The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick. (both parents)
Carolina Harmony Marilyn Taylor McDowell. (both parents)
Peace, Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson. (both parents)
Wanting Mor by Rukhsana Khan. (mom) Semicolon review here.
The Last Invisible Boy by Evan Kuhlman. (dad) Semicolon review here.
Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur. (dad) Semicolon discussion here.
The Girl Who Threw Butterflies by Mich Cochrane. (dad) Semicolon review here.
William S. and the Great Escape by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Semicolon review here.
Wild Things by Clay Carmichael. (both parents)
Dragon Wishes by Stacey Nyikos. (both parents)
Positively by Courtney Sheinmel. (mom)
Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle. (both parents) Semicolon review here.
When the Whistle Blows by Fran Cannon Slayton. (dad)
Ice Shock by M.G. Harris (dad)
If the Witness Lied by Caroline B. Cooney. (both parents) Semicolon review here.
Walking Backward by Catherine Austen. (mom)
Signal by Cynthia DeFelice. (mom)

I wrote last year about how there were a lot of dead, dysfunctional and negligent moms in middle grade and young adult fiction. This year it seems as if the dads are getting equal time (see above). However, I just read four books in succession in which the young protagonist is mourning the loss of his or her mom (Walking Backwards by Catherine Austen,Positively by Courtney Scheinmel, and Signal by Cynthia DeFelice) or of both of her parents (Dragon Wishes by Stacey Nyikos).

Walking Backward reminded me of another Cybils nominee, The Last Invisible Boy by Evan Kuhlman. In both books the narrator is quite articulate in explaining what it feels like to mourn a parent:

“Once your mother dies, you’re either unhappy because your mother died or you’re happy but you think you shouldn’t be because your mother just died, or you’re happy and not thinking about it until other people look at you like you’re a freak for being happy when your mother just died. Any way you look at it, it’s not happy.”

Josh, the twelve year old in Walking Backward whose mother dies in a car accident, is obsessed with phobias, because his mother’s accident was caused by a phobia, and mourning customs, because Josh wants to figure out how to mourn his mother. He explains in the book about how Jewish people sit shiva for their deceased loved ones and about native American customs for mourning and Japanese Buddhist practices, among others, but none of the customs seem to give Josh and his family just what they need to survive his mom’s untimely death.

A common theme that runs through several of these Mourning a Parent books is that the remaining parent loses his or her ability to cope and to parent. In Love Aubrey, the mom deserts Aubrey and leaves her all alone to care for herself. In Ice Shock the widowed mom spends time in a mental institution. The first lines of Walking Backward are, “My father is insane. He just came home from his appointment with the psychiatrist and handed me this journal.” Josh goes on to tell us how his father spends most of his spare time in the basement trying to build a time machine and how Josh and his little brother Sam have been neglected and left to fend for themselves ever since their mom’s death. It’s a sad book, but the narrator has a great voice, rather sarcastic, humorous, slightly angry, and desperately trying to cope with the death of a parent.

In Signal by Cynthia DeFelice, Owen McGuire’s dad has become a workaholic and emotionally distant since the death of Owen’s mom. Owen, like Josh, has to take care of himself, and he takes solace in the idea that he shared with his mom: that somewhere in the vast universe there are probably other planets with intelligent, sentient life. Then, Owen meets a girl who tells him she is from another planet. The fact that Owen believes her and helps her with her plan to signal her parents’ spaceship is probably a function of his loneliness and his desire to believe in something, anything. The girl, Campion, asks Owen to go with her her to her home planet. And Owen must decide whether to leave the father that he believes has, for all practical purposes, forgotten about him.

In Positively the narrator, Emmy Price, gets a double whammy. The book begins with these words: “When my mother died, I imagined God was thinking, ‘One down, and one to go.'” Emmy and her mother shared a tragic bond; both were HIV-positive. When Simone Price dies of AIDS, Emmy feels as if no one in the world understands her or her situation. Emmy ends up living with her father, who deserted her and her mom, and her young stepmother, who is pregnant. Emmy also turns into a whining, complaining, temper-tantrum throwing, highly unpleasant young lady as she tries to deal with her grief and her fears about her own medical condition. In one scene Emmy, age thirteen, throws all of her stepmother’s dishes on the floor in an orgy of anger. I didn’t like Emmy Price very much, but I did understand why she was such a nightmare teen. I remember growing up with a good friend whose brother had a serious heart condition. I understood why my friend’s little brother was such a spoiled brat, but that didn’t make him any more pleasant to be around.

