manifest is the story of a girl, twelve year old Abilene Tucker, whose father, Gideon, is a hobo. Abilene and her dad have been riding the rails together for as long as she can remember, but now (summer, 1936) Gideon has sent Abilene to live with an old friend of his in Manifest, Kansas while Gideon takes a job on the railroad back in Iowa. Abilene is not happy about being separated from her loving and beloved father, and she is determined that Gideon will come get her by the end of the summer. In the meantime, Abilene wants to find some information about the time Gideon spent in Manifest during World War I, before Abilene was born. What she gets is a nun, Sister Redempta, who teaches at the Sacred Heart of the Holy Redeemer Elementary School and gives her a summer assignment on the last day of school. Abilene also meets:
Shady Howard, the bootlegger who is also the interim pastor of the First Baptist Church
Miss Sadie, fortune teller, spirit medium, conjurer, and story-teller extraordinaire,
Hattie Mae Harper Macke, newspaper columnist and amateur historian of Manifest,
and two new friends, Lettie and Ruthanne, who join Abilene in searching for The Rattler, a spy who may or may not be selling secrets from Manifest to the enemy.

The story alternates between 1936 and Abilene and her friends and 1917-18 when the Manifest townspeople of 1936 were just growing up and when Abilene’s father should have been making his mark on Manifest’s history. Will Abilene find mention of her father in any of the stories Miss Sadie tells? How does Miss Sadie know so much about all of the secrets and events that make up the story of Manifest, Kansas? Does Shady have stories to tell about Abilene’s father? Who is or was The Rattler, and is he still in Manifest, spying on people and keeping secrets? Will Gideon come back to get Abilene, or has he deserted her for good?

Let’s start with the cover. Abilene is walking on the railroad track, thinking about her father and about the stories Miss Sadie tells. Do kids walk on the railroad tracks anymore? I lived about four blocks from the railroad tracks when I was growing up, and I certainly did. I walked along the tracks and looked for lost coins and thought about stuff. I love the cover of this book. So nostalgic.

Then there’s the story. Abilene is an engaging character, independent, feisty, and determined. But she’s also respectful and grateful for the people in Manifest who help her and feed her and take care of her. I like respectful and thankful, since it seems to be in short supply sometimes in book characters and in real kids. Abilene’s story feels real and has a flavor of the summertime adventures of the Jem and Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. Abilene and her two buddies roam all over Manifest all summer long, and they make up stories and hunt for The Rattler with impunity and without much adult interference. The adults are available, but not over-involved. I think my kids could use some of that kind of independence and free-range experience.

As Abilene grows up over the course of the summer, she also learns more about her father and about his history, his character, and his flaws. Twelve is about the right time for a daughter to begin to see her father as a real person with a past and with hurts that need to be healed. In Moon Over Manifest, Gideon is a good father who “deserts” his daughter for good reasons, unlike the mother in another lauded book of 2010, One Crazy Summer. In facter the two books could be compared in several ways—feisty young heroine, absent parent, a summer of growth and discovery, people who are not who they seem to be–and I think Moon Over Manifest would come out the winner in a head-to-head competition between the two books.

So, Moon Over Manifest is a fine novel; it will probably appeal most to mature readers with good to excellent reading skills. The chronological jumps are well marked and easy to follow, but some of the psychological insights into family history and relationships are going to go over the head of young readers no matter how well they can follow the plot. Still, Ms. Vanderpool’s book is a good addition to the historical fiction of the Great Depression and a worthy Newbery Medalist.

Awards Time: Newbery and Such

Jan10

Newbery Award: Moon over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool. This book was on the list of nominees for the Cybils Middle Grade Fiction, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. About a week ago I finally got it from the library, and it’s in my library basket waiting for me to get around to it. I guess today would be a good day for that.
Honors:
Turtle in Paradise, by Jennifer L. Holm. I loved this one, tried to talk the panel into shortlisting it for the Cybils. Semicolon review here.
Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus. I liked this one, too. Semicolon review here.
Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman.
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia. I was the hold-out on this novel because although it told a good story, I thought it had issues. Semicolon review here.

