Book Reviews and Bookish ThoughtsEXTREME ADVENTURE PEAK, by Roland Smith. Harcourt: 2007, 246 pages When we first meet Peak Morsello, he's clinging to a sheer surface, making his way slowly up its rock face in the teeth of an arctic wind and a veil of sleet. Obviously no amateur rock climber, he's struggling toward a goal he's set for himself: to "tag" this particular summit with his distinctive blue-mountain signature. The last thirty feet are torture, especially after one side of his face freezes to the surface. With an effort of supreme will, he tears it off and makes his mark. Before he can take any pride in the accomplishment, however, a light beams on him and the rotor blades of an NYPD helicopter nearly blow him off the wall--the wall of the Woolworth building. Nothing like starting off a story with a bang, and Peak scarcely lets up after that. Not your standard-issue troubled teen, the fourteen-year-old title character nonetheless has some ambivalent feelings toward his mother and stepfather. Toward his world-famous rock-climbing father, Joshua Wood, he hardly knows what to feel, since he hasn't heard from the man since he was six. But now that he's in serious trouble, which could amount to three years in juvenile detention, Peak is stunned to see Joshua Wood show up his preliminary hearing. Not only that, the man offers to take him out of the country in exchange for clearing his record. Peak thinks he's going to Thailand. Where he ends up is Mt. Everest, part of Josh's plan to "summit" the youngest climber ever and score invaluable publicity for his guide service, Peak Experience. While recognizing his father's mixed motives, Peak is not immune to the lure of the ultimate climb. But complications develop with the Chinese army, an overbearing celebrity journalist, and--wouldn't you know--a young Tibetan who seems like a friend but turns out to be a rival. If you've ever thought about scaling Everest yourself, this story will give you a sense of what it might be like. Smith has done his research, and the details shiver with authenticity. The structure of a typical Everest climb creates some problems for the story, as there's a lot of moving about between elevation camps in order to become acclimatized, and some of it gets confusing (at least for this reader) when trying to remember why we're going down instead of up at a given point. Also the two major Tibetan characters seem to lose their distinctiveness as the story progresses--or perhaps the mountain just mashes nationality and distinction into a freezing pulp. Those are small quibbles, however; Peak is a great adventure, and certainly not the first by this author. If you're a reluctant reader, or know one (particularly of the adolescent male persuasion), Roland Smith is somebody you should meet. THE WHITE DARKNESS, by Geraldine McCreaghan. HarperCollins, 2007, 363pp. Symone Wates is in love with Titus Oates; it's the first thing she tells us, so it must be important. The fact that she's fourteen and Oates is 125 (besides being dead for ninety years) is not so important. A hearty, good-humored and resourceful Antarctic explorer (and victim of the ill-fated Scot expedition) is an invaluable asset to someone with as many strikes against her as Symone has. Such as her father ("He never liked me much"), now dead of some freakish disease and her terminally anxious, always strapped-for-cash mother. In addition, Symone is shy, withdrawn, and hearing-impaired, with no real friends and just a handful of acquaintances who don't understand her in the least. Uncle Victor understands, at least to some degree. He's not really her uncle, but a close friend of the family and her father's business partner, who shared Dad's (consequently Sym's) passion for the sub-Artic regions. It's no wonder Sym has bonded to Uncle Victor, though he's hardly an emotional sort; a British eccentric of the old school who reads incessantly, knows everything and suffers fools with cheerful condescension: "Complete sentences, Sym. Think on. If you can't speak out plain, at least be thorough." It's Uncle Victor who proposes a weekend jaunt to Paris, which quickly morphs into a major expedition to the South Pole via Pengwings, an agency that outfits and leads such expeditions for tourists. It's not giving too much away to say that when plans go awry, and continue in that direction, it's because Victor has another plan in which Sym should feel honored to be included. And does, at first. But her journey into the frozen wastes will take her into unplumbed depths of terror. Every novel is "about" something. This being a young-adult novel, it's understood that in the process of the story, the protagonist will learn something worth knowing. So she does; but those revelations seem almost secondary. Great books (or at least really really good books) transcend what they are about and become what they are: an experience as much as a revelation. So The White Darkness becomes the frozen south. It's also obsession, desperation, and potential. It's "the last place on earth," a place that has barely a passing acquaintance with any earth we know, a terrible beauty that almost devours human scale. Almost, but not quite: "Everyone needs a reason to stay alive--someone who justifies your existence. Someone who loves you. Not beyond all reason. Just loves you. Even just shows an interest. Even someone who doesn't exist, or isn't yours. No--no! They don't even have to love you! They just have to be there to love! Target for your arrows. Magnetic pole to drag on your compass needle and stop it spinning and spinning and tell you where you're heading and . . . Someone to soak up all the yearning. That's what I think." ________________________________________ LITTLE HEATHENS, by Mildred Armstrong Kalish. Bantam, 2007, 290 pages. I usually review "kids' books" on this page, and Little Heathens doesn't come under that market classification. It's suitable for all ages, though, as a read-aloud (stepping lightly around some earthy references to the facts of life and certain vulgar words treated as vulgar words) or a solitary diversion for the long winter nights ahead. The subtitle is its best description: "Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression." Mildred Armstrong was five years old in 1930, when her mother, baby sister, and two older brothers went to live with her maternal grandparents on their farm near Garrison, Iowa. This was due to a mysterious failing of her father--"bankruptcy, bootlegging or jail time"--of which no one was ever allowed to speak. Get the picture? Reticent relatives cut from the fabric of American Gothic, on a little farm next to a straitlaced small town, with the dustbowl and bank failures dead ahead. It sounds like raw material for a Tennessee Williams play, but Mildred, to hear her tell it, had the time of her life growing up. Even in the best of times, farm life was plain hard work for everybody, kids included. Mildred's little Grandma "could make the daylight fly . . . as she splatted joyfully down the hall in her bare feet, rapping on every bedroom door. 'Get up, everybody! It's Monday, washday; Tuesday we iron and bake; Wednesday we can tomatoes; Thursday we do mending and baking and Friday we have to clean house and bake again! My goodness, the week is almost gone already and you're not even out of bed yet!' She could use up your whole week in less than three minutes." Illnesses had to be pretty severe for someone to take to his bed; an acceptable substitute, if you were feeing poorly, was to shove two chairs together in front of the kitchen stove and wrap up in a quilt on the bench so constructed. "I've been sick abed upon two chairs" meant that you'd been rather severely afflicted, but not at death's door. Life wouldn't have been so much fun for Mildred without her siblings and cousins, divided throughout her childhood into Big Kids and Little Kids. They were entrusted with a remarkable amount of responsibility and hard labor, but on summer evenings, and most Sunday and Saturday afternoons, the world was wide open to them. Especially since the grownups, considering childhood a necessary affliction that everyone to go through, left the kids pretty much alone. Without a television showing them all they didn't have, they were free to reinvent all they did have. Golf courses and baseball games played with homemade equipment, rubber-band guns, gymnastics competitions, and digging holes to China diverted the few leisure hours, while impromptu songfests and competitions made the work go faster. Physical affection was rare in most families of the time, and Mildred's was no exception. She also received almost no instruction about sex when puberty started, little sympathy for adolescent angst, no encouragement to pursue higher education or "have a dream" or seek any more from life than her parents and grandparents had known. So how did she grow up to become (judging by the tone) an affectionate, bubbly individual who loves literature and music and new experiences? She answers that question with two questions: "Now, how to conclude my story without making comments that will probably seem sappy about the virtues of resourcefulness, dedication, hard work, discipline, creativity, and goodwill? Isn't it perfectly obvious to all that those early childhood experiences, under those special conditions with those particular relatives on that Iowa farm, prepared me for the modestly successful, hugely satisfying, truly blessed life that has been my lot? I shall always be grateful." The reader should be grateful as well for Mrs. Kalish's willingness to share. And thanks for the down-home recipes and the thrifty stain-removal hints, too. LEEPIKE RIDGE, by N. D. Wilson, Random House: 2007, 224 pp. If you know that the author of a novel for young folks is a fellow of literature at New St. Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and that he's the son of a leader in the classical Christian school movement, you may expect some mythological reverberations in the story he's about to tell. But Leepike Ridge starts out as the story of Tom Hammond, ordinary boy, whose single mother is being courted by a man he can't stand. This is a common-enough problem in today's world, except that Tom's mother is widowed, not divorced, and his father is deceased in spectacular fashion. The first few pages offer a view of their house, which is older than anyone remembers and chained to the top of a huge rock. When characters with names like Nestor and Leiodes start turning up, we're hearing echoes of Homer. Unhappy at the way his life is going, Tom takes a little voyage on a raft-size piece of packing foam that arrived with his mother's new refrigerator. But the stream that flows below his house holds some treacherous surprises, including a hidden waterfall below a cliff that takes him far down to an unexplored cavern. Unexplored, that is, by anyone still alive. He's sharing the cave with a corpse, only recently dead, who comes conveniently equipped with a spelunker's helmet and headlamp. With batteries. Thus equipped for a return voyage, Tom is soon joined by a couple of allies. The story of how he makes his way back is intercut with his mother's difficulties on the surface with a growing coterie of "suitors." Like the competitors for Penelope's hand, the men are not smitten with Elizabeth's Hammond's charms so much as the rumored treasure under her land that not even she suspects. When Tom emerges from underground, it's to a scene reminiscent of Odysseus drawing his bow, though instead of an arrow, a shot rings out, and a loyal companion falls, and . . . but I can't give everything away. Classical re-tellings have become immensely popular in the last few years (see The Lightning Thief) and classical references abound in the Harry Potter series. Leepike Ridge is a re-telling, but with enough variation to keep the reader guessing: both kids and adults will enjoy relating their mythology knowledge to the story. There's further resonance in the idea of old, old civilizations that flourished in prehistoric times. The house chained to a rock suggests that we're sitting on antiquities no one suspects, even while they send mysterious echoes into our lives. But the story can be enjoyed for its own sake, and even though we know Tom is going to return (isn't he?) there's genuine suspense in how he does it. While sometimes the writing is a little too self-consciously classical ("Tom had traveled around the sun eleven times when the delivery truck brought his mother's newest fridge . . ."), it more often displays an artless aplomb ("Tom went red on the outside. Inside, he went black"). Many scenes are memorable, even chilling, such as the in-by-inch discovery of the body in the cavern. Also, the exposition of how to stay alive mostly on crawdads could come in handy someday. You never know. ENDYMION SPRING, by Matthew Skelton; Delacorte Press, 2006, 389 pages. Johann Gutenberg's printing press, one of the great inventions of history, did not bless his later life with peace and ease. Johann Fust (or Faust), a moneylender (or perhaps goldsmith) sued Gutenberg for non-payment of debt and brought the house under financial strain. Still, it achieved enough prominence to have a coat of arms, on which is an oddly-dressed little man who could be a boy or a dwarf. From these details, and a few historical names, Matthew Skelton constructed the plot of this fantasy novel--originally published in Great Britain to much acclaim. A modern-day story alternates with the renaissance once, in which Johann Fust becomes a true Faustian figure, hungering for forbidden knowledge. It's a hunger all too much with us yet, as the story shows. Blake Winters and his little sister Duck are spending a winter term in Oxford, where their mother is researching her latest project. We never discover exactly what that project is, only that she's so dead-set on her "career" that she's estranged from her husband and the kids know the marriage is on the skids. While unhappily rummaging among the stacks at the University library, Blake happens to touch a book which swipes him back. Besides its extraordinary responsive capacity, it's a mighty odd book, bearing only the title Endymion Spring. The pages are blank. Soon, though, Blake discovers that words appear for him, and only for him. It can only be because he's been chosen to unlock the book's secret, which has its beginnings in 15 th-century Mainz (home of Johann Gutenberg). The book had its origins in a supernatural tree, and is formed from the skin and body of a mystical dragon. But a separation has occurred--some of its pages are missing, and Blake's life will not be right until he can reunite the parts. Both he and his sister quickly come to understand that others in their mother's circle know quite a bit about the book, and some of deeply interested in obtaining it--in fact, they may stop at nothing. These are well-worn materials for fantasy, but can still seem fresh in able hands. Not, perhaps, in Matthew Skelton's. He knows his Renaissance settings and legends, and nicely weaves in even older themes--going back to the Garden of Eden, in fact. But the story has a half-baked taste to it, as though he threw in a lot of interesting ingredients but didn't let them develop to potential. Blake is "chosen" because of his innocence--not for nothing is he named for the poet of idealized childhood whose first name was William--but there doesn't seem to be anything especially "innocent" about him. Duck (and what is her real name?) is supposed to be a prodigy but we don't see any particular brilliance about her, either. Both children sometimes talk as adults and sometimes as kids; I had no sense of how old they were, or where they lived back in America, or what their life was like there, or if they had any friends, etc. The parents (Dad appears at the end) have no personality traits worth remembering. The villain turns in a B-movie performance at the climax, all but screaming, "I've got you now, my pretty!" It gets pretty exciting there for a while, but the reader may have a hard time caring about what happens to anybody. Mr. Skelton (who is young yet) writes like a talented high school sophomore in a continuing-education class. He commits a few minor crimes, such as switching points of view without forewarning. Since he only did that a couple of times, I assume it was an oversight the editor should have caught. The editor should also have nipped his enthusiasm for simile, which is way over the top. Some of them work quite well until he overdoes it, for example: "Her fingers were long and cold, like icicles, except they didn't melt." (Note to aspiring writers: the last four words are overkill.) Or, "Swans glided towards them along the water in silver Vs, like ghostly ballerinas" (ditto with the last three words). But some are unnecessary ("They joined hands like paper dolls") and some are just terrible: "It had rained heavily and the street lamps smeared patches of electric blood on the pavement." Promising material, flawed execution. I'm wondering what the fuss is all about. ROUNDUP AT THE NEWBERRY CORRAL When this year's Newbery winners were announced in January, I did something unusual: I paid attention, and immediately reserved all four titles at the local library. One of the honor books was so new our library hadn't received it yet, but the problem was easily solved: I met the author at this year's Warrensburg (Missouri) children's literature festival, and bought it. My comments on the Newbery winner (gold medal) and the three honor books (silver medal) are as follows . . . NEWBERY MEDAL: The Higher Power Of Lucky, by Susan Patron; Athenium, 134 pages. Shortly after it was announced as the winner, this book conveniently kicked up a controversy among elementary school teachers and librarians who objected to a word on the first page. The word is "scrotum," which represents all the things our ten-year-old, scientifically-minded heroine doesn't understand and is trying to make sense of. Though some teachers might reasonably wonder how they're supposed to explain this particular word to a class of fourth-graders during read-aloud time, I don't object to the word per se. For other reasons, I found the book less than satisfying. Lucky Trimble lives in the tiny desert town of Hard Pan, California. An eaves-dropper on countless twelve-step meetings, she has just begun a search for her own Higher Power. Her mother has died in a terrible accident and her father is so unconnected he doesn't even identify himself when he shows up. She is being raised by his first wife, of no relation or previous acquaintance, who arrived from France on very short notice to take care of her. A number of circumstances make the scenario unlikely. Lucky was eight when her mother stepped on a downed powerline after a thunderstorm and electrocuted herself. The little girl would have been the first to discover her body--wouldn't that have made an impression? She could be blocking it out, but the narrative doesn't strongly suggest that she is. Why such a dramatic demise unless you're going to make more use of it? It's also hard to believe that Lucky's guardian, Brigitte, would have dropped everything to come to the USA and care for a little girl she's never heard of before, even though the arrangement is supposed to be temporary. Lucky's best friend Lincoln is an obsessive knot-tyer, who ties fancy knots even while talking on the telephone. It has a nice resonance for the story--here's someone who can join together while things are falling apart--but it's carried too far, like eccentricity for its own sake. Lucky admires Charles Darwin and wants to follow in his scientific footsteps, to the point of seeing herself in materialistic terms: acknowledging a "mean gland," for instance, and imagining emotions as an overflow of molecules. So . . . why again are we searching for a non-material higher power? The point may be that we're more than our molecules. But it's hard to tell. When Lucky decides to run away