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Reality Check by Peter Abrahams

Sep5

So the author blurb tells me that Mr. Abrahams is an experienced author with several YA and adult titles under his belt, including two which received Edgar Award nominations. The writing in this new book, Reality Check, is decent and readable, but there’s something about it, something about the point of view, that is disconcerting, not quite believable, maybe, or just not quite right for me.

I’m wondering if all of Mr. Abrahams’ books are like this one, If so, he could be a big hit with guys, especially. Make no mistake, this book is written for, to, and about guys. The main character is a guy, sixteen year old Clay Laredo, a football player, a bright kid with bad grades, and boyfriend of Clea Weston, one of the smartest and richest girls in school. Cody spends the book scrapping, investigating, working hard, being tough. Clea, on the other hand, spends most of the book waiting to be rescued, and although we’re told repeatedly that she’s tough and “good at everything”, she only does something active once towards the end of the book. I don’t have any gripes about that characterization, but it does make the book very guy-oriented. We’re also told several times that Cody is “a bright kid”, but he comes across sort of slow and dimwitted, but well-meaning.

Other guy stuff in the book: some detailed football, some knock-down, drag-out fighting, a sprinkling of crude language (not much, but more than I want to read), an abbreviated car chase. One minor character is gay; he gets beat up. Actually to be fair, several people get beat up, including Cody. It’s a book probably best suited to the kind of guys who will grow up to read the kind of books my own dad read: John MacDonald, Robert B. Parker, Lawrence Block. Not my cup of tea, but some people prefer a cold beer.

Heart of a Shepherd by Roseanne Parry

Aug30

First you should know that this book was published by Random House. And the next obvious thing about this children’s novel is that it’s very Catholic. I am surprised, pleasantly surprised, to find those two aspects together: a book not only respectful of Catholicism and Christianity but actually featuring orthodox Christian religion published by a secular publisher.

Next surprise, Heart of a Shepherd is a book about the war in Iraq that is neither pro-war nor anti-war. Some of the most sympathetic characters in the book are officers and soldiers in the U.S. Armed Forces, and they are not presented as ogres or as misguided dupes. On the other hand the protagonist’s grandfather, a central character in the book also, is a Quaker and a pacifist. And he is not an idiot or an unpatriotic curmudgeon. It’s refreshing to read a book about war written for children that has no axe to grind, no political agenda, only giving children things to think about as they begin to process the fact of war and people being killed and injured in their service to their country.

A brief synopsis: Twelve year old Ignatius Alderman discovers the “heart of a shepherd” as he helps his grandparents take care of the family ranch when his father is deployed to Iraq. Nicknamed “Brother”, Ignatius is the youngest of five brothers, named for St. Ignatius, and searching for his own gift, talents, and career path. He’s not sure that ranching or military service, the two traditions that dominate his family, are truly his gifts, and although he learns to live up to his responsibilities, it will take a major crisis for Brother to find his own “right road” to maturity.

The book is rather quiet, the pacing slow and deliberate, like Brother himself. Even when the crisis I mentioned comes, it sneaks up on the reader rather than announcing itself with trumpets. I think this book will appeal especially to boys. In addition to its coming of age theme, it also has lots of little details about ranching life and rural Oregon and the life of a soldier in Iraq and even about chess that will capture the young man who’s interested in any of those subjects and make him pay attention to the larger themes in the book.

This first novel by author Roseanne Parry is a treat to be savored. I look forward to her next with great anticipation. I definitely hope to see this one nominated for a Cybil Award.

Postscript: Here’s a list I found at Ms. Parry’s website of ways that teachers can support the chilld of a deployed soldier. I thought it was a good list.

Secret Places

Aug27

Peter Sieruta at Collecting Children’s Books writes about The Velvet Room by Zilpha Keatley Snyder in which “Robin, the middle child in a large migrant family finds her special place in the tower room library of an otherwise abandoned estate. On the bookshelves, Robin discovers an old diary that helps her unravel the mystery of the estate’s long-missing heir.”

I started thinking about other books for children in which the protagonist finds a secret place where he or she can read and think and imagine and play pretend and grow.

Mandy by Julie Edwards. Mandy finds an abandoned cottage where she can make a pretend home of her own, but will keeping her secret make her lose the friendship and love of those who care about her?

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Mary, a spoiled orphan child raised in India, finds both solace and friendship in a secret garden on her aunt’s estate. The little girls have been listening to the Focus on the Family radio drama production of this classic, and I’ve enjoyed rediscovering it along with them.

