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My Hands Came Away Red by Lisa McKay

Oct14

Immediately after finishing My Hands Came Away Red, I searched the internet to see what other books Ms. McKay had written. That should tell you something about the quality of this compelling story of a Christian youth missions team in Indonesia. Eighteen year old Cori decides to spend her summer in Indonesia, building a church, out of mixed motives. Yes, Cori is a Christian, and she wants to do something meaningful in God’s service. She also wants to get away from her confusing relationship with her boyfriend, Scott, and she just wants to experience her own adventure. Since the book runs to 386 pages, Cori obviously gets a lot more meaning and distance and adventure than she expected.

And I got a lot more than I expected out of reading this novel. The story represents really sophisticated and deeply significant Christian fiction. Ms. McKay is not afraid to tackle the hard questions: why does God allow suffering? Why do bad things happen to good people? How do Christians pray when it seems as if God isn’t listening? How is Romans 8:28 (“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”) true? Is it true? Really?
Not only does the book deal with these and other hard questions, the writing is also courageous enough not to give simple, easy answers. There’s no ending, or at least no ending that ties up all the loose doubts and uncertainties and issues and presents them to the reader in a neat little package.

But at the same time it’s not a hopeless diatribe on the stupidity of simple faith. Cori and her team of five more teens from the U.S. have a horrible encounter with evil and with danger, and they react in all the myriad of ways that a group of young, somewhat immature Christian young people would react. They cry, and they get angry. They are scared, and they sometimes manage to be incredibly brave. They do and say stupid things. They argue, and they support one another. They doubt and become angry with God, and sometimes they experience something that renews their faith in Him. Looking at faith in the face of atrocity and making fun of that faith is easy, but the reality is not that simple. In My Hands Came Away Red, the characters are not allowed to give up on life or on God, even when they do.

Lisa McKay has a degree in psychology, and that background shows in the novel’s vivid descriptions of the psychological trauma that the young people in the story experience. The author has also served on a missions team in the Philippines, and that firsthand knowledge of how Christians really do behave and talk and act like normal young adults also makes the book’s character portrayals authentic and engaging. As I judge in the young adult fiction category for this year’s INSPY Awards for “the best in literature that grapples with the Christian faith,” I will use use this book and a couple of other faith-driven books as the standard by which I judge the entries on the shortlist for this year. It’s that good.

The Cardturner by Louis Sachar

Oct9

Last week I was reading about the (insane) World of Rock Climbing and the (dangerous) World of Nashville Country Music, and this week it’s the (philosophical) World of Duplicate Bridge. I must warn would-be readers that there is a LOT of bridge in this YA fiction book about a boy and his curmudgeonly, rich uncle. Uncle Lester, or as he’s affectionally known, Trapp, is an expert bridge player. He’s also blind. So Alton, his nephew, becomes Trapp’s “cardturner.” Basically, Alton plays the cards, and Trapp tells him what cards to play.

The only reason I got through all the technical jargon and card-game-play-by-play in this book was that I have a secret history that I’ve never told anyone, at least not lately and not on this blog. Nope, I’ve never played bridge. However, back in the day, when I was in college, I used to hang out at the Baptist Student Union. And at the BSU there were almost always two games going: a game of spades and a game of 42. Spades is a card game, and 42 is sort of like spades, but with dominoes. well, it turns out that Spades is a much-simplified version of bridge. According to Wikipedia, “Spades is a descendant of the Whist family of card games, which also includes Bridge, Hearts, and Oh, Hell.” I played a lot of spades and 42 in between classes, while skipping classes, and before and after classes. So, since I used to know how to play both spades and 42 about thirty years ago, I could sorta, kinda, follow the very long, involved, complicated explanations about specific hands of bridge and how they were played, won, and lost.

And I thought the whole book was fascinating. I’m funny like that. I like being introduced to worlds I never knew existed. I’ve heard of bridge, but I thought it was just something blue-haired little old ladies and retired army colonels played in Agatha Christie murder mysteries. I had no idea there were bridge clubs, and national championships, and master points to be gained, and mastery levels to be attained. Did you know that you can become a Grand Life Master bridge player if you rack up enough points? And did you know that people who play competitive duplicate bridge scorn the casual living room players who discuss other things while playing bridge? If you’re going to play bridge with the big boys (and women) apparently you have to behave and concentrate on the game. Did you know that the sides of the table in bridge are named for the cardinal directions: East, West, North and South?