in the middle of dust storm (another unlikely circumstance), she seems to be forcing a resolution as much as the author. But what is that resolution? What, exactly, is the Higher Power? It may be, as the title suggests, Lucky herself--an answer compatible with today's pop psychology. But if that's the answer, it's mighty subtle. Fiction isn't necessarily supposed to provide answers; it's much better at posing questions. But the questions should at least be articulate, and The Higher Power of Lucky seems to sacrifice articulateness for artifice. NEWBERRY HONOR: Hattie Blue Sky, by Kirby Larson; Delacorte, 283 pages. Hattie Brooks is only sixteen when her previously-unknown uncle dies and leaves her a 340-acre claim in Montana. Her life is at a point where it could use some direction, so she is soon on board a westbound train, heading from Iowa to the frontier with hopes of "proving up" her homestead. An orphan from the age of five, Hattie has never had a permanent home: this chance is like a bolt from the blue Montana sky. But Montana is far from welcoming in January, and the house on her claim is no better than a shack. When Karl and Perilee Meuller, the friendly neighbors who met her at the railroad station and brought her out to the claim, say good night and return to their own house, we feel Hattie's desolation. Soon enough though, she begins to find her feet and make her way. While far-flung neighbors like the Muellers, Rooster Jim and Leafie Purvis lend a hand, Hattie must supply her own determination. It's not just a claim she's proving up; it's herself too. Blizzard and drought furrow the land; debt and weariness furrow the and brow. Further, it's 1918 and America is at war. The pressure is on to prove one's patriotism by saying the right things and suspecting the right people--for instance, German surnames and German immigrants. Hattie is further pressured by Traft Martin, scion of the county's most prominent ranching family, to sell her claim. Traft is the closest thing to a villain in this piece, but he's no moustache-twirling steroptype; he struggles with his own problems and the solution to their conflict may surprise some readers. Kirby Larson based this story on the real Hattie Inez Brooks, her own great-grandmother. Discovering a record of the actual claim number led her to the journals and memoirs of other Montana pioneers, and before long she had begun a story about early 20th century homesteading. Many of the events she describes are actual happenings, folded neatly into the plot like the raisins in Perilee's wartime spice cake (recipe included). Readers who groove on the details (like me) can get right down in the dirt with Hattie as she put in her first flax crop and disciplines her first set of roosting hens. Loss and pain are part of this life: "It seems the misfortune of one can plow a deeper furrow in the heart than the misfortune of millions." But joy and triumph balance it out. Prayers ascend with hope, and the story comes to a satisfying if unexpected conclusion. In Hattie Big Sky, the Newbery committee picked a winner. NEWBERY HONOR: Penny From Heaven, by Jennifer Holm; Random House, 256 pages. Jennifer Holm is a previous honor winner for Our Only May Amelia, an historical novel set in turn-of-the-century Washington state. The book under discussion is also historical, though the time period is more recent: New Jersey of the 1950s. (That's when I was born--hey, I'm historical!) Penny Falucci, who is named for her father's favorite song, is growing up surrounded by relatives. Especially on her father's side, where the sprawling family structure lacks only one important part: her father. He died when Penny was a baby, and she has never been able to get the straight dope about what happened. She and her mother, a chronically-weary stenographer, live with her maternal grandparents, who don't sprawl so exuberantly but have their own quirks, likeable and not. Mom is over-cautious, especially when Penny wants to go to the movies or the pool. Polio is running rampant: "Do you want to end up in an iron lung?" The Italian side of the family is more permissive. Also more fun, because it includes her favorite cousin Frankie. The narrative thread picks up at the beginning of a hot summer back when kids had an endless run of unstructured days to fill. Penny and Frankie fill their days with grocery deliveries from Uncle Ralphie's store, long Sunday dinners with the Faluccis, treasure hunts, impromptu baseball games, struggling with a leaky toilet, and trying to thwart Mom's budding romance with the milkman. Frankie gets into big trouble, and Penny has a run-in with a clothes wringer that leaves her future pitching ability in serious doubt. Her crisis also forces some family secrets to revelation, but all is resolved and the story ends happily. I liked Penny From Heaven a lot, perhaps because I once had my own run-in with a clothes wringer and can relate to that whole fifties thing. Some aspects of those days weren't so nice: stifling bedrooms without air conditioning, the proximity of a world war that chewed up so many fathers and uncles, the fear of pre-vaccine diseases. But Penny is an appealing character with a sense of humor. So is Frankie, who could so easily go bad but fortunately doesn't. The book is more slice of life than compelling narrative, but the life is so juicy, any kid should chow down happily. NEWBERY HONOR: Rules, by Cynthia Lord; Girl protagonists sweep the Newberys this year: in Rules, it's twelve-year-old Catherine, who still has both parents but whose life is complicated by her autistic little brother David. Because both parents work (though her mother works at home), Catherine is at least a part-time caregiver, and the only way she can manage that role is by writing simple, concise rules for David. Such as "No toys in the fish tank," or "It's okay to hug mom but not the clerk at the video store."
At the beginning of the book, Catherine is facing a summer of care-taking, with imperfect support from the parents (at least it seems that way to her sometimes) and no support at all from her best friend, who's spending the summer elsewhere. But a new girl, Kristi, moves in next door and Catherine longs for some down time with a new friend. And maybe a few romantic sparks with the local dreamguy, Brad. But how to explain David to them? Her interest in "normal" kids blinds her at first to a real relationship budding almost under her very nose, between herself and another teenage boy she meets at David's therapy sessions. Jason is paraplegic, and also mute. It's somewhat frustrating that his exact "condition" is not explained--seems that Catherine would have some curiosity about it. I certainly did! But the author may want to stress that even though Jason has certain disabilities he's a regular teenager under it all, by terms sharp and sulky and as needy of friendship as anybody. Such as Catherine. They communicate through word cards; Jason already has a notebook full of them, and expresses his thoughts by pointing at different combinations. Catherine uses her artistic ability to design more cards covering thoughts his mother and therapist would rather he not express. The thing I like best about Rules is the relationship between Catherine and her brother. Cynthia Lord has an autistic child of her own and surely knows what she's writing about when David tries to relate to people around the peculiar distance that afflicts autistic children. For instance, he apologizes via Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad Are Friends, which he knows by heart: "I'm sorry, Toad." Because he can't keep Catherine's rules, apology is often called for. But she's better at understanding David than she is at understanding herself, and the book's main tension comes from trying to keep her own rules for "normal" from conflicting with life as it is. The reader (this reader) gets impatient with her at times: why doesn't she just explain to Kristi about her brother? Or, when Kristi wants Catherine and Jason to attend a dance with herself and Brad, why not just mention that Jason is confined to a wheelchair? But these are the kind of things 12-year-olds have to work out for themselves, and Catherine does, with a little help from friends. The parents aren't much help, but in children's literature, they usually aren't. These parents are not bad folks; they're just coping with adult stresses. The romantic paring-off also seems a little intense for pre-teens, but I can remember seventh-grade intrigues even in my day. Small objections, good book. WHITTINGTON, by Alan Armstrong "Why don't you try for another family, wait and meow by a neighbor's door and see if they'll take you in?" "Because I'm not cute anymore," said Whittington. "My voice is harsh, I've got the shakes, I have opinions, I like to stay out, I stink, I like to fight. I'm not a house pet." . . . . "So what do you want from me?" she asked. "A place in the barn." A Newberry honor book for 2004, Whittington will inevitably remind readers of Charlotte's Web in its barnishness. The barn's owner is Bernie, who also owns a gas station and a soft heart for rejects. Most of the barn's occupants are strays, injured fowl, and work animals that have outgrown their usefulness. Whittington the cat finds his place there easily, once Lady the Muscovy duck advocates for him with the others. Besides superior ratting skills, he's an accomplished story-teller with a great story to tell: his own. Or rather, that of his ancestor, the fabled companion of London's Dick Whittington. The family history has been passed down through generations of cats and now reaches another set of ears. Over long winter nights, as Whittington spins out his tale, more animals join the company, conflicts flare and die, old animosities are put to rest. Before long Bernie's two young grandchildren, Ben and Abby, become part of Whittington's audience. Ben is also a reject, or so he understands himself, because he can't seem to learn to read. They're threatening