Printz Award for YA literature: Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi. I have this one on order from the library. Shortlisted for the YA Cybils.
Honors:
Stolen by Lucy Christopher. I also have this novel requested at the library, and it was shortlisted for the Cybils in the YA Fiction category.
Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King.
Revolver by Marcus Segdwick.
Nothing by Janne Teller.

Alex Awards: The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18. I haven’t read a single one of these ten, and the only one that’s already on my TBR list is Room. Judging just from the titles, several of them sound interesting. Can you recommend any of the ten Alex Award winners?

The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To by DC Pierson.
Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard by Liz Murray,.
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok.
The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni.
The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton.
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel by Aimee Bender.
The Radleys by Matt Haig.
The Reapers Are the Angels: A Novel by Alden Bell.
Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue.
The Vanishing of Katharina Linden: A Novel by Helen Grant.

A couple of other award winners that have been reviewed here at Semicolon:
Hush by Eishes Chayill. Finalist for the William C. Morris YA Debut Award. Semicolon review here.
Tomie DePaola won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for his entire body of work. The award honors an author or illustrator whose books, published in the United States, have made, over a period of years, a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children. His work has been featured here at Semicolon several times, including:
Charlie Needs a Cloak.
Francis the Poor Man of Assisi.
The Cloud Book.
The Christmas Pageant.
The Friendly Beasts. And many more.

Semicolon Bible Study and Reading Plan for 2011

Dec30

I posted the other day about 52 Ways to Read and Study the Bible in 2011, and Nina asked what my plan was for 2011.

Book-at-a-Time Bible Reading Plan from Discipleship Journal (NavPress) I plan to see if Engineer Husband or any of my children would like to join me in reading through the Bible according to this plan this year.

I also hope to do an in-depth study of at least one book of the Bible each month:

January: Galatians

February: Proverbs

March: Matthew

April: Matthew

May: Proverbs

June: Jonah

July: Hosea

August: I Corinthians

September: Job

October: John

November: John

December: John

O.K. I’d rather set my goals high and miss than set no goals and achieve . . . nothing. I’m hoping to set aside about an hour a day for Bible study and reading this year.

On the Seventh Day of Christmas, Nashville, TN, 1828

Dec5

From the biography, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham:

Shortly after nine on the evening of Monday, December 22, three days before Christmas, Rachel [Jackson] suffered an apparent heart attack. It was over. Still, Jackson kept vigil, her flesh turning cold to his touch as he stroked her forehead. With his most awesome responsibilities and burdens at hand she left him. ‘My mind is so disturbed . . . that I can scarcely write, in short my dear friend my heart is nearly broke,’ Jackson told his confidant John Coffee after Rachel’s death.

At one o’clock on Christmas Eve afternoon, by order of the mayor, Nashville’s church bells began ringing in tribute to Rachel, who was to be buried in her garden in the shadow of the Hermitage. The weather had been wet, and the dirt in the garden was soft; the rain made the gravediggers’ task a touch easier as they worked. After a Presbyterian funeral service led by Rachel’s minister, Jackson walked the one hundred fifty paces back to the house. Devastated but determined, he then spoke to the mourners. ‘I am now the President elect of the United States, and in a short time must take my way to the metropolis of my country; and, if it had been God’s will, I would have been grateful for the privilege of taking her to my post of honor and seating her by my side; but Providence knew what was best for her.'”

Today’s Gifts
A song: In the Bleak Midwinter, lyrics by Christian Rossetti, music by Gustav Holst.

A booklist: Biographies of the U.S. Presidents (books I’m planning to read)

A birthday: Christina Rossetti, b.1830.
Walt Disney, b. 1901.

A poem: Love Came Down at Christmas by Christina Rossetti.