In Dragon Wishes Alex and Isa have come from Oklahoma to live with their Uncle Norbert and Aunt Ling in San Francisco after the tragic death of their parents. Alex, short for Alexandra, is a little bit younger than Emmy Price, but she has almost as much grief and loss and fear to carry on her eleven year old shoulders as Emmy does at thirteen. And Alex is a more interesting character than Emmy. Alex tries various ways to deal with her grief and her new living situation, and although some of the ways don’t work too well, Alex feels like a stronger character than Emmy. Alex does become angry when her aunt seems to neglect Alex and Isa in favor of her job, but she doesn’t take it out on the dishes.

There’s a mystical element to Dragon Wishes as Alex’s aunt tries to help her by telling her the Chinese folk tale of Shin Wa and the dragons. I’ll have to admit that I didn’t totally understand the point of the episodes of the Chinese dragon tale interspersed throughout the book, but the story is a focal point for Alex to find meaning as she mourns her parents and makes a new life in a new place.

I thought all of these books were worthwhile and well-written, but I did get tired of Emerson Price long before she got tired of feeling sorry for herself. Alex Rohre of Dragon Wishes makes better choices, even when they’re wrong choices. And Josh and Owen are sympathetic characters who attempt to deal with the overwhelming loss in their young lives as well as they can. I’d recommend all four books, but maybe reading them all one after the other is a little too much death and grieving for one week.

I’m seeing lots of novels for adults and children that have been inspired by or at least informed by classics and childhood favorites. The Jane Austen spinoffs are ubiquitous. Daphne du Maurier and Josephine Tey are each featured as detectives in their own recent mystery series. And this year’s children’s fiction authors are also being influenced by and paying homage to their favorite books and authors of the past.

Laurel Snyder’s Any Which Wall obviously draws on Edward Eager (Half Magic, Knight’s Castle, etc.), even though Mr. Eager’s books are barely mentioned in the book. In fact, Ms. Snyder says in a book blurb at her website, “This tribute to Edward Eager follows four kids on a magical summer journey that includes pirates, wizards, dastardly villains, and just about everything else that Common Magic can summon up.”

When You Reach Me by Rebeccca Stead is heavily influenced by Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time right down to the the time wrinkles, or tessaracts, themselves. The main character, Miranda, carries around a tattered copy of A Wrinkle in Time and reads and rereads it as almost a sort of talisman. In Road to Tater Hill by Edith Hemingway Annabel reads the same book, A Wrinkle in Time, in nearly the same obsessive way, although the stroy’s plot doesn’t owe as much to Wrinkle as does When You Reach Me.

And in Callie’s Rules by Naomi Zucker, Callie identifies strongly with Jane Eyre. She rereads Jane Eyre instead of the book assigned by her English teacher. Callie searches Jane Eyre for clues to resolving her middle school problems. Callie’s Rules, in fact, reminds me strongly of my favorite Jane Eyre quotation:

“Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigor; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be.”

The poverty-stricken family in Also Known As Harper by Ann Haywood Leal fixates on To Kill a Mockingbird, and Atticus Finch in particular, to feed their fantasies of a better life.

The Mother-Daughter Book Club series by Heather Vogel Frederick is obviously and quite intentionally channeling classic children’s books. The first book in the series was The Mother-Daughter Book Club, about a group of four sixth grade girls and their mothers who form a book club and read Little Women. In the second book, the girls are now in seventh grade and reading Anne of Green Gables, hence the title Much Ado About Anne. And in the third book of the series, the one I read for the Cybils judging, girls and moms are bonding over Jean Webster’s classic Daddy Long-Legs. This third book, Dear Pen Pal, covers the girls in their eighth grade year, and although the characters tend toward stereotypes (The Soccer Jock, The Fashion Queen, the Boy Crazy Popularity Seeker, the Natural Farm Girl, the Reader), I’m considering it for the book club I’m leading in the spring for some intermediate age girls at our homeschool co-op.

And now I read that Hilary Mckay (she of the wonderful Casson family books) has written a sequel to Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess. It’s not about Sara Crewe, but rather about her friends left behind in Mrs. Minchin’s Boarding School.

Semicolon review of Any Which Wall by Laurel Snyder and When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead.
Semicolon review of Road to Tater Hill.
Semicolon post on Jane Eyre.
Semicolon review of Callie’s Rules.
Semicolon review of Also Known as Harper by Ann Haywood Leal.