to hold him back a grade, and he's a boy on the brink. The Lady decides that Ben can learn to read the same way Dick Whittington did: by words and verses printed out from the Bible. The method doesn't work particularly well but Ben finds inspiration in Dick's story. "He had become that scrawny boy in his imagining, deciding on his life." Ben's struggle, told against Dick's success, forms the narrative thread. There's no strong central conflict, so the book can be put down after a read-aloud session without cries of protest. It's still a great read-aloud, due to the distinct voices of the characters, the give and take between them, and the graceful unaffected language--even when describing a dung heap: "The heat from the rot going on in that pile kept it warm for earthworms, grubs, maggots, insect eggs, and small animals. The mound streamed across winter like a dark freighter." Along the storyline, readers and listeners will also pick up some insights about farm life, animal habits, and medieval life. Geography too, from the map, thoughtfully included, of Dick's voyages. SHACKLETON'S STOWAWAY, by Victoria McKernon Shackleton rubbed his hands over his face and looked out at the ocean. "Sometimes being brave is very dull," he said. "Sometimes it's just keeping quiet when you want to fuss or being optimistic when there's no bloody hope. You've done that, Perce. I need you to keep with it now. You're the worst off, lad. If the men see you going on all right, they'll feel they can come through this too." Here's a book to put winter storms in perspective! The story of the Shackleton expedition has enjoyed a minor boom in the last ten years, with best-selling books, documentaries, and a movie starring Kenneth Brannaugh. Jennifer Armstrong's Shipwreck At the Bottom of the World (Crown, 1998) tells the story for young readers; now Shackleton's Stowaway novelizes it for the same audience. The title character is Perce Blackbarrow, only eighteen when he smuggled himself aboard the Ernest Shackleton's ship in Buenos Ares. That's how he became a part of the most grueling endurance saga in recorded history. Ernest Shackleton never came close to reaching his goal of hiking across Antarctica. His ship, Endurance, never made landfall but was stranded in pack ice many miles from shore. The following spring, shifting ice ground the ship to splinters, and the men of expedition had to figure out how to make their way home without it. After summer "warming trends" make their ice camp unstable, they took to the seas in three lifeboats and rowed ten days through a howling gale to the equally inhospitable Elephant Island, where the only advantage was stability. Then the commander and six men fitted out the only seaworthy boat remaining, and set out over 800 miles to a whaling port on South Georgia Island. After three weeks of blizzards, a hurricane and a tidal wave, with very few clear nights and only the most rudimentary navigational tools to steer by, the little crew landed--but then had to trek over icy mountains, slick glaciers and steep canyons to reach the whaling port. By then Shackleton's efforts were entirely focused on rescuing the bulk of his expedition, still huddled on Elephant Island. It took four tries with four different vessels to reach them--two full years after Perce Blackbarrow had stowed away on the Endurance. He lost his toes to frostbite, but lived to tell the tale, as did every one of his companions. It's not a great novel, but it's a great adventure yarn, full of last-ditch efforts and end-of-the-rope escapes from certain doom. Though difficult to distinguish between the characters sometimes, the dialogue sounds realistic and conversational. Description is sharp and sometimes beautiful: "The sunset is all gold and pink, dark blue shadows on the ice, fiery sparkles where it hits the frost." "Perce could actually feel the seawater freezing around the boat. It was a delicate little sound, like when you sprinkle cinnamon sugar on a piece of toast." Passages like that give a sense of being there, and also a sense of what it takes to keep going when, as Shackleton says, "There's no bloody hope." When rescue finally comes, it's none too soon for the reader. In an historical note at the end, the author explains how she did her research and what she made up; a bibliography is included. Readers (recommended age is 12 and up) should be warned that the narrative contains a smattering of mild swear words and some profanity. THE PENDERWICKS, by Jeanne Birdsall Those of us who grew up with Betsy-Tacy, Ramona and the Borrowers may feel a twinge of recognition on first view of The Penderwicks. From its pastel yellow-and-blue cover to the silhouetted chapter headings to the subtitle, everything about this book shouts "Throwback!" A throwback to an earlier era of children's literature, that is, which of course is no bad thing. The subtitle is "A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy." Leave out the occasional mention of a computer or video game, and it could have happened any time within the last sixty years. The premise is classic: with their widowed father and a hound called Hound, the four sisters take a summer cottage in the Berkshires for four weeks of vacation. Their personalities are different but complimentary. Rosalind is responsible, Skye is impulsive and tomboyish, Jane is imaginative and literary, and Batty is the baby, cute and shy, who never goes anywhere without her butterfly wings. The Interesting Boy lives next door--or more accurately, in the lavish home of his wealthy single mother who never listened to him much and listens to him even less now that she has a caddish boyfriend. Mother is determined that the Interesting Boy (okay, his name is Jeffrey) follow in the footsteps of his illustrious grandfather, General Framley. But Jeffrey is a musician in his heart and soul. Will he be forced to go to military school? Or will the Penderwicks help him change his all-but-certain destiny? The plot may seem a little quaint, but it's well told and all the personalities are nicely developed. The four girls, who occasionally get on each others' nerves as siblings will, nevertheless accept and value each other--in unhappy contrast to Jeremy's family, where everyone is expected to be someone else. The Penderwicks cheerfully stir up his static household, and it's not giving too much away to say that the story ends happily. The Penderwicks, Ms. Pearsall's first novel, won the National Book Award for Children's literature in 2005. That's in stark contract to this year's NBA winner: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, by M. T. Anderson. Anderson is an author of weirdness, though often very interesting weirdness. Octavian Nothing, which I haven't read yet, is written in faithful 18th-century idiom and concerns the grim experiments performed on a young black man by a bunch of unfeeling white guys. Children don't necessarily like experiments, grim or otherwise. The Penderwicks is not experimental. Instead, it is sound, clean, funny, and likeable: check it out. MEMORIES OF READING ALOUD WORLD Magazine recently asked several of its contributors and friends to list their favorite children's books for a future issue. That question always takes me back to my homeschooling days (and even before), which always began with me on the couch with a child on either side, reading aloud. Since we never owned a television, and waited until video players had come down in price before buying one, books were the major media around our house. Picture books first, of course: I liked the Anno books a lot, and when the children got a little older we thought Graham Oakley's "Church Mice" series were a riot. The very first chapter book I read aloud was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, when Aquila was about four years old. Thus begun, our Wonderland journeys continued until she left for college. So when I was asked what my five all-time favorites were, it was hard to limit the list to just five. But here's what I send the magazine: One of my kids' favorite books during our read-aloud days was The Cricket in Times Square, by George Selden. Selden followed this award-winner with several other "Chester Cricket" books, all with warmth and charm. Edith Nesbitt's The Treasure Seekers is the first of a trilogy about the Bastable family, published in the early 20th century. Oddly enough, I first saw it referenced by C. S. Lewis in That Hideous Strength. The seven Bastable children are growing up without a mother in Edwardian London. As their father's business is in such dire straits he can't afford to send them to school, they try to figure out ways to make money. Some of these ways are not entirely legal, but their hearts are in the right place and the book is hilarious. Two sequels, The Wouldbegoods and The New Treasure Seekers, are also funny but lack the poor-but-honest heart of the first. The Silver Sword, by Ian Serallier, was one of my favorite books as a child, still in print under the title Escape From Warsaw. A Polish family is broken up during WWII; the story mostly concerns how the three children in the family, plus a friend, find their parents immediately after the war's end. Hard times and narrow escapes abound, but also genuine kindnes and abounding hope. The Sword in the Stone, by T. H. White was the book I practically kept under my pillow in my preadolescent years--I even read the long descriptions, over and over! It's the story of the education of young King Arthur, before he knew he would ever be king. There are a number of fantasy elements, but what I loved best were the characterizations. Louis Sacher's Holes won every possible children's award when it was published in 1999. My kids were well-grown and out of the house by then so I never got to read it to them. It's a strange story that won't appeal to everybody, but I found it a fascinating and truly original picture of how destiny (God's Sovereignty, in my view) works with individual choice. So that was the short list. But if I could expand it, I would definitely include