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. Jesse and Leslie create a secret kingdom in the woods where they fight off enemies and crown themselvs king and queen of Terabithia.

In Patricia St. John’s Rainbow Garden, Elaine is sent to live with a family in the English countryside while her mother goes to work in France. Elaine is selfish and bitter, but she experiences healing and forgiveness in her garden.

The View From the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts. Rob Mallory has his own secret hiding place in the cherry tree, but spying on the neighbors from the branches of the cherry tree turns out to be a dangerous occupation.

Jean Craighead George wrote My Side of the Mountain in which Sam Gribley runs away to the Catskill Mountains and builds himself a secret home inside an old tree.

In their very first adventure The Boxcar Children (Gertrude Chandler Warner) find an old deserted boxcar where they make their home. This part of the story was most intriguing to me as a little girl: how do you make a home out of found objects out in the woods, no money or very little, lots of ingenuity?

Of course, the Magic Treehouse kids have . . . well, a Magic Treehouse.

Now that I think about it these are only the books in which the “secret place” itself is a central issue in the story; lots of other characters in children’s books have their own special places to get away from the fray:
Huckleberry Finn has an island and later his raft.

Tom Sawyer had a cave.

The Little Princess (Frances Hodgson Burnett), Sara Crewe, had her own attic room.

Betsy-Bee reminds me that the girls in Ursula Nordstrom’s The Secret Language not only had a secret language; they also had a fort with a little swimming pool inside (?).

I’ve always been quite fond of nooks and clubhouses and secret hiding places in books and in real life. What others can you think of?

The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had by Kristin Levine

Aug22

Moundville, Alabama. 1917. Harry Otis Sims, nickname Dit:

“I’ve been wrong before. Oh, heck, if I’m being real honest, I’ve been wrong a lot. But I ain’t never been so wrong as I was about Emma Walker. When she first came to town, I thought she was the worst piece of bad luck I’d had since falling in the outhouse on my birthday.”

Dit is an engaging narrator, the middle child in a family of ten children, shaped by his culture and upbringing in rural Alabama, but willing to learn and to accept change. And change he does as he becomes friends with the new postmaster’s daughter, a girl, and what’s even more shocking, a “nigra” girl.

I liked the way this book was written with nuance and recognition of the complications of race relations in the Deep South. I wasn’t there (I’m not that old!), but this book describes the people of a small town in Alabama the way Harper Lee describes them in her classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. The people in Moundville are not all bad, not all racist to the bone, but they are crippled and held back by their heritage and their innate conservatism. Only Dit and his new friend Emma are able to see past the cultural racism that has ruled Moundville society since the Civil War, and they are able to right a wrong that could cost an innocent man his life.

This wonderful slice of life from the World War I era mentions several historical events and works them seamlessly into the story: the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, the lynching of black men in the South during the 1910’s, the double standard for employing blacks even in the postal service, the young men going off to war to fight the Hun, a banana train from New Orleans, learning to drive a Model T, seeing one’s first airplane flight. I loved the way the history “lessons” blended into the story, and I can see this book being useful and beloved inside and outside the classroom.

Target ages: 10-14.
Could be enjoyed by readers age 10 through adult. Hey, I liked it.

Betsy-Bee’s Fifth Grade Summer Reading List

Jun10

I think these are all books that Betsy-Bee, the dancer/artiste will enjoy. She asked for no historical fiction, and I pretty much obliged. However, MIss Spitfire was irresistible since I’m almost sure she will be one of the huge subset of tween girls who are fascinated with Helen Keller as soon as she reads it.

Dancing Shoes by Noel Streatfield.

Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield.

Frindle by Andrew Clements.

Blue Fairy Book compiled by Andrew Lang.

Miss Spitfire by Sarah Miller.

Wanda Gag: The Girl Who Lived to Draw by Deborah Ray.

A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban.

Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree by Lauren Tarshis.

Noonday Friends by Mary Stolz.

The Secret Language by Ursula Nordstrom.

Mandy by Julie Andrews Edwards.

I told Betsy-Bee to pick at least ten of these, read them, and review them here at Semicolon. She’s planning to start with Noonday Friends by Mary Stolz.

Two Novellas for the Elementary Set

Jun6

Reading Time for both: 1.75 hours
Combined pages: 193
Total time spent reading and blogging for the 48-Hour Reading Challenge: 20 hours
Titles:
The Arrow Over the Door by Joseph Bruchac,
Family Reminders by Julie Danneberg.

Both of these historical fiction titles for elementary age children would be great curriculum choices for a study of U.S. history. In fact, the first, The Arrow Over the Door is already on the Sonlight reading list for next year for my World History class covering 1500-1900. That’s why I had it in my stack to preview/review.