Louis Sachar is the author of the Newbery Award-winning book, Holes, which means he’s got a good readable style and kind of quirky characters. But don’t expect a story like Holes if you decide to give The Cardturner a try. As I said, I liked The Cardturner a lot, but I can see that it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. There’s a plot, about Alton and the uncle developing a relationship and bonding over bridge, and there’s a theme, about life being a lot like bridge and about synchronicity. But this book really is about the bridge. It was worth all the bridge (I admit to skimming through some of the play by play) to get to chapter 76 (short chapters) which encapsulates the moral of the story. I was going to quote it, but I think I’ll let you work a little to get there. And I’m not sure how meaningful the lesson would be in isolation anyway. Suffice it to say by the end of the book I think Alton’s on to something in relation to faith, coincidence, synchronicity, and the meaning of life.

The Cardturner by Louis Sachar has been nominated for a Cybil Award in the 2010 Young Adult Fiction category.

Other reviews:
Presenting Lenore: “After reading this novel, I’m convinced Sachar can make any subject fascinating. I went in knowing next to nothing about bridge, and I put the novel down at the end not only with a rudimentary understanding of the game, but a healthy appreciation for it.”

Melissa at Book Nut: “It works, primarily, because of the narration. For starters, because Alton’s about as clueless at bridge as we are (I’m assuming you’re as clueless as I am), it helps that he stops and explains it as we go. Amazingly, it doesn’t halt the plot, but it’s woven into it almost pretty seamlessly.”

TheHappyNappyBookseller: “By the time the game of bridge was introduced, Sachar already had me with Alton. His parents were very interesting, at times inappropriate and always funny. Alton’s, 11 yr old sister, Leslie was smart, sweet and a natural at bridge. I really liked the brother sister dynamic in this story.”

So you see, even if you don’t think you’d like to read a book that’s mostly about bridge, a game that’s mostly played by old people and people in books, you might want to give The Cardturner a try. Oh, the subtitle is pretty good, too: A Novel About a King, a Queen, and a Joker.

No and Me by Delphine de Vigan

Oct7

I got an ARC of this YA novel, originally published in French, several months ago, but I’m just now getting around to reading it. The atmosphere and feel of the story was very European, very French. It’s a story about a thirteen year old, intellectually gifted girl named Lou Bertignac and her friendship with a homeless eighteen year old girl, No. (I must admit that I originally pictured No as Vietnamese or at least Asian because the name sounded Southeast Asian to me, but No is later described as dark-haired and pale-skinned, typical French. No is short for Nolwenn.)

The gist of the story is that Lou tries to “save” No, to give her a home, help her to become self-supporting, be her friend, improve her life. The plot reminded me of a book I plan to read that was being touted in Eldest Daughter’s church when I visited her in Nashville, When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor. . .and Ourselves by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett. I haven’t read this nonfiction title yet, but I am well aware that helping people who are homeless or mired in poverty isn’t a straightforward or uncomplicated matter simply of finding them a job and a place to live. In No and Me, Lou finds out that helping No isn’t easy, and although Lou never gives up hope and tries to walk alongside No even when No herself is choosing to engage in self-destructive behavior, the story is realistic in showing that persistence and dedication may not always be enough.

No and Me was the Winner of the 2008 Prix de Libraries (Booksellers’ Prize) in France, and the translation is, as far as I can tell, well done. The ending of the novel was somewhat ambiguous, in keeping with the tone of the entire book. Teens who are interested in helping the homeless or who want insight into European culture and issues would appreciate this look at homelessness in France and one girl’s attempt to do her part to make a difference.

No and Me by Delphine de Vigan from George Miller on Vimeo.

Finding My Place by Traci L. Jones

Oct4

I graduated high school in 1975, the year in which this story takes place. So I loved all the cultural references to TV shows like Barney Miller and Sanford and Son, to songs like Monster Mash and Stairway to Heaven, and to political and social events and entities like the Black Panthers and maxi skirts and hippie communes. But the characters themselves eventually felt flat and unconvincing in spite of all the time period references and slang-sprinkled dialog.

