Capturing the Dark and CHASING REDBIRD

Spook Hollow.  Sleepy Bear Rock.  Baby Toe Ridge.  Crow Hollow.  Bear Alley Creek.  These are the places of Sharon Creech’s novel Chasing Redbird.  More than any other book I’ve read recently, Chasing Redbird led me down a trail and into a place both strange and spooky yet oddly familiar.  It’s a trail blazed by thirteen-year-old Zinny Taylor, who uncovers a few stones of an ancient trail and decides to spend her summer discovering the rest.  Luckily, she invites the readers along, and from the first page, we realize that’s an honor.  After all, Zinny won’t allow her parents or any of her multitude of siblings or even her handsome—though repeatedly rejected—suitor Jake to come along on her adventure.  (On the other hand, she wouldn't mind a horse.)

Still, Zinny’s not alone on her expedition.  Not at all.  She’s accompanied by the ghosts of her beloved Aunt Jessie and her cousin Rose who was her best friend until Rose died of whooping cough at age four.  And Zinny's self-doubts follow her along the trail as well.  She’s not sure if she’s “Zinny Taylor: Murderer” or “Zinny Taylor: Explorer” or “Zinny Taylor: Thief” or “Zinny Taylor: Detective.”  She’s not really sure who she is at all.

There is so much to love about Chasing Redbird.  There are those places along the trail with their beauty and their legends.  There’s earnest Jake Boone, who chases Zinny by stealing things for her, despite her repeated rejections.  (Zinny thinks Jake must be interested in her older sister May.)  There’s Zinny’s big, messy family with its love and sadness and charming chaos.  There’s Zinny’s Uncle Nate, a man who carries a stick to beat away snakes (and the occasional coiled rope) and who dances with his wife long after she’s passed away (Uncle Nate: Make That Company Jump!).  There’s the freed turtle in the creek and the cardinal who finally finds his mate and flowers that grow from eggshells (kind of).  And there’s Zinny herself: stubborn and earnest and crazy and brave and difficult and wonderful.

And there are moments like this, when Zinny’s waiting for dark on the first night camping out on her trail:

…there was no moment of dark.  Instead, what I saw was the most subtle shading in the sky, a gradual deepening of color, so gradual that you could not actually see the changes, but could only think, Is that the color it was a moment ago?  Isn’t it deeper now?  Is it dark yet?  Is this dark?  Soon I noticed the white specks of stars, but still they weren’t draped on a black sky, still it wasn’t dark.  And although I watched intently, I did not see the moment of dark, and I wondered if maybe it wasn’t a moment at all. (156-7)

Capturing the reason why I fell in love with Chasing Redbird is a little like capturing the moment of dark.  The fact that it remains elusive makes it all the more true.

[Creech, Sharon.  Chasing Redbird.  New York: HarperCollins, 1997.]

BOOKLIST: Best Books About Animals

As I started working on this booklist, a snow-white ermine ran across the small lawn in front of my cabin.  I paused and watched from the second floor window in front of my desk as the small, lithe creature tried tucking itself in various holes in our stone wall, crossed the lawn several more times, ducked under our porch, leapt across our garden beds, and finally darted away into the blueberry brush.  His white coat is premature, as there’s no snow here yet, but it made it easy to spot him on this cold November morning.  The only spots of darkness were his tiny eyes, his nose, and the black tip of his long, white tail.  I’m still reeling from the sight, and grateful for the chance to watch a wild creature for even just those few minutes. 

There’s something about animals, whether it’s a beloved pet or a wild creature, that intrigues humans. So here’s a booklist for the animal lovers out there.  (I’d like to think the ermine was signaling his approval of my topic choice with his unexpected appearance.)  The novels range from the realistic (such as Where the Red Fern Grows and Hoot) to the fantastic (both Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of N.I.M.H. and the His Dark Materials series fit squarely in this latter category, but they’re also two of my favorite books).  All explore the connections between humans and animals.  Some try to answer the question of what’s going on in an animal’s mind; others keep us wondering at that mystery.  So here is the newest booklist, dedicated to that small creature who hopped around my yard for a little while, making the story of my day, and the story of my booklist, a little more magical.

 

Best Books About Animals...

