I wonder if Gary Schmidt is great because he breaks rules so brazenly, and that assurance gives his writing style such panache. Or maybe he’s great beI wonder if Gary Schmidt is great because he breaks rules so brazenly, and that assurance gives his writing style such panache. Or maybe he’s great because of the ways he uses his style: to balance humor with tragedy - to create space within chaos for quiet - to descend into farce only to find our shared humanity.
And he does this while telling you exactly what he will be doing right in the beginning - Mrs. Bontemps would probably say it’s like a symbol in a book - which she is always on the lookout for. Schmidt piles on the symbolism here. It’s not just the storyline following Hercules the Myth’s labors - it’s the symbolism extending into more than one comparison: sometimes Hercules’s Reflections surprised me, because they highlight even more symbols than the ones specifically described in Hercules’s narrated life.
Power is dissipated by repetition, Lieutenant Colonel Hupfer writes, and yet Schmidt repeats and repeats and repeats. It’s not just the local news, or the grouchy neighbors, or the volunteering teachers. It’s the storms. It’s the accidents: you don’t like them? Have three. He’s so audacious that he descends into farce, where the humor and tragedy both are so broad as to be almost unbelievable. And yet the audacity is the point, I think: in that cascade of ridiculous events you find real life. In that repetition is humor - and pathos - and power.
And therein lies Schmidt’s greatest strength, which is to create balance: he writes the extended joke of Viola the Vampire, but he also takes a page to talk about Hercules’s parent-teacher conference. He doesn’t let any plot element drop (that hatchet conclusion…) and those narratives move beyond humor to encompass heartbreak and the sort of truths that shout into the quiet space he creates when he tells them.
This is really funny, too. That’s what makes the later punchlines hit so hard. It’s incredible that Viola-the-Vampire can become “You just said what you really meant,” - and this:
You know how someone says something to you, and you have to admit that what that person is saying is the same thing you’ve been saying, but suddenly you realize that what you’ve been saying, and what that person is saying back to you, isn’t really true - or at least, not as true as it once was, and isn’t now because - just because things can change, you know?
The tone of the narration - its deliberately imperfect storytelling, its careful focus, its voice - is almost perfect. It’s about life, all of this. It’s so far past unbelievability that it becomes about the ridiculously implausible connections and contradictions and “can you believe this is real?” reactions that actually populate our lives.
This is not a perfect book. Its place within the Schmidt novels’ timeline is confusing. There’s one important conversation where Hercules sounds much too old and not at all like himself. The ending is weak in places (a familiar Schmidt flaw). But Schmidt’s command of the story, writing and plotlines, is so authoritative and so confident that his books feel inevitable, flaws and all: like they couldn’t possibly be any other way.
And the great thing about the tenor of the narration and the layered symbolism and the hilariously direct writing critiques (“really really”) - is how aware Schmidt is while writing. I know what I’m doing, he’s assuring you, when he pens this:
Your insights into the behavior of Hercules are clear and on target - though perhaps muddied somewhat by your persistent habit of repetition.
Could there be a better summary of this book? The insights are the point - the repetition is the point - even the muddiness is the point. This is life, Schmidt is telling you. This, with all its metaphors and melodrama. It’s both clear and confusing. Look for the parallels; this has happened before; you are not alone.
In the dim barn, it was hard to gauge subtleties of emotion,
Kate DiCamillo can really, really write. Wow.
This is from the beginning of chapter four:
In the dim barn, it was hard to gauge subtleties of emotion, particularly in the eyes of a being who had seldom before evidenced subtleties of any sort, but Brother Edik thought he recognized the flicker in the goat’s eye.
There’s writing which doesn’t talk down to kids, and then there’s this.
This is a concise, contained story, beautifully written, thematically elegant, completely impressive:
Where, Brother Edik wondered, was the prophecy for all of this?
It’s a medieval setting where the grimness is balanced by some fairy tale elements: a king, and a prophecy, and a jail cell, and an oily tutor, and a boy with a king’s sword - and bees, and mermaids, and goats.
To me this doesn’t pack the punch of the great DiCamillo contemporaries, because there’s something wish-fulfillmenty about it, about a medieval setting with this ending… But if you read it as a fairy tale, it’s almost perfect....more
Riveting stuff. I couldn’t put this down. This is brilliantly structured and fast-paced and written in Sheinkin’s typically racy style. It’s got presiRiveting stuff. I couldn’t put this down. This is brilliantly structured and fast-paced and written in Sheinkin’s typically racy style. It’s got presidents and pilots and scientists and spies and submariners and Cuban rebels and the space race; it packs in so much detail about the Cold War without ever feeling like it’s skimming the surface - or slogging through it all.
A great beginning -
Jimmy took the new coin and went back to playing stickball. He would be in college before he realized that he’d stumbled into a series of events that were moving the globe’s two great powers to the brink of the third - and final - world war.
Fascinating personalities -
Khrushchev’s son Sergei, who was training to be a rocket scientist, asked his father why he didn’t roar to the world about the offensive and illegal American flights.
Nikita told his son: “The weak complain against the strong.”
And quite the Acknowledgements section -
I’m especially grateful to Dr. Sergei Khrushchev, who generously agreed to answer my questions about those private talks he had with his father during the missile crisis. Dr. Khrushchev, who became a U.S. citizen in 1999, died in June 2020. Through his writing and lectures, he has given us insight into key moments of Cold War history that literally could not have come from anywhere else.
This is impressively researched - I read all the notes in the back - and full of little, important details often unemphasized: the victims of the H-bomb testing, and JFK’s bad back and the recording equipment he used, and the heroes who tried to topple the Berlin Wall, and the Soviet show trials, and the CIA’s collaboration with a mobster.