Tiphanie Jayne Baker is the one who’s “finding her place” in a nearly all-white high school in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado. Her parents have made it in the business world–dad’s a banker and mom’s a real estate broker–so they are moving into the house to match the income, out of the predominantly black part of town and into the ritzy white suburbs. Tiphanie has to transfer to a new high school where there’s only one other black student, a boy named Bradley. At first, no one even speaks to Tiphanie or acknowledges her presence, but that situation changes as she makes friends with social outcast, Jackie Sue Webster, and then eventually others in the school begin to notice that Tiphanie is a real person and not just the token black girl.

Unfortunately, it’s at the point that Tiphanie is finally beginning to feel somewhat accepted by the kids at school, except for a couple of garden variety racist idiots, that the story of the friendship between Tiphanie and Jackie Sue takes a turn for the oversimplified and stereotypical. Stop here if you’re not in the mood for spoilers. Jackie Sue’s mom is a former beauty queen, unwed mother, dumb blonde, now alcoholic and abusive mess. Could one possibly impose any more poor white trash stereotypes onto one character? Oh, yeah, Jackie Sue and her mom live in a trailer park, of course.

At the beginning of the story Jackie Sue with her impressive vocabulary and her observational skills was an interesting character. Then she somehow turned into a cliche. Tiphanie, although she’s smart and witty, hovers on the edge of stereotype with her parents lecturing her about upholding the good image of the Afro-American race and her friends accusing her of becoming too white, an Oreo. But whereas Tiphanie feels almost real, and her parents kind of snooty but also believable, Jackie Sue and especially her mom are just a plot device for Tiphanie to learn from and for the reader to get the message that some white people have poverty-stricken, dysfunctional lives that are worse than the lives of upwardly mobile blacks.

Read for a taste of the seventies, if you want one, but not for the realistic characterization.

Other views:
The HappyNappyBookseller: “I really enjoyed Finding My Place. It was a quick, fun and entertaining read. Jones knows how to write a good story and great dialogue.”

The Fourth Musketeer: “In this novel, Traci Jones examines serious issues of prejudice with a terrific sense of humor–I laughed out loud at numerous places in the novel. She explores overt prejudice against blacks . . . but also more subtle types of prejudice.”

Bookish Blather: “As her friendship with Jackie Sue grows, Tiphanie finds herself wrestling with her values, and the values of her family. I loved reading about Tiphanie. She’s smart, funny and witty, and a compassionate person.”

And, again, I am in the minority. Try it if you’re interested and see what you think.

How To Change a Life: Two YA Fiction Gems

Oct2

Somebody Everybody Listens To by Suzanne Supplee.

The Heart Is Not a Size by Beth Kephart.

These are two very different books with a common theme: how does a young woma grow up, get past or through her issues and problems and imperfections, and change her life— and the lives of those around her?

In Somebody Everybody Listens To, Retta Lee Jones is a singer with a dream; she wants to go to Nashville and somehow sing songs that will be on the radio where everybody will listen to her music. It’s not so much that Retta wants to become rich or famous, although living somewhere besides the old car she drives to Nashville would be a welcome change. Retta just wants someone to listen to her, someone besides her best friend Brenda. She wants to escape her unhappy home and her estranged parents and become her own person. And as unlikely as it seems, Nashville and the country music scene become her path to adulthood.

It’s a good story that doesn’t pull many punches about the danger and the improbability of even tying to make it as a singer in Nashville. Retta Lee meets drunks and bitter wannabes and lecherous men and star-struck teenagers. But she also makes friends with Ricky Dean, the tow-truck driver who fixes her car and gives her a job, and Emerson Foster, a student at Vanderbilt who becomes Retta’s encourager, and even Chat, the skeptic whose harsh criticism will test Retta’s resolve. Any girl who plans to “make it in the music business” should be given a copy of this book along with some sage advice. However, as Dolly Parton once said, ” You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.”

Bravery and taking a chance on a dream are also the themes of Beth Kephart’s newest book, The Heart Is Not a Size. This one felt a little weird to me because it’s about two girls, Georgia and her best friend Riley, on a mission trip (or a good works trip) to Juarez, Mexico. I’ve been to Juarez, and although I’ve never worked in that city, I have been on several mission trips to other border towns, Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, and Acuña. I’ve worked in the hot summer Mexican sun, and I’ve been to the colonias, the poverty-stricken villages that grow up around Mexican border cities. So a lot of what Ms. Kephart was writing about was familiar, and yet there were distinct differences from my own experiences.