The "Homer Price" books, by Robert McClosky. The Light Princess, by George McDonald. Natalie Babbit, Tuck Everlasting and The Search for Delicious. Mary Stolz, A Dog on Barkham Street and A Bully on Barkham Street--two overlapping stories about personal responsibility and understanding, told from different points of view. Anne Holme's North to Freedom, AKA I Am David. Gloria Wehlan, Homeless Bird Lynne Reid Banks, The Indian in the Cupboard Elizabeth Speare, lots of books, but my favorite as a young romantic was Calico Captive: adventure, danger, romance, and fancy dresses!
__________________________________ THE BOOK THIEF, by Markus Zusak I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about these things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race--that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant . . . . I am haunted by humans. The cover of The Book Thief is a grainy photo of a line of dominoes stood on end, with a bodiless finger poised to knock over the first one. The finger is Death, who narrates this story: the "I" of the passage above. Not light reading, obviously. The book is a rare crossover, appearing in both adult and children catalogues--though by "children" is meant Young Adult. Many of those YAs may be put off by Death's meandering introduction in the first few pages, the chopped-up time sequences, the immediate appearance of a deceased child, and the interruption of announcements, facts, definitions and theories, centered and bold-faced. But the narrative soon settles down into solid story, beginning with the death of Leisl Meminger's brother while the two children are traveling with their mother. During the funeral, the gravedigger's assistant carelessly leaves a handbook behind. Leisl picks it up, thus becoming the title character. Her mother soon disappears, and though we never know what happened to her it seems she was a Communist--a dangerous identification in Nazi Germany. Leisl is taken to a small town near Munich, where Hans and Maria Hubermann take her in. Leisl's new Mama is loud, foul-mouthed and a rotten cook, with a stout heart nevertheless. Papa is quiet, observant, and unobtrusively kind. He and 10-year-old Leisl form an immediate bond, forged on his accordion-playing and his offer to teach her to read--even though he's barely literate himself. Slowly Leisl knits herself into the community and gains a best friend, Rudy Steiner: a scrappy red-headed classmate who dreams of running as fast as Jesse Owens. Then the war comes. We knew it would, with Death telling the story. War bring Max Vandenberg to the Hubermann's doorstep, a Jew seeking refuge in return for a debt owed by Papa from the first World War. A friendship develops between Max and Leisl, cemented by his birthday gift to her: a book, written and illustrated by himself from scavenged newsprint. The first book she doesn't have to steal. And then . . . The story doesn't move quickly but it moves compellingly enough to carry a mature reader along. Before long we understand that this is another story about the value of stories (see Inkheart, below). Also words: Leisel is sought, wooed, redeemed, and eventually saved by them--not from Death, but from futility. Death does not go so far as to say there's a purpose in life; perhaps he's reluctant to commit. But there's a record, and a grammar and vocabulary, and an irresistible mystery in the species that breeds both Hitlers and Hubermanns. Some writers need the reader's patience to get comfortable with their style and approach. Often patience is rewarded. Markus Zusak, a native Australian whose parents grew up in wartime Germany, both rewards and frustrates. His prose is striking, but often self-consciously brilliant. Sometimes it works, as when Jews being herded to Dachau are looking at Death: "They would each greet me like their last true friend, with bones like smoke and their souls trailing behind." Sometimes the images merely irritate, such as Leisl waking up, "tasting the sound of the accordion in her ears," or Death bearing away souls through a "breakfast-colored sky." Are we trying too hard? And is the theme hammered a little too persistently? And is this a case of less being more? There is no sex and little violence. The language may be a problem: some vulgarities and profanities in keeping with the place, time and character. Though the main character is a child, the book is not really for children. A better book on war-torn Europe, also about kids but not really for them, is Jerry Spinelli's Milkweed (Knopf, 2003): understated, unpretentious, and quite astonishing. ____________________________________________ Rick Riordan, THE LIGHTNING THIEF (2005); THE SEA OF MONSTERS (2006) *"Don’t you ever feel that way? Like you could do a better job if you ran the world?"* Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a preadolescent boy, growing up in unfortunate domestic circumstances, discovers that his parentage is extraordinary and his future is both prophesied and problematic. After some very disturbing events, he is whisked away to a training facility, where he must prepare for his destiny with the help of a wise teacher and a pair of unusual friends. It doesn’t take long for destiny to seek him out, and in the course of many supernatural adventures he discovers a poisonous enemy lurking in the shadows, temporarily thwarted but gathering strength to make an all-out assault not only on our hero, but on the entire human race. No, it’s not Harry Potter we’re talking about: it’s Percy Jackson, star of the new Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, of which books one and two are selling like hotcakes and are probably headed for Major Motion Picture-hood. Some may consider the main plotline as an obvious ripoff of the most successful children’s series of all time. But Mr. Riordan is merely adapting a classic formula, as J. K. Rowling has done, and the books are quirky enough to be taken on their own terms. Also, they’re shorter, and so action-packed they make Lord of the Rings look like a Merchant-Ivory film. Percy Jackson, age 12, is attending an alternative school in New York City when the story opens, trying to make good for once in spite of his ADHD. His favorite subject, taught by a bearded fellow in a wheelchair, is classical mythology. So perhaps it should come as no surprise when, during a class field trip to the natural history museum, Percy is attacked by his substitute math teacher, who has turned into a Fury. But it is rather surprising, even more so when his best friend Grover loses his pants to be revealed as a Satyr, complete with goatish legs and horns. With Grover’s help, Percy is transported to Camp Half-Blood on Long Island, the refuge of the Heroes, who are all children of the gods. Children of the GODS?! Well, yes—you recall those stories of Olympians falling for mortals, resulting in mythological heroes like Hercules, Theseus, and Perseus. Perseus is in fact Percy’s real name, and his father is none other than Poseidon, Lord of the Sea. The bearded fellow in the wheelchair is transformed to Chiron the Centaur, a long-time trainer of heroes now serving as activity director of Half-blood. The camp director is Mr. D., otherwise known as Dionysius, who would rather be romping with naiads and satyrs. Percy’s fellow-campers are the progeny of gods and goddesses. Thus they are all his cousins or half-siblings, but not all are his friends--as he will find when he is launched on a cross-country quest to recover the thunderbolt of Zeus and save the world. A tall order for a twelve-year-old, but help will be provided in unexpected ways. Why read books that exalt classical paganism? I’m not sure that these books do, although a passing reference in The Lightening Thief may give pause. That’s when Grover asks permission to go on the traditional satyr search for the great god Pan, who disappeared approximately 2000 years ago. Hmmm, what happened approximately 2000 years ago? An event that put the pagans gods out of business, though they may be trying to make a comeback now. On the other hand, I like the unapologetic defense of western civilization: “the West represents a lot of the best things mankind ever did,” according to a character in The Sea of Monsters, though she attributes that inspiration to Olympus rather than Calvary. These stories, at least so far, unfold as if Christianity never happened. It remains to be seen if the series will declare an unequivocal war against the true soul of the West, as Philip Pullman did in the His Dark Materials trilogy. In the meantime Percy Jackson is clever, and fun, and in his own way educational. Chris Lynch, INEXCUSABLE *That would be the moment, wouldn’t it? That would be the best.