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawling

A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L-Engle

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of N.I.M.H. by Robert C. O'Brien

Sounder by William H. Armstrong

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

White Fang by Jack London

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

The Music of Dolphins by Karen Hesse

Eva by Peter Dickinson

The His Dark Materials Series by Philip Pullman

A Fabulous Creature by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo

Opening Up SEAN GRISWOLD'S HEAD

Yes, that is the title.  Sean Griswold’s Head.  And while Sean Griswold’s head is one of the primary focuses of Lindsey Leavitt’s novel, it’s really the story of protagonist Payton’s efforts to get outside of her own head, especially when her thoughts wander into the territory of her father’s multiple sclerosis.  Payton wants to think about anything but her father’s disease, and at the prompting of her school counselor, she chooses a “focus object.”  Take a guess what “object” Payton chooses.

Sean Griswold has been sitting in front of Payton for years (Sean Griswold, Payton Gritas—it’s an alphabetical thing), but she’s never really noticed him, much less gotten to know him.  But when her focus object turns out to be a kind and generous guy, Payton’s assignment gets more interesting, and more complicated.

One of the best things about Leavitt’s novel is Payton.  Though Payton’s spent her whole life striving for perfectionism and avoiding any of life’s possible potholes, news of her father’s illness—news that’s delivered in one of the worst possible ways—sends her flying off her mark.  Her clothes stop matching, she has a falling-out with her best friend, and she even—gasp—gets a “C” on her report card.  But Leavitt doesn’t allow Payton to play the victim of circumstance, and that’s one of the strengths of Sean Griswold’s Head. 

Payton’s battle is as much within herself as with any of the problems that are thrown at her.  In moments of clarity, Payton recognizes that she’s gone astray, such as when she gives her father the cold shoulder, not long after she discovered that her family was keeping her dad’s MS a secret from her.  When her father leaves her bedroom, “I let out a sigh, hoping it releases some of the bad karma I just incurred from being so heinous.  I don’t want to be like this, but I don’t know how else I’m supposed to act” (42).  Even when Payton knows she’s doing the wrong thing, she still does it, because she can’t see the right thing.  It’s a conflict almost any reader can identify with, and it’s why almost any reader will find a way to identify with Payton, following her and listening to her and cheering for her even when she’s being an idiot, even when she’s not being fair, even when she’s being cruel.

Sean Griswold’s Head is also about looking beneath the surface of things, beneath the surface of people.  As Sean tells Payton, when she’s criticizing his goth friend Grady—who, in Payton’s defense, did actually try to bite Payton when she tried holding on to a locker in Grady’s territory—people aren’t always the way they appear.  Sean says,

“But that’s what I’m trying to tell you.  That’s not him at all, just how you perceive him.  It’s like, you could go dress yourself in a potato sack, and you’d still look…”

Say good.  Or if I’m being greedy, beautiful.  But good will do.

“…like you.  It doesn’t change who you are.  Haven’t you ever looked past your first impression and seen more?” (113)

Lindsey Leavitt’s novel asks readers to remember to look past our first impressions, to try and see more.  It’s not a complicated lesson, and Sean Griswold’s Head isn’t some complex story with crazy twists and turns.  It’s a realistic story about an ordinary teenager who deals with events that, while they don’t rock the universe, rock her world plenty.  So while the idea that we all might look a little more closely and with a little more empathy at the people around us may be simple, that makes it no less significant.  In fact, maybe the simplest lessons are the most significant.  And they deserve stories like this: honest, true, and trustworthy.  Open up the cover of Sean Griswold’s Head.  See what’s inside.

[Leavitt, Lindsey.  Sean Griswold’s Head.  New York: Bloomsbury, Release Date March 2011.]

Cool Book Parents

No, that’s not an oxymoron, though I must admit that most of the time, parents are either awful or absent from YA novels.  But I just read an article that points to a few parental rays of hope in the world of YA literature.  I’m posting a link to the article in homage to these characters, who deserve credit not just for showing up in this world of YA books, but for showing up in style.

BOOKLIST: Best Historical Fiction

One of the best things about reading is that we get the chance to travel to a distant time and place, a world we could never otherwise experience.  I love it when I can lose myself in a great story and learn something at the same time.  The books on this list cover a wide swatch of history—perhaps someday I’ll write a list specific to historical periods or geographical locations—but each book on this list has the power to transport the reader far outside of his or her own life.  Some, such as Year of Wonders, The Secret Life of Bees, and The Kite Runner, are “adult” books that have crossed over to younger audiences.  Some I read long ago—The Witch of Blackbird Pond and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry; some I read more recently.  Each told a captivating story and taught me something about the struggles and triumphs of people who lived in a very different time and place.  So here is the newest addition to the infinite booklist…

Best Historical Fiction

A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park

Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson

Nightjohn by Gary Paulsen

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak (This is one of my favorite books of all time!)