The group of teens in Ms. Kephart’s book, who were working to build a neighborhood bathroom and shower facility in a poor colonia called Anapra, were working with a secular group called GoodWorks, loosely associated with a church in Mexico, but with no Christian focus. I kept expecting the young people in the book to come together in the evening and pray for each other and for the success of their work in Anapra. I kept expecting them to turn to God for help in understanding themselves and their relationships with each other and with the villagers. But Georgia and Riley and the other teens just continued to dig down deep within themselves and to pull out inner resources that they didn’t know they had.

In fact, as I think about it, the message of both of these books seems to be that if you need to change, if your life is going in the wrong direction, dig deep and pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, maybe with a little help from your friends. In fact, in Somebody Everybody Listens To, a preacher gives that exact message, telling a funeral congregation: ” . . . you are the one that’s got to change yourself. The good Lord just cheers you on.” And in A Heart Is Not a Size, Georgia just has herself: “I wasn’t letting anything else get in my way–not the dogs, not the dust, not myself, not the blackbird that banged in the place of my heart. I wasn’t going to be beat by panic. Not this time.”

Wonderful stories, but ultimately a discouraging message. What if you don’t have the inner resources to change yourself? What if your friends desert you? What if God seems more like an angry judge than a cheerleader? What’s the message for those of us who fail and fail again and finally can’t even get up off the ground?

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. ~Ephesians 2:4-10

A friend of mine was quoting someone not long ago, and she said something like, “Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good; he came to bring dead people to life.” There’s a corollary to that statement: We can’t save ourselves by working really, really hard. If God’s not more than a cheerleader, if He’s not a saviour, we’re a bunch of dead ducks.

Jump by Elisa Carbone

Oct1

On belay?
Belay on.
Climbing.
Climb on.

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?
Imagine it perfect.

Jump is my introduction to the sport of rock-climbing. Apparently, there are rock-climbing gyms and climbing shops where you buy gear with esoteric names and rocks and cliffs and routes to climb that have ratings and their own weird names (Swing Shift? Midnight Lightning?). Who knew such a world existed?

Anyway, our two protagonists, Critter, escapee from a mental hospital, and P.K., a runaway who just wants to avoid being sent to boarding school, find themselves hitchhiking across country to Nevada and then to California to find a place where they can share their mutual passion–rock-climbing. In the process, they, of course, discover another passion for each other, but there are issues that must be resolved. And the cops are chasing both Critter and P.K., seeking to return Critter to his drugged life in the hospital and P.K. into the arms of her parents-who-don’t-understand-me.

I’m making the book sound a bit trite and predictable, but it’s really anything but. Critter isn’t really crazy, or is he? He does read people’s emotions by the colored auras he sees surrounding them, and he makes things happen by visualizing them. And P.K. is a strong, independent, rock-climbing, kick you-know-what female, or maybe she’s just a girl who wants her daddy to listen to her and her mom to let her stay home. The parents of both young people were rather flat characters, not very comprehensible. But this story isn’t really about kids and parents; it’s about P.K. and Critter and their relationship and about trust and most of all about living in the present. Critter tells P.K. over and over that the present moment is all that’s real. The past can’t be changed; it’s subject to what Critter calls “the Law of Inevitability.” The future isn’t here, and most of the things we worry about happening in the future, won’t. So Now is all there is.

That’s the philosophy part of the book. The story part is your basic boy meets girl, problems, resolution. But it’s a good climb with some quirky, lovable characters.

Blood on the River: James Town 1607 by Elisa Carbone

Sep28

Ms. Carbone says she wrote this historical novel abut the founding of Jamestown partly because teachers and librarians asked her to do so. Apparently, there’s not much out there, fiction-wise, for young people set in Jamestown.

Blood on the River is the story of Samuel Collier, a street urchin with an attitude from the streets of London. Samuel was a real person about whom little or nothing is really known, so Ms. Carbone made up this story about him. It’s a good, adventurous, historically educational tale full of sound and fury and of course, blood. Samuel is flawed, but likable hero, servant to Captain John Smith. Samuel’s difficult childhood has taught him to fight for whatever he needs or wants and not to trust anyone. Life in Jamestown and especially the example of Captain Smith teach Samuel that in the New World everyone must work and work together in order to survive.