* Every eye on me, because the kicker is the only one who can do that, hold every eye, hold the game close to himself, and then Fran and Mary and Dad would be on their feet, screaming louder than anyone, so proud they could just expire, and I would wave dramatically at them, and later we would go to a nice restaurant and I would eat like a king and listen to the best people I knew telling me I was very good. All Keir Sarafian wants is for everyone he loves to reaffirm his goodness, which he’s continually reaffirming for himself. He sounds like a graduate of every self-esteem program devised by starry-eyed education theorists, but unlike some kids his age, he has reasons for self-esteem: well-liked, a football player who condescends to play soccer, making okay grades, having cool friends, feeling secure in a loving family. Or maybe not entirely secure; his mother passed away long ago and his smitten dad never remarried, but Keir doesn’t miss his mother because he was only three when she died, and Dad is great. His two older sisters, who are crazy about him in their different ways, have supplied all his mothering needs. But sometimes things happen . . . like that late-season game in which he crippled an opposing player—“No, that’s not right. I didn’t cripple a guy. He got crippled, and I was part of it. The difference is very important.” Playing cornerback, Keir hit a receiver so hard that there was an investigation. He spent a week at home hiding out, playing a neverending game of Risk with Dad, who fends off telephone calls and doesn’t let Keir read the mail. In spite of his father’s reassurance, Keir awaited the world’s judgment in suspended animation, because “if the investigation came down at the end and said I was some kind of beastman, I don’t know what I would have done but I would have done something quite unlovely, I guarantee you that. Because I knew all along I was a good guy, and to be declared otherwise would have been criminal.” Or, as he claims in other contexts, inexcusable. After his name is cleared and the excitement dies down, he quietly receives three college football scholarships. “Fate is a bitch, but there you go.” That incident earns him a nickname: Killer. It scares him at first, then settles on him, and perhaps nudges him in a direction he didn’t anticipate: end-of-school incidents which seem at the time to be the work of lovable rogues or irrepressible high spirits, but appear by the light of day to be vandalism or cruelty. But couldn’t be: the team loves him, Dad loves him, his sisters love him (even though they’ve been laying some harsh words on him lately that just show they’re out of touch, they don’t understand, they’re not looking at things the right way). Best of all, Gigi Boudakian loves him. And he loves her—always has. She’s been his best friend forever. Which is why, in the sour dawn after a long, long alcohol- and drug-addled graduation party night, he is shocked when Gigi accuses him of rape. That can’t be. “The way it looks is not the way it is.” Keir’s deep-seated hunger for affirmation, his relationship with his family (especially his father), his lackluster ambitions and his cluelessness about his own nature are perfectly rendered. In fact, he might have become a little tiresome with the I’m-a-nice-guy-aren’t-I theme if it weren’t for a particularly engaging voice. The thing is, he is a nice guy, as the world understand nice. A perfectly ordinary, reasonably attractive, moderately successful guy who won’t face up to darkness, until the day that darkness finally faces him. Polly Schulman, ENTHUSIASM There is little more likely to exasperate a person of sense than finding herself tied by affection and habit to an Enthusiast. I speak from bitter experience. My best friend and next door neighbor, Ashleigh Marie Rossi, is an Enthusiast. In the eighteenth-century milieu that this introduction intends to recall, “enthusiasm” meant religious excess. Ashleigh Rossi is not especially religious, but she is excessive: she inhabits her passions, and her latest passion is Jane Austen. After falling hard for the fictional Mr. Darcy, she throws herself—along with her friend and our narrator Julie Leftowitz—into a quest for a real one. After all, isn’t it a truth universally acknowledged, that a single guy in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a girlfriend? The most likely place for Darcy-hunting is the local boy’s prep school, Forefield Academy, where Ashley drags Julie to crash to annual Columbus Cotillion. As it happens, each girl meets her Darcy at the dance, though she doesn't, of course, know it yet. What follows is an Austenish plot of frustrated affection, mistaken intention, and misdirected connection that ends well, with both couples perfectly matched. Realistic fiction it’s not. Contemporary female readers will wonder where to find the gentlemanly young men that Julie and Ashleigh fortuitously encounter in the third chapter. Even though Julie is dealing with the long-term effects of her parents’ divorce and the kids communicate by email and TM and occasionally someone drops a mild profanity or sexual innuendo, their world seems quaint and dated. Too bad—I would have liked my daughter to meet Charles Grandison Parr, who writes sonnets, sings show tunes, and has turquoise eyes, a deep dimple and lots of money. What he doesn’t have is Mr. Darcy’s guarded pride, a character flaw that had to be overcome in the course of Jane Austen’s novel. But Austen was writing about a real society, while Polly Shulman sets before us a costume comedy-drama. That’s probably all she intends; it’s fun, and funny, and a welcome respite perhaps from the heavy themes of Inexcusable. Just don’t take it seriously, young ladies.
____________________________________________ Gary Schmidt, FIRST BOY Senator Wickham was sitting behind Ms. Dove's desk, beside a Very Big Man who stood mountainously still. The Senator stood up slowly. "It's good to meet you, Cooper," he said, and held out his hand. Cooper remembered what his grandfather had said Senator Wickham's hands held. But what could he do? He reached out and took hold. He'd wash his hands later. This is a likeable story about a likeable boy, Cooper Jewett. At fourteen, he helps his grandfather run a dairy farm in New Hampshire and wants nothing more than a dog--but his life is about to change drastically. First he starts noticing a black sedan patroling his neighborhood. Soon after, his grandfather is dead of a heart attack and Cooper is trying to operate the dairy farm all by himself. That's when he meets Senator Wickham, a hearty New England sort running for President on a platform of family values. Like all politicians, acccording to Cooper's late grandpa, Senator Wickham offers manure in both hands. But the offer he makes to the boy is at least interesting: the Senator wants a young person on his campaign team, to travel with him and offer advice on how to reach farm families. Though it sounds mighty suspicious to an adult reader, the deal appeals to Cooper. But he must reluctantly decline. In order to keep the farm, he must stay and work on it--besides, the cows will miss him. His polite "no" is not the last word, however. Soon bad stuff begins happening, random acts which more and more look like sabotage. Gradually it becomes clear that Cooper is an unwitting pawn in the contest between Senator Wickham and the President of the United States. For as it happens (SPOILER ALERT!!!) the POTUS is Cooper's . . . mother. Actually, this isn't as big a spoiler as it appears. Although the author takes pains to conceal the President's sex for the first two-thirds of the story, it's revealed on the book jacket. Once we know the President is a woman, her relationship to Cooper is a given. Thus robbed of suspense, the story loses some of its impact. (At least for someone who has read several surprise parental-identity stories--even written one--as well as innumerable book jackets. Many young readers, I'll admit, would not fit that description.) However, engaging characters and style make this an enjoyable read. Cooper comes to understand that, even though he lacks a mother and father and his "grandparents" have passed on too soon, he's blessed to have a calling and a community--including Ms. Perley the ecentric school teacher, Mr. Searle the crochety neighbor, and the large and rambunctuous Hurd family who occupy the Methodist parsonage. "I am a fine runner, I have fine friends, and I'm a moderate driver. I'm a Methodist most Sundays and a dairman every day. And I live with people who . . . people who love me." It's good to know who you are. And in the end, Cooper even gets a dog. _____________________________________ Cornelia Funke, INKHEART Rain fell that night, a fine, whispering rain. Many years later, Meggie had only to close her eyes and she could hear it, like tiny fingers lapping on the window pane. A dog barked somewhere in the darkness, and however often she tossed and turned Meggie couldn't get to sleep. Ms. Funke is famous for master plotting, and the story does move along. Meggie's father, Mortimer (whom she called Mo), is a book binder and almost-ideal parent, except that he feels the necessity to move a little too often. Meggie hardly has a chance to get settled in one town before they're off to another. Also, though Mo loves books and stories and posseses a beautiful voice, he never reads aloud to her. Soon enough we know why: Mo has the mysterious ability to "read out" characters from books. When Meggie was but a toddler, he read out an entire cast of villains from a story called Inkheart. The title refers to the color of the archvillain's central vital organ, but also to the power of print, books, and the stories therein. Mo, also known as Silvertongue, not only read Capricorn and his evil band out of the story, but he also read his beloved wife in. Now Capricorn reigns like a mafia don in an unnamed Mediterranean town, searching for Mo so that the Silvertongue can read a secret weapon out of the book. That's why Mo moves so often: the goons are after him. Meggie suspects nothing until a character named Dustfinger appears and spills too many beans. The family takes refuge with Mo's Aunt Elinor, a book-loving dowager, but when Capricorn tracks them down, all must flee, and the adventure is up and running. The only way to thwart Capricorn is for the author of Inkheart, who is still living, to write another ending to the story. It turns out that Meggie has more than a little of Silvertongue in her, as her own gifts emerge. Ms. Funke does better with plot than characters. Meggie and Mo are not especially distinctive and Elinor is mostly irritating. Capricorn and his crew, such as the henchman Basta, are just plain evil. Twists and turns move the story along: harrowing captures and narrow escapes. They lead to a satisfying conclusion, with nonetheless an echo of sound and fury about it. For Inkheart is a story about the power of stories--all well and good, but stories work best as a medium not an object. Inkheart seems to devour itself and burp out a happy ending. But then there's the sequel . . . __________________________________________ Gary Blackwood, SECOND SIGHT Think of me as a guide, an interpreter. Though I may take a wrong