The Wonder of Charlie Anne by Kimberly Newton Fusco

Nov23

This novel takes place during the Great Depression, and Charlie Anne’s family is desperately poor. They’re so poor that Papa has to leave home to get work on the roads in one of President Roosevelt’s WPA projects. Charlie Anne’s mama is dead, and Cousin Mirabel has come to help Papa take care of Ivy, Chalrie Anne, Pete and Birdie. Mirabel is determined to teach Charlie Anne to work hard and to use good manners and to act like a lady. To teach Charlie Anne to behave properly, Mirabel reads aloud maxims from The Charm of Fine Manners by Helen Ekin Starrett. Charlie Anne, of course, hates the advice and the admonitions of The Charm of Fine Manners.

Charlie Anne’s favorite phrase and response to unwanted events in her life is, “Well, we’ll just see about that!” Ms. Fusco does a good job of telling the story from Charlie Anne’s point of view. As far as Charlie Anne is concerned, Cousin Mirabel is a cruel tyrant who makes Charlie Anne work too hard and do all of the nasty, strenuous, and horrid jobs. And Charlie Anne’s older sister, Ivy, is a lazy, vain, and deceitful teenager. The reader suspects that Charlie Anne may not be quite fair in her assessments of Mirabel and Ivy, but this story is Charlie Anne’s story, and it’s her voice we hear as we read.

And Charlie has a fine voice, feisty and determined and full of spitfire. When Rosalyn and her adopted daughter, Phoebe, move in next door, Charlie Anne is excited to have a new friend. But Phoebe is “colored,” and some people, including Mirabel, can’t get used to the idea of associating on equal terms with a colored girl. As the story continues, questions are raised and answered. Will Charlie Anne’s mama continue to give her advice and counsel from her grave down by the river? Will Mirabel break Charlie Anne’s spirit with her book of rules and her seemingly endless chores? Will Rosalyn and Phoebe be accepted in the small Massachusetts where Charlie Anne lives? Will there be a school where Charlie Anne can finally learn to read?

Well, we’ll just see about that!

Other takes:
Bookish Blather: “Charlie Anne has a wonderfully earnest voice. She’s young enough to still believe in magic in the world, but the rapid succession of her mother’s death, her father leaving to build roads, and the ugly face of racism in her family and community, are forcing her to grow up.”
The Fourth Musketeer: “Charlie Anne’s charismatic voice narrates not only scenes of every day drama, such as bee stings, falls off swings, peeling potatoes, harvesting tomatoes, Christmas pageants, and kittens born in the barn, but also more profound problems, such as broken families and racism.”

One Crazy Summer by Rita-Williams-Garcia

Nov5

I had trouble getting past the initial premise of this story: loving father sends his three daughters (ages 11, 9, and 7) across the country on an airplane from Brooklyn to Oakland, California to spend a month with their crazy mother who deserted them seven years previously and doesn’t really want them to come. Negligent mother, Cecile, doesn’t even have a phone and may be living on the streets for all the father knows. How did he get in touch with her in the first place? How will he know if the girls arrived safely or if anyone met them when they did get there? What if Cecile is in jail (a real possibility considering the rest of the story)? Why would any decent parent send his young daughters on such a journey?

After I swallowed the implausibility of that opening gambit, I enjoyed reading about Delphine and her sisters Vonetta and Fern and their selfish, crazy mother, Cecile/Nzila, who in addition to being totally obsessed with writing poetry is also associated with the Black Panthers. The summer of 1968, the year in which the story takes place, saw the Panthers’ leader, Huey Newton, on trial for manslaughter, and the Black Panthers were holding rallies and demonstrations with the slogan “Free Huey!” The Panthers also ran a feeding program out of a church in Oakland, providing breakfast for poor children, a program which figures into the story of Delphine’s crazy summer.