The book highlights the tension between the “gentlemen” settlers of Jamestown who were looking for gold and quick riches and those who were sent or came with the intention of making a new life for themselves. Tension and finally enmity also developed between the English settlers and the Native groups who were already resident in the land. Samuel, however, learns that he can avoid trouble by using his head and controlling his temper.

I started teaching my co-op class on American History and Literature on September 3rd, and if I had already read it I would have had this book on the reading list. I would recommend it for any group of young people (middle school to high school) who are studying this time period.

My U.S. history class was reading about Roanoke and Jamestown colonies this month, as I would guess many other U.S. history classes all over the nation are doing about now. The following books are from the children’s and young adult sections of the library, but I enjoyed them all. Actually, I find the best nonfiction in the children’s book area. Children’s authors seem to have honed the ability to explain history and science and other topics in economical but engaging prose. And children’s and young adult historical fiction usually emphasizes the history and the adventure rather than trying to work romance into every story.

Roanoke, the Lost Colony
The Lost Colony of Roanoke by Jean Fritz. Putnam, 2004.

Mystery of the Lost Colony by Lee Miller. Scholastic, 2007.

Roanoke The Lost Colony: An Unsolved Mystery from History by Heidi Stemple and Jane Yolen. Simon & Schuster, 2003. I tried to get this one, but my library system doesn’t have a copy. This series sounds like something I would really enjoy since it includes several other “mysteries of history.”

Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America
1607, A New Look at Jamestown by Karen E. Lange. Photographs by Ira Block. National Geographic, 2007. Published in honor of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, this book features National Geographic-style photographs taken on site at Jamestown Rediscovery, a working archeological site where new discoveries about the life and history of the Jamestown settlers continue to be made. The most important change in the modern views of the history of Jamestown comes from tree ring research that shows that the colonists’ descent into chaos and starvation may have been due to drought more than to laziness and ineptitude. John Rolfe’s superior tobacco plants imported from Trinidad and the arrival of 147 “Maids for VIrginia” in 1619 may have saved the day and the colony.

John Smith Escapes Again! by Rosalyn Schanzer. Another title from National Geographic (2006), but with a totally different feel and character, Schanzer’s biography of John Smith brings out the legendary qualities of a man who lived big and told even bigger stories. “In his day, John Smith was probably the greatest escape artist on the planet. He escaped from danger over and over, and not only from Indians, but from angry mobs, slave drivers, French pirates, and even the deep blue sea.” The illustrations are cartoon-like with lots of detail, and the text is exciting to match an exciting life. This one is my favorite of all the books on this list.

The Double Life of Pocahontas by Jean Fritz. An historically accurate account of the life of Pocahontas, the Indian princess who moved between the worlds of her own Powhatan tribe and that of the British settlers in Jamestown.

Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland by Sally M. Walker. In Written in Bone, Ms. Walker accompanies forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley, a scientist at the Smithsonian Institution, at his invitation, as he and colleagues from several related disciplines study the remains of some of the Jamestown settlers and of other early colonials who lived in the Chesapeake region of Maryland. Full Semicolon review here.

The World of Captain John Smith by Genevieve Foster. I really like the series of books by Ms. Foster that take a time period and focus on the life of a specific person from that time while also telling about what was going on all over the world in history.

Who’s Saying What in Jamestown, Thomas Savage? by Jean Fritz. 13 year old Thomas Savage arrived in Jamestown in January, 1608. In this book, Jean Fritz tells Thomas’s story in her inimitable style.

A Fictional Look at Jamestown and Roanoke
Cate of the Lost Colony by Lisa Klein. Catherine, one of Queen Elizabeth’s ladies in waiting and an admirer of Elizabeth’s favorite Sir Walter Raleigh, is banished to Raleigh’s colony at Roanoke. Semicolon review here. YA fiction.

Sabotaged by Margaret Peterson Haddix. Simon & Schuster, 2010. I read the first book in Haddix’s Missing series, Found, but I have yet to read the second book, Sent, or the third, Sabotaged. Sabotaged, I am told, features a missing child who turns out to be Virginia Dare. Middle grade/YA fiction.