turn now and again or introduce you to some characters of a questionable nature, you can rely on me, I assure you. I've done this before. And in fact, Second Sight is Gary Blackwood's second sortie into the fascinating sub-genre of alternate history, the world of What-If. He takes us there via Joseph Erlich, a pleasant young man living in Washingtin D. C. during the last years of the Civil War. It is, literally, a barracks town, with Union armies camped all around and wounded soldiers dying in makeshift hospitals. Also a large population of refugees, transients, suppliers and entrepreneurs willing to pay for amenities like entertainment. Joseph's father Nicholas, a veteran of the stage before his voice was ruined, has worked up a "mentalist" act featuring his 14-year-old son as a clairvoyant who can identify objects while blindfolded. In reality, the act depends on verbal clues supplied by Nicholas, which Joseph then deciphers to give the answer. It's an impressive performance, for which audiences willingly suspend their disbelief both in the theater and out. To some the act may seem nothing but fraud, but Nicholas sees it as a kind of theater. The family has been struggling on the fringes for so long that Joseph works at a china and lamp shop to help ends meet. His mother is a recluse since the tragic death of his little sister years before, and their only home is two rooms in a boardinghouse. But with the success of the mind-reading act, their prospects begin to look up. Newcomers move into the boardinghouse: rough-edged Patrick Nolan, a former prizefighter, and his young niece Cassandra. The girl is fortuitously named, for she seemed to be a real clairvoyant--one who receives visions of the future and intimations of the present. As Joseph and Cassandra develop a friendship, they are drawn into a particular vision that centers around the President of the United States. Is someone trying to kidnap Abraham Lincoln? Or perhaps assassinate him? The story crackles with suspense, but what makes it work (for me) is the characters. Joseph is a truly engaging young man, intelligent and witty but prickly enough to be interesting. He's characterized more than once as "ordinary," and thinks of himself that way--else why wouldn't his own mother find him uninteresting, or his father have to work so hard to drill fake mental powers into his head? Where real ESP is concerned, Joseph is as normal as you or I, yet when times require courage and resourcefulness, he proves himself to be rather extraordinary. The most appealing character after Joseph is his father Nicholas, a "failure" and has-been who refuses to sink into victimhood. Their relationship--both easy and demanding, yet affectionate, is one of the story's greatest joys. Of the many historical characters, John Wilkes Booth stands out--a charmer and dazzler yet not without a certain rueful honestly. In fact, aside from his steady drinking he seems too stable a character to hold a gun to Mr. Lincoln's head and pull the trigger. So did he? With alternate history, you never know without reading the book to the end. Fortunately, the author's engaging style draws a reader and keeps the pages turning. On occasion, it draws the reader a little self-consciously. The authorial insertion with which the story begins pops up all the way through; from time to time our attention is directed to this incidental character or that, or we're reminded of the author's prerogative as omniscient narrator. It's an ingenious way to show how many turns a story--or history itself--can take, depending on the track we follow, or the voices we choose to hear. But the technique can start to feel like someone peeking our your shoulder to point out the solitaire moves you would rather discover for yourself. It can also be a little dismissive of the characters, or more than a little: "We must give them the illusion, at least, of having free will, of being able to determine their own fates." That willing suspension required of Joseph's audiences is not permitted for readers. But at the end, the author reminds us that our personal stories are still unwritten. History-altering opportunities are available not just to fictional characters like Joseph, but to all of us. _________________________________________________ Chris Crutcher, THE SLEDDING HILL Here's the deal. I can't interfere. It's not like some fancy rule or anything, I just can't, as in couldn't if I wanted to. All I can do is wise him up, help Eddie remember what he already knows, make connections between his world and this one. I can bump him, and I will, because the only thing that is as true out here as it is in the Earthgame is connection. Connection is love. Staying connected with Eddit Proffitt is as good for me as it is for him, because love is as true on earth as it is in the farthest reaches of the universe. Hi, I'm Chris Crutcher, and here's the deal. I've been a Young Adult writer for a long time, famous for gritty novels loaded with four-letter words that get banned by local decency leagues across the country. I mean, you can count on it: Crutcher book published, gets censored. As a former school counselor, I know first-hand that kids today are regularly challenged by the situations I write about. As an author I hear from them all the time. They read my books and feel less alone. Recently, though, I went through a hellish two-year period when none of my ideas would get off the ground. Until I thought of this: There are these two 14-year-old boys, and one of them (Billy) is conventionally brilliant while the other (Eddie) is unconventionally brilliant. So much so that almost everyone else thinks Eddie is stupid. Okay, so during the summer before their freshman year, in the space of a month, Eddie loses both his dad and his best friend Billy to separate freak accidents. Grief might have finished him, except that Billy decides to stick around for a while. It's a sacrifice because Billy is now an infinite spirit and can go anywhere in eternity he wants, but there's a crisis coming up. I mean, besides the double-whammy that struck Eddie in the first chapter. Ms. Lloyd, Eddie's favorite teacher, orders copies of a controversial book to be read and discussed in class, and the book is by Chris Crutcher. Brilliant! . . . This is J. B. Cheaney, reviewer, somewhat uncomfortable about speaking for Mr. Crutcher. Even though he sorta asked for it, pulling that Deus ex Machina trick of authorial intervention. It's his book, so he can do what he wants, but it seem a bit too-clever-by-half to make an appearance as himself in his own novel, then stand modestly by while his characters speak in his defense. In fact, the whole book-banning issue detracts from what began as a moving story of loss. The first few chapters are affecting and eloquent in the understated way that Mr. Crutcher has mastered. Billy and Eddie are distinct personalities we come to know and like within a few pages. But then Billy dies and becomes an know-it-all spirit, while Eddie suffers and becomes Jesus. Well, not really--he suggests in one dramatic moment that he might be Jesus, but then in the next chapter denies that he is, while intimating that maybe everybody is Jesus, in kind of a sort of a way--and why? Because of this censorship thing, and the fact that the main opposition comes from hypocritical Christians who wouldn't know Jesus if he hit 'em over the head with a banned book. In other words, what began as Eddie's story becomes something else, namely a strawman confrontation that turns out to be all about the author. He would deny it: ". . . it's about freedom. A guy writes a story and it moves your teacher and she decides to see if it moves the kids. It's not a classic; it's not a Bible, but it's a story told by a guy who wants to get his little piece of truth out there." Billy says this; as a spirit he can go anywhere and get inside anyone's mind (being dead is cool). For instance, by dipping into the minds of the founding fathers he can assure Eddie that "they wanted the little freedoms, the ones that affected them at the moment. It's easy to go back in history and look at the big picture see the larger philosophies and all that. But . . . the big stuff is little and the little stuff is big." Now we know why Billy had to die: so he could come back and tell us what the founding fathers thought. That whole revolution thing wasn't really about inalienable rights and where they come from; it was about being able to read whatever you want to at age 14. It helps to know that, when dealing with Pastor Tarter of the Red Brick Church and the clean-cut legions of the local Youth For Christ. Eddie infiltrates their meetings so he'll understand how to combat them, and I humbly suggest the author should have done the same. What's with those chocolate-chip "cookies shaped like crucifixes" that somebody's mother bakes for the meeting? Does he mean simply cross-shaped, or actual crucifixes, which by definition have the figure of Christ on them? And why does Eddie make his big speech at Red Brick while framed by a glowing stained-glass window of the Virgin Mary--an oddity in any protestant church? And are sermons and strategy sessions typically driven by fear that a stray four-letter word fired by a reckless author will ricochet into the tender minds of our youth? Christians can and do get off-base. But Mr. Crutcher is wrong about what drives them. And those crucifix-shaped cookies still bother me--has he ever seen one? AIRBORN, by Kenneth Oppel The sky pulsed with stars. Some people say is makes them lonesome when they stare up at the night sky. I can't imagine why. There's no shortage of company. By now there's not a constellation I can't name. Orion. Lupus. Serpens. Hercules. Draco. My father taught me all of their stories. So when I look up I see a galaxy of adventures and heroes and villains all jostling together and trying to outdo one another, and sometimes I want to tell them and not distract me with their chatter. There're the planets to look at