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

To Kill a  Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Twists and Turns in THE TWIN'S DAUGHTER

My dad is an identical twin, so my family is full of twin tales.  One of these tales is of the first time I toddled into the room to find my father seated beside his brother.  I don’t remember the incident, but I’m told that my shock at seeing my father duplicated rocked my small world enough that I promptly burst into tears and fled the room.  It was only after much cajoling and explanation that I re-emerged, now aware of the fact that some people in the world have brothers or sisters who look exactly like them.  And that my dad, and my uncle, were two of those people.

So, as soon as thirteen-year-old Lucy Sexton opened the door of her home to find a woman on the doorstep who looked exactly like her mother, yet wore shabby clothes and appeared far dirtier and thinner than the mother Lucy remembered seeing off that morning, I was hooked on The Twin’s Daughter.  The entire novel plays off this initial moment, and the subsequent changes to Lucy’s life after the arrival of her Aunt Helen.  There are lots of small changes to that life, followed by one big one: Lucy comes home one day to find one twin murdered and the other bound to a chair.  Lucy feels relief—a guilty relief, but relief nonetheless—when the survivor turns out to be her mother.  But the mother who emerges from the attack is so changed…is she really the person she claims to be?

Lauren Baratz-Logsted’s novel twists and turns and twists again.  It’s set in Victorian London, and it’s got a gothic mystery edge.  It’s also got a sweet love story to soften the edges of the bloody murder and dark shadows, a love story complete with love letters and chess matches and secret tunnels.  Lucy’s love for Kit survives an initially awkward meeting, Kit’s time away at war, and Lucy’s occasional irrational jealous bouts.  So if you like a little romance mixed in with your mystery, The Twin’s Daughter won’t disappoint you in that area.  Lucy thinks of herself and Kit as “mates of the soul who had been born into the universe instinctively knowing of the other’s existence, only waiting for the moment of meeting” (334).

A murder-mystery, a romance, an historical novel…The Twin’s Daughter steps into every pair of shoes, and every pair fits comfortably.  It’s a story about identity and deception that forces the reader to ask how well we know the people around us and, possibly, how well we know ourselves.  Lucy thinks of how she is “the witness, the observer, and how it’s impossible for the observer ever to know everything about the other people in the story…some things will, by necessity, always remain a mystery” (388).  Baratz-Logsted knows how to keep the mystery spinning right up to the last page, and beyond.


[Baratz-Logsted.  The Twin's Daughter. New York: Bloomsbury, 2010.]

LITTLE BROTHER

If you don’t think books should criticize the government, Little Brother is not for you.  The same goes if you don’t like reading about smart, snarky, savvy teenagers who repeatedly get the best of adults: stay away from Little Brother.  If techno-talk bores you—including when it’s about how to use technology for less-than-um… legal purposes, run in the other direction.  So be warned: the protagonists of Cory Doctorow’s novel don’t play by the rules, and if that bothers you, Little Brother probably won’t be a book you’ll enjoy.  But if you’re looking for a bold, intelligent novel that challenges both “the system” and the parameters of the YA genre, pick up Little Brother by Cory Doctorow and start reading.

The novel takes place in San Francisco in the not-too-distant future, and it’s narrated by seventeen-year-old Marcus, a high school senior who can “go through school firewalls like wet Kleenex, spoof the gait recognition software, and nuke the snitch chips they track us with”(10).  Marcus also enjoys participating in ARGs (Alternate Reality Games—I didn’t know what they were in my pre-Little Brother life, just as I didn’t know about LARPS, Bayesian statistics, or crypto), When Marcus cuts school to meet up with some friends to play the best ARG ever made, the plot takes off.  Or perhaps I should say, “explodes.”

Marcus and his team—Darryl, Van, and Jolu—are hunting for a clue when terrorists attack San Francisco, blowing up a bridge.  In the aftermath, Marcus and his friends are taken into custody by the Division of Homeland Security.  (Marcus: “You think I’m a terrorist?  I’m seventeen years old!” DHS Severe Haircut Lady: “Just the right age—Al Qaeda loves impressionable, idealistic kids.”)  Under the DHS, Marcus is tortured and interrogated and imprisoned.  He’s denied a lawyer.  When he’s finally released, after being forced to sign papers declaring that he’s been held “voluntarily,” Marcus is told by the DHS, “from now on, you belong to us.” 