The Lyon Saga, a trilogy about Roanoke by M. L. Stainer; the first volume is The Lyon’s Roar. Circleville Press, 1997. I read about this trilogy at The Fourth Musketeer. YA fiction.

Our Strange New Land: Elizabeth’s Jamestown Colony Diary by Patricia Hermes. Sequels are The Starving Time and Season of Promise. These three books are a part of Scholastic’s My America series for younger readers.

The Serpent Never Sleeps: A Novel of Jamestown and Pocahontas by Scot O’Dell. Serena Lynn follows her beloved Anthony Foxcroft to America to make a life in Jamestown. Protected by a magical serpent ring given to her by King James I himself, Serena will dare anything to follow her dreams. Later in the book, she becomes friends with the Indian girl Pocahontas and learns what it means to truly be a citizen of the New World. O’Dell is always good, and this particular novel, although not his best, is quite readable and informative. I got a fair idea of what King James I might have been like, and I’m not thinking I would want to be anywhere near his court.

The Corn Raid: A Story of the Jamestown Settlement by James Lincoln Collier. An indentured servant becomes friends with an Indian boy, but plans by the Jamestown colonists to steal the Indians’ corn threaten to derail and destroy the friendship.

Winter of the Dead by Elizabeth Massie. Nathaniel and Richard accompany Captain John Smith to Jamestown, and they find not gold, but rather hardship and starvation as they struggle along with the other colonists to survive their first winter in the new world.

Blood on the River by Elisa Carbone. Karate Kid read this book, too.

Saving Maddie by Varian Johnson

Sep24

Talk about mixed feelings—and mixed messages. Seventeen year old Joshua Wynn, the narrator of Saving Maddie, is a PK (preacher’s kid). He sings in the church choir, visits old folks in the nursing home, and presides over the church youth group. But he doesn’t really know what he believes or why he believes it. He knows the he shouldn’t use foul language, and he doesn’t, but why not? Joshua couldn’t tell you. He knows he should go to church and obey his parents. But he can’t say anything to support those beliefs, except quote you a Bible verse. He knows that premarital sex is wrong, but why? Joshua hasn’t a clue.

It’s not surprising, then, that when Joshua sets out to help his old friend Maddie “see the light” and come back to the faith, Joshua is the one who is most influenced and changed and pulled away from the shell of a moral code that he had at the beginning of the story. Joshua says at several points in the story that he thinks he can save Maddie. So his first mistake is that he thinks he is capable of “saving” someone; salvation in the Christian sense of the word is strictly God’s province. I don’t recall Joshua praying at all in the course of the story, although bad girl Maddie does pray before meals and say that she’s “spiritual but not religious.” Joshua is obviously a mixed up Pharisee with no moral core to his churchiness and no real relationship with Jesus Christ. He’s a good kid with no real reason to stay good. He and Maddie need authentic Christianity modeled for them, Christ made flesh in the lives of Christians, but all they get are platitudes, goodness for the sake of appearances, judgment, and confusing theology from their parents and other adults in their lives. And of course, all the kids they know are either “doing it” or at the very least see no reason why any sane person would remain sexually abstinent until marriage. So nowhere in the entire book does anyone give any coherent rationale for sexual purity.

That said, Joshua is a pretty good example of what our churches and Christian homes are turning out. I’m not sure my own teenagers could give a reasoned Biblical argument for sexual purity or articulate their own Christian beliefs in a way that would make sense to others with differing beliefs. (I’m not talking about converting others, but rather just knowing what you believe.) Sadly enough, I’m finding that you can lead a horse to water . . . Perhaps author Varian Johnson made his protagonist, Joshua, so clueless and ignorant because he saw that many if not most Christian young people from strong, faith-filled homes are in the same place as Joshua. If anyone is talking to them about not only what the Bible teaches but also why they should obey its strictures, they’re not buying. And many, many who have professed faith in Christ have never come to an intimate relationship with Jesus that makes them eager to please him and reluctant to disobey His words in Scripture. That relationship and faith walk are the only things that are sufficient to enable a young person (or an old person) to resist sexual temptation or any other kind of temptation.