too, depending on the time of year: Venus. Mercury. Mars. And don't forget Old Man Moon. I know every crease and pockmark on that face of his. We're in our solar system, but hanging from the familiar stars is an alternate world in which dirigible travel has prospered so that propelled aircraft are hardly in the picture. It's an enchanting picture: great balloons held aloft by hydrium gas (which smells faintly of mangoes, in case you ever wondered). Silently they sail the sky, ghostly galleons silvered by moonlight, carrying passengers from Paris to Constantinople to Lionsgate City--home of our hero Matt Cruise and located somewhere along the west coat of Canada. One night while standing watch in the crows nest, Matt sees the flash and hears the muted roar of a burner in a hot air balloon. The vehicle is in distress, and by Matt's timely warning the Aurora is able to take both craft and pilot in through the cargo bay. Little can be done for the pilot, who babbles in delirium of wonderful flying creatures. Shortly after, he breathes his last. Fast-forward one year. Matt, now 15, is shipping out on Aurora again after shore leave. Directly after takeoff, the ship must stall in order to take on late passengers arriving via ornithopter. They are young Kate DeVries and her chaperone, the latter snooty and demanding, the former quick and intelligent, with no end of spunk as we shall see. Kate, as it happens, is the granddaughter of that doomed pilot rescued by the crew of Aurora. She knows of her grandfather's search for the mysterious winged creatures, and is determined to discover them herself. This sets up a first-class adventure of the kind you may have thought they didn't write anymore, with the improbably capable young hero and the resourceful lass and the colorful-yet-truly-lethal villain. Airborn is unabashedly old-fashioned--never mind social commentary, how about some action? And while we're at it, let's be transported into a vehicle so lovingly crafted we can see its feathering air cells and hear its pulsing passage through the sky. Much of the action hinges on understanding the innards of a dirigible well enough to follow our heroes and villains as they chase each other from stern to bow. The author handles this so gracefully you can just see pirates rappelling down from their craft to the surface of Aurora in the starry nigyht. On the ground the pace is bit clunkier, but the last 50 pages, by land and air, go like lightning. Matt and Kate, though rather stock-ish, are nonetheless likeable and their dialogue zings. Supporting roles are pure stock: brave captain, wisecracking sidekick, picky chef, sheepish passengers herded this way and that by the plot. Szpirglas the pirate chief is a well-nuanced villain and he meets a suitable end. The plot moves forward by classic devices: not only pirates and shipwrecks, but young protagonists taking matters into their own hands--which first gets them in trouble, then provides a solution which gets them into deeper trouble, then clears the way for them to save the day. What more could young readers ask?
NO SMALL THING, by Natalie Ghent Sometimes, something as small as an ad in the daily newspaper can change your whole life. That's what happened to Cid, Queenie and me one summer. It was 1977, the year of broken things. Star Wars opened and broke the record at Eastview Theater by running for thirteen weeks in a row. Queenie broke her collarbone. And Cheryl Hanson broke my heart. This is how the ad read: PONY TO GIVE AWAY TO GOOD HOME. CALL BEFORE 4 P.M. Summer is almost over when Nathaniel sees the ad. "Oh my gosh, call them!" pleads his sister Cid--who is older but doesn't want to take the responsibility. It's Nat who calls, and finds out where the place is and decides to go get the pony, just like that. Only a little more complicated. It's been a couple of years since their father left them, and the family has been spiraling apart in spite of their mother's best efforts to keep them together. Mom can only do so much, and on her low-income job they barely get by. Keeping a pony seems like a very long shot, but then they meet the pony. Smoky is a white stallion with a gray nose--beautiful, gentle and willing. Trouble begins right away when Queenie falls off him and breaks her collarbone on the way home, and their mother is furious that they ran off and did such a thing without consulting her. Amazingly though, after the sparks settle she agrees to let them keep the pony at their own expense, mostly supplied by Nat from his paper route. Thus begins the year of Smoky, with unexpected difficulties and unforeseen joys, stabbing pain and soaring happiness and a family that could have spiraled further apart but instead begins to pull together. School starts and the Canadian days grow short and cold. Cheryl Hanson, prettiest girl in Nat's class, shows an interest in him. Four days before Christmas the family's electricity is cut off but the mayor intervenes. Smoky, harnessed to a sled, brings home the Christmas tree the children bought for $5. As winter drag on, Cheryl's beautiful blue eyes turn cold and distant. The barn where Smoky is lodged burns to the ground. The family's house has to be sold. So does Smoky. But even the hardest knocks hold depth and hope; a family torn by Me-decade selfishness is still a family. The animosity between Nat and Cid is real, but so is their loyalty. Sadness is part of living but so is sunshine and the fragile green grass of spring spearing up through crusted snow. In spite of grim foreshadowing, the story ends happily. The center turns out to be a small white horse with a gray nose, and the center holds.
THE PERILOUS GARD, by Elizabeth Marie Pope "Do you mean," Kate ventured, "that they are men and women like ourselves?" Elizabeth Marie Pope was (is?) a professor of English and a scholar of Elizabethan England. The Perilous Gard, published in 1974, was a Newberry Honor Book and by virtue of that accomplishment is still in print. Good news, for it's a story not to be missed. At 280 small-print pages, it may be a challenge for the younger reader, but girls 12 and older, especially historical novel buffs, will swoon over it. Also over the handsome, tortured--but I'm getting ahead of myself. The story opens during the reign of Queen Mary. Our heroine, Katherine Sutton, serves as lady-in-waiting to Mary's sister Elizabeth, whom the Queen sees as a threat and keeps locked away in dreary, drafty Hatfield castle. Through the meddling of her airhead sister Alicia, Katherine attracts the unwelcome attention of Queen Mary and is banished to Derbyshire in central England, where she will abide under the watchful eye of Sir Geoffrey Heron in Perilous Gard (castle) deep in Elvenwood. Elvenwood is well named--an uncleared forest of primeval Britain, so far off the beaten track that Kate fears she'll never be found again. Sir Geoffrey is courteous but remote; his younger brother Christopher rude and remote (though better looking). The property is Sir Geoffrey's by marriage, but he escapes from it at every opportunity. Too many unhappy memories--his wife has died, and their one child, a little girl, drowned only a year ago under mysterious circumstances. Christopher, it is soon apparent, blames himself for the child's death. He was supposed to be watching her on the day she reportedly climbed over the wall surrounding the "Holy Well," an outlet to the underground river behind the castle, and was swept away by the waters. Kate slowly learns that the well, the wood, the castle itself are haunted--not by the dead, but by the living remnants of the ancient religion that once ruled all of England. Christopher's terrible bargain to redeem himself, and Kate's fearful risk to save him make a riveting tale, especially once you get past the first couple of chapters. The narrative relies heavily on description because the physical surroundings are so important to the story, but a reader who is bored by that should be encouraged to persevere. It's worth the effort. What particularly interests me is the story's treatment of pre-Christian paganism. Traces of the old druidic religion lingered in England up to Elizabethan times and beyond--today, it's making a comeback of sorts. But I suspect that modern-day pagans don't have a clue what the real thing was all about: nature-worship paired with blood sacrifice, mindless ecstasy marred by fear, a relentless eye-for-eye accounting system that left no room for compassion. The "fairies", as Ms. Pope presents them, are scrupulously just in their dealings with humans. Any bargain struck they will keep, no matter the cost to anyone. But, as Kate perceives, humans don't need justice from fairies: "We're all of us under the mercy." The Perilous Gard is not a "Christian novel" and makes no attempt to preach or proselytize; in fact, I have no idea what Ms. Pope's religious convictions were. What she achieves is a faithful representation of a spiritual clash; refreshing in that Christians are not automatically cast as stodgy, repressive meanies. In fact, they seem to be the good guys. So okay, I like it for that reason, but it's also a rousing story. The paperback edition is readily available, and includes illustrations by Richard Cuffari that don't add too much. As an aside, I was first introduced to Elizabeth Pope as a teenager, when I checked out a young-adult novel called The Sherwood Ring. This is another historical novel with supernatural elements, but a lighter touch. It takes place in New York state, partly in the present day and partly during the middle years of the American Revolution. The time shift accomplished by four ghosts who appear sequentially, each to tell his or her part of a story that has reverberations into the future. The ghosts are a literary device; there's no suggestion of any occult interest here. It's just a lot of fun, with most appealing characters and a satisfying conclusion. It will be harder to find (no Newberry honors), but I managed to locate a hardcover library edition on Amazon.com. |