When Marcus regains his footing, he finds that his best friend Darryl remains missing, presumably still held by the DHS.  Marcus becomes M1k3y, the leader of a growing pack of radical teenagers who use their technological expertise to take on the United States government.  There’s a lot of information about their techniques, from their x-box communications to their cell-phone jammers, but when his movement gets larger than Marcus ever imagined, some his friends start to question whether he’s lost his direction.  But Marcus won’t stop until he’s uncovered—and exposed—the truth about what happened to his best friend.

When Homeland Security asks for his phone password, Marcus refuses at first.  Marcus is a believer in the right to privacy, and in Little Brother he suffers for his belief.  When he finally relents, he thinks about the fact that “There’s something really liberating about having some corner of your life that’s yours, that no one gets to see except you” (57).  Little Brother is about challenging authority and privacy and freedom.  It’s a great book, an original book.  Some might even call it “dangerous.”  I can’t think of a better compliment.

A Journey Through Darkest Victorian London in FALLEN GRACE

I recently received a package of new and upcoming titles from Bloomsbury, including an advance copy of Mary Hooper’s gothic mystery Fallen Grace.  As soon I started reading Fallen Grace, I was swept away to Victorian England, to a world of corrupt funeral companies, desperate street urchins, opulent carriages and crooked pawn shops—a world where the divisions between rich and poor are starkly visible in a walk down any London street.  That’s one of the beauties of historical fiction: it transports readers to another time and place.  Hooper makes this world real and immediate, peppering her novel with meticulously researched details ranging from the fashion of the time to the inscriptions on gravestones.  Hooper places two orphaned teenagers into this world: Grace and her older, “simple” sister Lily. 

I have a confession.  My lists of “soon-to-read” (and “soon-to-blog-about”) books is always bigger than the hours I can devote to reading.  So, sometimes I’ll read the first paragraphs of several novels before settling into one.  I did this before I started Fallen Grace, and it was Mary Hooper’s novel than won me over with an opening scene I dare any reader to turn away from.  The book begins with Grace boarding a funeral train with her stillborn son in her arms, aiming to give him a proper burial by sneaking him into one of the caskets already occupied by someone wealthy enough to afford a funeral.  It’s a beginning rife with trouble, and as Janet Burroway wrote in her classic Writing Fiction: “only trouble is interesting.”

Hooper follows Burroway's advice zealously, and the trouble of the opening scene doesn’t relent.  Grace is destitute, sharing a single room with her sister in the poorest part of west London.  Though Lily is older, Grace must care for her, which she does with loyalty and kindness, and occasional moments of frustration.  The girls survive—barely—by selling bunches of watercress, a precipitous position they lose when a series of misfortunes land them homeless without a penny or possession to their name. 

The sequence of misfortunes catapults Grace and Lily into the lives of the corrupt Unwin’s, a family whose fortune is won in the funereal trade.  The Unwins are classic villains: when George Unwin tells his cousin “Sly” Sylvester Unwin that they have something to celebrate, Sylvester tries to guess, “What is it then?  New wave of cholera hit London?  Massed funerals all around?”  They’re easy to dislike, especially when their greedy ambitions come up against the possibility that Grace and Lily might finally catch a break.

Lots of trouble, a kindly young lawyer, a good-hearted midwife who makes a rash decision, dastardly villains, a foggy city…there’s much to love in Hooper’s novel, much to keep the pages turning.  The details about the business of death in Victorian London gives the book a rich, dark overtone.  This gloom is captured during Grace’s time as a “mute”—a professional mourner hired to work at the funerals of London’s rich and famous.  In the following passage, Grace waits deep in the catacombs for the funeral to arrive:

[B]y the light of the tallow candles on the wall, all she could see were small square cells fronted into iron grilles which contained coffins: coffins in pine, mahogany, elm, oak, and rosewood, some with names on, some without, some studded with gold nails, some covered in velvet, some with long-dead wreaths of roses atop or a single mouldering bloom.  Several had a favourite possession of the dead person placed beside them: a toy, a vase, a mildewed cushion.  So many dead, Grace thought in melancholy wonder, and realized, for perhaps the first time, that there were more dead people in the world than live ones.

Mary Hooper’s mixes history and mystery into a novel that’s hard to put down.  If you’re unafraid of a little darkness, try Fallen Grace.  It’s coming out from Bloomsbury on February 1, 2011 and it will be worth the wait.  (And if you want something to tide you over until February, try Philip Pullman’s The Ruby in the Smoke.  It’s another mystery set in Victorian London.  Hooper’s book reminded me of how much I enjoyed Pullman’s; they’d make a great pairing for any lover of gothic-style historical fiction.)

(Hooper, Mary.  Fallen Grace.  Bloomsbury Publishing, due out February 1, 2011)