So Saving Maddie is a picture of how the world is, without any pointers to how it could be or why it should be better. Maddie is a tragic figure who does need saving. So is Joshua. But by the end of the book they’re both still drowning. One could call this story of teenage confusion authentic, or perhaps it’s just sad.

Sidenote: I don’t want to start another cover controversy, but I really couldn’t figure out whether the characters in this novel were black or or not. Mr. Johnson is black. Certain things—the pastor’s name, the name of Joshua’s church, other minor details—led me to believe that the characters in the book were black. And Joshua mentioned Maddie’s “brown skin” at least a couple of times in the book. However, the girl on the cover of the book doesn’t look black or brown to me; she looks like a white model with some shadow on her skin. However, I found this interview where author Varian Johnson discusses this very issue, and as he says, I don’t suppose it really matters what skin color the characters have.

1776 and Forge: Serendipitous Reading

Sep21

1776 by David McCullough.

Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson. Sequel to Chains by the same author. Nominated for 2011 Cybil Awards, Young Adult Fiction category. Nominated by Amy at Hope Is the Word.

I really didn’t plan it this way, but what a fortuitous sequence of reading events.

1. I am teaching U.S. History at our homeschool co-op. We’ve been reading about Jamestown, the Pilgrims and colonial life in general. We’ll be studying the American Revolution in about a week, or maybe two.

2. I finally read David McCullough’s 1776 about the beginning of the Revolution and all of the characters and events of the year 1776. I really fell for Nathaniel Greene, General Washington’s young Quaker-born protege, and Henry Knox, the stout young former bookseller turned artillery expert. McCullough writes vivid, informative history, and he makes the people of history especially full of life and approachable. I wanted to meet General Green and Colonel Knox. I cheered for them when things went well and felt sorry for them when they made mistakes which ended in tragedy. I did copy a few passages into my notebook as I read:

Washington to the army defending New York, August 23 1776: “Remember officers and soldiers that you are free men, fighting for the blessings of liberty—that slavery will be your portion and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men.”

New York, August 1776, on the lack of uniforms in the Continental Army: “In the absence of uniforms, every man was to put a sprig of green in his hat as identification.” I thought this brief sentence was so evocative of the David and Goliath nature of the fight, backwoods, country Americans, in their worn, homespun work clothes going up against the best-trained, best-equipped army in the world in their scarlet uniforms. And only a spring of greenery to identify friend from foe.

British General Grant after a British victory in the same battle of New York: “If a good bleeding can bring those Bible-faced Yankees to their senses, the fever of independency should soon abate.” It didn’t bring them to their senses, and the fever did not abate.

McCullough on General George Washington: “He was not a brilliant strategist or tactician, not a gifted orator, not an intellectual. At several crucial moments, he had shown marked indecisiveness. He had made serious mistakes in judgment. But experience had been his great teacher, and in this his greatest test, he learned steadily from experience. Above all, Washington never forgot what was at stake, and he never gave up.”

3. Immediately after I finished 1776, I started Laurie Halse Anderson’s Forge, a sequel to the award-winning Chains. These books are set during the American Revolution, a fact I knew since I read Chains last year, but I had forgotten that Chains ends in 1776 with the British in control of New York and our two protagonists, Isabel and Curzon, escaping from slavery and from a British prison into the wilderness of upstate(?) New York. Forge covers the time period of the winter and subsequent spring at Valley Forge 1777-78 where General Washington and his ragtag army spent a miserable time trying to survive and recover from their defeats and victories at the hands of the British army.

There are a few flashbacks that tell the reader what happened to Isabel and Curzon between their escape from New York and October, 1777 when the book actually picks up the story. Suffice it to say the two friends have not remained together, and Curzon is now on his own with no idea where Isabel is. This book evokes and enumerates all of the hardships experienced by the common soldiers at Valley Forge from the viewpoint of the lowest of the low, an escaped slave and enlisted man in the Continental Army. Curzon experiences prejudice, misunderstanding, persecution, deprivation, and near starvation, sometimes because of his skin color and also as a result of the deficiency of supplies and organization in the army as a whole.

My friend General Nathaniel Greene reappears in fictional form in this book. and the men are glad to see him! It seems, according to Halse Anderson’s telling of the story, that General Greene saved the day at Valley Forge and finally got the men there some food and clothing and arms. Greene’s wife, Caty doesn’t come off too well in the book, but I didn’t have a crush on her anyway.