The Arrow Over the Door is based on a story told among Friends (Quakers) about a group of hostile Indians who came to a Quaker Meeting House during the Revolutionary War and seeing that the people gathered there were peaceful and non-threatening, went away without harming the assembled worshippers. In fact, as the story goes the Indians and the Quaker settlers became friends and ate together and promised not to fight each other. Bruchac’s version of this story is told in alternating chapters from the point of view of Samuel, a Quaker young man who is unsure about his commitment to nonviolence in the face of war, and Stands Straight, an Abenaki young man who is confused about why his tribe is considering fighting on the side of King George and the British in this “white man’s war.” The story is short, only 80 pages long, but it should provoke discussion about pacifism and cultural rapprochement and give students some rudimentary insight into the many facets and perspectives involved in the American War for Independence.

Family Reminders takes place in Cripple Creek, Colorado over a hundred years after the Revolutionary War in the late 1800’s. Everything changes in Mary’s family when her beloved miner father loses his leg in a mining accident. Although the events of the story are fairly predictable to an adult reader, a child would probably find the story suspenseful enough and want to know whether Mary’s father will be able to recover physically and emotionally from his injury.

I liked both stories enough that I’ll be recommending them to Betsy Bee (10) and maybe Karate Kid (12). Or we may read the stories aloud so that Z-baby (7), whose reading abilities still aren’t quite up to “chapter books,” can listen and enjoy, too.

Joseph Bruchac’s Author Website: “For over thirty years Joseph Bruchac has been creating poetry, short stories, novels, anthologies and music that reflect his Abenaki Indian heritage and Native American traditions.”

Julie Danneberg’s Author Website: “First of all, being a writer has given me the chance to learn all sorts of new things, go new places and meet new people, including all the kids I meet at school visits. Also, being a writer gives me the excuse to read, read and read some more!”

A woman after my own heart!

Confetti Girl by Diana Lopez

Jun6

Reading Time: 2 hours
Pages: 194
Total TIme Spent on 48 Hour Reading CHallenge so far: 18 hours

“In her first novel for young readers, Diana Lopez creates a clever and honest story about a young Latina girl navigating growing pains in her South Texas city (Corpus Christi).”

Not a bad synopsis. Not a bad tween novel. I requested this ARC from the publisher because I thought it might possibly fit into the class I’m teaching next year at our homeschool co-op on Texas history and literature for sixth and seventh graders. It won’t. It’s much too girly, a little too boy-crazy, romantic, and way too light for a class assignment.

However, it’s a good light read from a fresh perspective: a South Texas Latin American girl whose father is an English professor and who seems to effortlessly combine her Latin cultural heritage with a very American life. No cultural angst, no agonizing over who she is or where she belongs, just lots of girl talk about boys, scheming to help divorced mom and a widowed father, sports, and general middle school issues and solutions.

This book is one to suggest to young girls (age 10 or 11 and up) who maybe don’t enjoy reading so much, but who would enjoy a story about a girl like themselves: reasonably intelligent, struggling with the changes that come with growing up, and using a sense of humor and a bit of forgiveness to get them through it all.

I enjoyed Appolina, or Lina as she’s called by her friends, and I found her and her friends and family to be believable characters with endearing quirks. For example, here’s the opening paragraph of the book in Lina’s voice:

“Some people collect coins or stamps, but I collect socks. I have a dresser with drawers labeled DAILY SOCKS, LONELY SOCKS, HOLEY SOCKS, and SOCK HEAVEN.”

Nice, don’t you think? The publication date is June, 2009, so it should be available in bookstores now or soon.

Escape Under the Forever Sky by Eve Yohalem

Jun6

Time Spent reading: 2 hours
Pages: 218
Total time spent on 48 Hour Reading Challenge so far: 16 hours

Set in Ethiopia, this story reminded me of Camel Rider by Prue Mason, a book I read in 2007 for the Cybils. In Camel Rider the spoiled son of an Australian businessman gets lost in the desert; in this story the spoiled daughter of the American ambassador to Ethiopia is kidnapped and escapes to the Ethiopian savannah/forest.

Lucy is over-protected, bored, and anxious to experience the wildlife and the culture of Ethiopia, her erstwhile home. However, Lucy’s mother won’t let her leave the American compound except to go to school, to the museum, and on carefully chaperoned “game drives” in the Menagasha National Park. Unfortunately for Lucy, when she disobeys her mom and sneaks out to a restaurant with her friend Tana, Lucy gets more experience and exposure to African wildlife and culture than she bargained for. (By the way, this book features the second over-protective and controlling mom for the day, and BOTH OF THEM turn out to be right about the dangers they’re trying to protect their snotty daughters from. Just saying.)