The book tries to present a balanced view of the Black Panthers and of the political and social climate of the time, and as far as I can tell, it does maintain some objectivity. While the Black Panther group is providing breakfast and a place of safety during the day for Delphine and her sisters, Delphine also becomes aware that that the Panthers have been involved in some serious violence, that they carry weapons, and that being close to the Panthers might not be so safe after all. The real villains in the book are not the “pigs” (police) or white people, but rather Delphine’s negligent mom and a traitor within the Panther group itself.

Final verdict: it’s a decent story, but I don’t think it should be the number one choice for the National Book Award. The ending is a little sudden and unbelievable.

Other takes:
Melissa at Book Nut: “There wasn’t enough of a happy ending to suit me; it almost felt like they were spinning in the same place all summer. The growth that does occur is very, very subtle. I sit and think about it, and the pieces fall together… and yet there seems something a bit off.”

Liz B. at A Chair, a Fireplace and a Tea Cozy: “I’m not satisfied. I want a second book. I want to spend more time with the Gaither sisters. I want One Crazy Summer to be the start of a new series.”

Six Boxes of Books: “Delphine’s voice is well done; she’s an eleven-year-old who’s had to grow up too quickly and help take care of her sisters, but she still has the emotional maturity of an eleven-year-old.”

One Crazy Summer has been nominated for the 2010 Cybils Awards in the Middle Grade Fiction category.
One Crazy Summer is also one of five books shortlisted for the National Book Awards, Young People’s Literature division.

Leaving Gee’s Bend by Irene Latham

Nov4

1932. Ludelphia Bennett is ten years old, and she’s never set foot outside of Gee’s Bend, her small town tucked into a bend in the Alabama RIver. Ludelphia is blind in one eye, the result of a childhood accident, and she can’t swim. She’s never been on the ferry that crosses the river over into the village of Camden. No one in her family has ever seen a real doctor.

So when Ludelphia’s mama gets very sick after the birth of new baby sister, Rose, and Ludelphia’s friend, Etta Mae, recommends that Ludelphia fetch the doctor from Camden, the town across the river, it takes all the determination and bravery and quilting that Ludelphia can summon up to sustain her in her journey. That’s right, quilting. Stitching. Ludelphia sews on her patchwork quilt to tell her story, to calm her nerves, and to hold her world together.

The dialog in the book has just enough dialect to catch the flavor of the south in the 1930’s. And crazy Mrs. Cobb is a villain just scary enough for a middle grade book, and still not absolutely horrifying. The story itself twist and turns, but resolves in satisfying way as Ludelphia learns something about the world outside of Gee’s Bend and returns with not only help for her mama, but help for the whole town. And the ending is not an unrealistic solution to everything, just a way through for Ludelphia and her family to go on with their lives.

I started again with the needle. Mama always said you should live a life the same way you piece a quilt. That you was in charge of where you put the pieces. You was the one to decide how your story turns out.
Well, it seemed to me some of them pieces had a mind of their own.

I reckon when you grow up in one place you just naturally think every other place is the same as your home. I reckon it takes leaving to appreciate all the things about that place that make it special.
Dear Lord, I did want to go home.

Other takes:
Maw’s Books: “I enjoyed learning more about this real town of Gee’s Bend which is steeped in quilting history and was the inspiration for this novel. The book felt a bit slow near the beginning of the book but once Ludelphia began her journey, everything began to move along and I was fully invested in her story.”

Megan at Leafing Through Life: “Lu will meet both good and evil people and hopefully emerge on the other side with a better story for her quilt than she could have ever imagined. Drawing inspiration from the real Gee’s Bend’s rich quilting history, Irene Latham has crafted a beautiful story of her own. Leaving Gee’s Bend is a coming of age story set in a vividly drawn 1930s sharecropping community.”

Hope is the Word: “Irene Latham is not only a master at using dialect very unobtrusively, she also has a talent for figurative language. Again, Ludelphia’s voice is unforgettable.”

An interview with Irene Latham at Cynsations.

Leaving Gee’s Bend has been nominated for the 2010 Cybils Awards in the Middle Grade Fiction category.