So, friends, I would suggest that if you’re interested in the American Revolution and historical fiction set in that time period that you read the following books in the following order, by plan rather than by happenstance:

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes. This classic Newbery award-winning novel set in pre-revolutionary Boston gives a fantastic picture of the causes of the warand its effect on the people of Boston.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Volume 1, The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson. Semicolon review here.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Volume 2, Kingdom on the Waves by M.T. Anderson.

1776 by David McCullough.

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson. Semicolon review here.

Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson.

Only one word of warning: Anderson’s story still isn’t complete. I read an ARC of Forge, and it won’t be out according to Amazon until mid-October. If you want the entire story you’ll have to wait and read all three volumes together when the third book comes out, whenever that is. By the way, I see that Laurie Halse Anderson will be at the Texas Book Festival in Austin in October. That would be fun to attend, but I don’t think I’ll be able to make it this year.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Sep17

“What will break me?

This is the question that consumes me over the next three days as we wait to be released from our prison of safety. What will break me into a million pieces so that I am beyond repair, beyond usefulness? I mention it to no one, but it devours my waking hours and weaves itself throughout my nightmares.” ~Katniss in Mockingjay, ch.11

So now I’ve read Mockingjay, the final book in the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. And I have nothing new to say about the quality of the book or of the series. I loved it. I liked the ending, even though some people didn’t much. I read it in a couple of days, reading whenever I could get some free time. I’ll read the entire series again sometime, and I’ll recommend it to others.

However, the thing I noticed in this third book, the idea that impressed itself upon me, comes from the quotation at the top of this post. President Snow and Capitol goons are out to destroy Katniss, not necessarily to kill her, although they’d do that if they could, but to destroy her usefulness, her courage, and her ability to serve any good purpose. Snow wants to destroy Katniss’s ability to love. Snow uses other people’s pain to hurt and distract and break Katniss. He uses fear and psychological manipulation and blackmail and Katniss’s own weaknesses, all to devastate her and make her useless to the rebels. Katniss’s enemies can’t kill her, so they work on her emotions and hurt other people who are close to her so that she will be neutralized and/or become mentally unhinged.

Isn’t that exactly what Satan tries to do with us? It’s kind of like the story of Job. God won’t let Satan kill us or remove us from His presence; however, we are sometimes beset on every side. I’ve been feeling particularly plagued and bedeviled lately. One person I love has left the faith, abjured Christ and declared himself apostate. Another beloved friend has lost an especially close relationship and is questioning God’s faithfulness. I look at my family, and I see problems and pain and physical illness and sadness and broken relationships. I sometimes feel like a walking advertisement for the book “Things Fall Apart.” (I haven’t actually read it, but the title is evocative enough.)

One of the characters in Mockingjay is “hijacked”, reprogrammed, brainwashed, by the enemy. It’s exactly what Satan is trying to do each and every Christian. He can’t take away our salvation, but he can steal our joy. He can attack us in all sorts of ways in this less-than-perfect world, take away the people and experiences that mean the most in our lives, and destroy our usefulness to God’s kingdom. Sometimes I feel as if I’m inside the (very serious) game that Katniss and Peeta play in the book: Real or unreal? Has my friend really, irrevocably removed himself from God’s grace? Or will God work to bring him back? Can I see past the physical and emotional pain that some friends and family members are experiencing now to see a God who is good and will one day wipe away all tears and banish all suffering? Or will I allow the vicissitudes and the real torments that afflict me and my family and friends to break me into a million pieces so that I am useless and beyond repair? Will I allow Satan to deceive me and blind me to God’s goodness and mercy in Christ? Is there really a hope and a future for me and for those I love?

I don’t know, but at least as I read Mockingjay, I thought about these issues. And I prayed, “Lord, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Give me the power to see what is Real and to be able to stand like Job and say, ‘I know that my Redeemer lives.'”

Good book. Good series. Good, hard, challenging thoughts.

Semicolon review of Hunger Games.
My Favorite Author reviews Mockingjay.
Jen Robinson’s Book Page on Mockingjay
Mockingjay review at Between the Covers with Stephany.