The book gets a little too educational at times, particularly in the first third of the story. After the kidnapping, the pace picks up, and Lucy’s escape and experiences in the forest are calculated to appeal especially to animal lovers and young naturalists. According to the author,

“Escape Under the Forever Sky was inspired by a true story. In June 2005, a twelve year old girl was kidnapped from her village in southwestern Ethiopia and held captive for a week before she managed to escape. Running through the forest, the girl happened upon three wild lions. The lions surrounded her and chased off her abductors, standing guard for several hours until the police arrived.”

Eve Yohalem’s website with more information about the book and the author.

The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson

May20

I picked up The Star of Kazan at the library on spec. It looked interesting, and I’d heard of Ms. Ibbotson, but I’d never read any of her books. (If you want more about Eva Ibbotson, Austrian-born, British writer of both children’s and adult books, here’s a delightful Guardian interview with her. She starts out cranky and ends up reflective.)

A foundling, Austrian professors, Viennese cooking, a bookshop, the Lippizaner stallions, a castle, a mysterious trunk full of costumes and fake jewels. These are some of the elements that make up this adventure story set in early twentieth century Vienna and Germany. It’s not really a fantasy, but it feels a little fairy-tale-ish.

Annika, the foundling who is the story’s heroine, loves her life in Vienna as the adopted daughter of servants, Ellie and Sigrid, and the adopted “niece” of the three professors for whom Ellie and Sigrid work. However, as a found child, Annika does imagine what it would be like to have her birth mother sweep into the house and claim her as a beloved, long lost daughter.

Then, one day it happens! And Annika’s mother and her new-found family are both more and less exciting and wonderful than her imagination could have dreamed.

The story sort of reminded me of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Little Princess, one of my favorite tales when I was a girl. Annika, like Sara Crewe, is either a princess or a penniless orphan or something in-between. And Annika and Sara, as their fortunes rise and fall, are throughout both books rather Pollyanna-like, almost always humble and servant-like and joyful.

I think I would have had a great big noisy fit somewhere in there. Which shows that when it comes to living up to my fictional ideals, I don’t.

YA Fiction of 2008: The Patron Saint of Butterflies by Cecilia Galante

Feb18

At first, I thought this story about two teenage girls fleeing a cult/commune just didn’t ring true-to-life. One of the girls, Agnes, was way too indoctrinated to be believable, but the other girl, Honey, was too rebellious and knowledgeable to have been encased in a religious cult all her life. So, I came to believe in Agnes. She had doubts and fears, and she was confused. But Honey? Even though the author tried to explain her worldliness and her insight into the real structure of the cult by showing that she did have some contact with the outside world, a few visits to a nearby farm and a little bit of television on the sly, I just couldn’t quite see someone as worldly wise and personally strong as Honey coming out of a cult like the one described in the book.

Then, I read the author’s note at the end of the book and discovered that Cecilia Galante grew up in a commune much like the one in the book. Authoritarian and charismatic leader, psuedo-Catholic teachings, legalistic separation from the world. So, Ms. Galante has a lot more authority to write on the subject than I do, and if she says someone like Honey could come out of a lifelong immersion in such a group, immediately intact and decisive as a person, then who am I to argue?

Aside from my internal discussions with myself over characterization, I found this debut YA novel to be fascinating. It was all about lies and secrets and telling the truth and how important it is to have a self and to tell yourself and others the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
The villains (cult leaders and parents) are rather one-dimensional, but the book isn’t about them. It’s about Honey and Agnes and growing up and making decisions that are painful but necessary. Recommended for those who like to read about such things.

Other voices chiming in:
Jen Robinson’s Book Page: “The genius of this book is Galante’s telling of the story from both Agnes and Honey’s perspectives. Each girl’s personality comes through clearly, and together they give the reader a full perspective on life in this repressive religious commune.”

The Reading Zone: “Agnes’ grandmother and Honey plot to take all three children and escape the commune. Their journey begins an exploration of faith, friendship, religion and family for the two girls, as Agnes clings to her familiar faith while Honey desperately wants a new future.”

Sarah Miller: “This may be a book with something to say something about religion, but Cecilia Galante is smart enough not to turn her story into a pulpit. The plot is quick and intense, and the writing vivid enough that after Honey tasted her fist Big Mac, I just had to do the same.”

Little WIllow interviews Cecilia Galante.