This Means War! by Ellen Wittlinger

Oct26

It’s 1962 again, just as in Deborah Wiles’ Countdown (Semicolon review here), and while JFK and Khrushchev play chicken in the Cuban Missle Crisis, Juliet Klostermeyer and her friends are competing with the boys in a series of “challenges” to see who’s best, the boys or the girls. Starting with a simple foot race, the challenges escalate until it’s obvious that somebody’s bound to get hurt. Juliet just wants the wars to be over, both of them, but her friend Patsy is determined that the girls will win, no matter what it takes.

As in Countdown, This Means War! was a book filled with duck and cover drills, bomb shelters, and people living in fear. And again, I thought the fear factor was overdone. Maybe we were just too dumb to be afraid in West Texas where I grew up. I remember worrying about tornados, about fires, about drug-crazed hippies like Charles Manson, but not about atomic bombs.

What I liked about This Means War! was the mirror effect of having the children involved in their own escalating war while the Communists and the U.S. were busy daring one another be the first to back down in a nuclear confrontation. The children’s war does get out of hand, and it’s obvious that the lesson that they learn about how easily a game can turn dangerous is the same lesson that countries need to learn about their own disputes. However, the lesson is never stated outright, and the author trusts her readers to get it by themselves. A wise decision.

I liked this book just as much as I did Countdown, and if I were to teach this era in history in a middle grade classroom, I’d be tempted to use both books. Let half the class read one and half the class read the other, and then have a discussion of the two books and what the students learned from each one. The Red Umbrella would be another good book to include in a unit on this time period. Even though it takes place a bit before 1962, and even though it’s more appropriate for a little bit older audience, The Red Umbrella does look at Castro’s Cuba from a Cuban (American) point of view.

So, what other books, fiction or nonfiction, would you include in a unit on the 1960’s for middle grade children?

A Million Shades of Gray by Cynthia Kadohata

Oct25

It’s 1975, and Y’Tin Eban, a thirteen year old Rhade boy living in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam, is the youngest elephant keeper ever in his village. He plans someday to open the first elephant-training school in Vietnam. He has promised his elephant, Lady, that he will care for her all her life and mash up bananas for her when she’s old and has lost her teeth. Y’Tin has lots of ideas, lots of plans.

But when the North Vietnamese soldiers come to Y’Tin’s village, everything changes. The villagers run to the jungle. Some don’t make it. The North Vietnamese soldiers capture Y’Tin and some others; they burn the long houses in the village. Lady and the other two elephants that belong to Y’Tin’s village go off into the jungle, too. Everything is chaotic, and perhaps as the village shaman said, the story of the Rhade people is coming to an end. At least it’s obvious that the Americans who left in 1973 will not be coming back to keep their promises to protect their allies, the Rhade.

The story of Y’Tin reminded me of Mitali Perkins’s Bamboo People, also published in 2010. Bamboo People takes place in Burma, not Vietnam, and its protagonist, Tu Reh, is member of the Karen tribe who is living in a Thai refugee camp because of the government vendetta against his people. However, both books take place in Southeast Asia, and in both stories boys must confront the realities of war and death and enemy soldiers who are determined to destroy their families and friends. Both Tu Reh and Y’Tin must decide whether to harbor bitterness and hatred or to try to forgive. Each boy must also determine what his place will be in this war that is his world, unchosen but also unavoidable.

I actually liked Bamboo People better; it seemed that the thoughts and decisions of Tu Reh and his friend/enemy Chiko were a little less foreign to me. Y’Tin’s elephant-love is way beyond my experience, and his worries about whether the spirits have cursed his village or not are strange and hard to identify with. Still, both books give insight into the difficult decisions associated with the ongoing conflicts in Southeast Asia, and both books vividly portray what it can be like for a boy to grow up and become a man in a war zone.

I would place A Million Shades of Gray in the Young Adult fiction section because of the stark and unnerving violence (massacre) that is a necessary part of the story, but the book has been nominated for a 2010 Cybils Award in the Middle Grade Fiction category.