It’s all here, and it’s all coherent. I’m sure it’s not comprehensive, in the sense that it’s impossible for 303 pages to summarize an entire decade, much less the lives of pivotal world leaders (and I’m also sure, in the source materials, that someone somewhere considered definitive was not completely honest) - but this is the stuff history classes should be made of.
This might be Sheinkin’s best book yet. It’s masterful....more
Mediocre, I think, and not particularly memorable.
Maybe it’s because the book is vague to the point of indefiniteness, and it’s hard to hold onto somMediocre, I think, and not particularly memorable.
Maybe it’s because the book is vague to the point of indefiniteness, and it’s hard to hold onto something which simply isn’t there… There are moments where I can see real potential, but they're usually left untouched; this makes them less powerful, not more.
Maybe it’s because the voice feels unrealistic for an eleven year old, even a smart one - or particularly a smart one, who questions only some things and not the central conceit of the story. (view spoiler)[What would you do, if you suddenly saw a ghost? I’d ask myself that, reading this, and this book doesn’t provide a believable answer. (hide spoiler)] I wonder if, genre-wise, it’s meant to be magical realism? That tends not to work for me, but also: I’m not sure this book is specific enough to be categorized as magical realism.
Maybe it’s because the book switches between past and present tense in the beginning, to the point where I had to read it twice to understand it. (“Where is your editor”, my constant refrain.)
I’m not sure I could tell you the plot of this book, frankly. (I read it a week ago.) I remember the ending - that works - but the rest of it is a blur of meetings and potential friends and letters and ghosts and dogs and the shadowy adult that is Aunt Monica.
Shadowy might be the right word here. I like a lot more sunlight; it throws things into vivid relief....more
Really not a story at all. It’s got hints of story around the edges - tiny peeks at characterization - but this is almost what it says it’s not, rightReally not a story at all. It’s got hints of story around the edges - tiny peeks at characterization - but this is almost what it says it’s not, right at the beginning:
For once we got good homework, not useless stuff like worksheets.
This reads like a worksheet to me.
It’s not useless, but it’s not story, either. It’s written in verse; I probably wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t all been center-aligned, I just would have thought it was overly choppy. But it is center-aligned, and less easy to read as a result....more
Almost perfect. It’s got that signature Schmidt style (it might be recognizable, but it’s always great) but is less sprawling than other Schmidt booksAlmost perfect. It’s got that signature Schmidt style (it might be recognizable, but it’s always great) but is less sprawling than other Schmidt books - it feels like it takes up less space than them, like it’s narrower in scope. It’s a result of this being historical fiction written as historical fiction, I think, whereas his other books read like historical fiction written as contemporary fiction.
Maybe “narrower” isn’t the right description, but this definitely feels constrained by history: there’s only one way this could end, and that gives the story a degree of inevitability. It’s a hard world out there, and this doesn’t shy away from that.
I think Schmidt has grown as a writer since this book’s publication, but the classic Schmidt storytelling elements are all here. This is really, really worthwhile.
(It’s unfair to compare the two, but I was reminded of Hardinge’s The Lie Tree, even though the two share nothing but ministers and a Darwin mention. And yet if Hardinge’s book were more complex, I can’t help but think it would read something like this.)...more
This is written in present tense, which rarely works for me. It’s so - present. AnI wanted to love this - Brandy’s review got me so excited.
And yet.
This is written in present tense, which rarely works for me. It’s so - present. And intrusive. Every in-the-moment observation feels overly global; there is no narrator who knows, in the moment, what is relevant to a narration. There are times when this works, when it’s part of the characterization, when Lily really is thinking and analyzing in beats in between speaking. But for an entire book? It’s too much. And every “-ed” suffix stands out like a sore thumb.
…Sam tries so hard not to be a stereotype that she wears black lipstick and bleached a lock of her hair and says every little thought that comes to mind.
I don’t think it’s wrong - or is it? - but it’s grating. (This is persnickety for just one example, but why can’t you write “bleaches”? It will grow out, so wouldn’t Sam have to keep redoing it anyway?)
Delicious! the tiger cried. But if you give a tiger a rice cake, he’s going to want something to go with it. More!
And:
Sighing, the halmoni would put the stories away and sing. Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises -
And:
And I feel a flicker of recognition in my heart - like a tiger lifting its head inside me. I remember Dad reading to us - If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Where the Wild Things Are, Goodnight Moon.
Clever. Clever, clever, clever. (I didn’t catch a Where the Wild Things Are reference. But maybe I missed it.) (hide spoiler)]
And yet. In the big-picture sense, even this cleverness doesn’t work for me. Because all of it makes the storytelling smaller: (view spoiler)[this isn’t, as the tiger first tells Lily, “an ancient story. Do not worry about who it once belonged to” - ultimately the book contradicts that. The pearl is Halmoni’s story. The entire skyscape of stars boils down to one woman’s granddaughter, to the Korean legends which are actually personal history and American children’s books, to how everything, everything, interrelates. (hide spoiler)] And I can’t help but think - shouldn’t this be bigger than that? Shouldn’t it be messier than that? Something about it is beautiful: grandmother as superwoman. But mostly it doesn’t work for me.
And so maybe what I’m objecting to, ultimately, is the magical realism, which centers the book almost claustrophobically on one slice of story and presents it as if it is symbolic of all stories everywhere. It’s too neat.
And it’s too glib: rice cakes in all recipes - tiger hunters and traps - bleached streaks - flooded basements - grumpy librarians -
The really great ones sing. And this one just doesn’t for me....more
I didn’t remember much about The One and Only Ivan before reading this (in my head, I tend to refer to it as “the last good year the Newbery had” - wiI didn’t remember much about The One and Only Ivan before reading this (in my head, I tend to refer to it as “the last good year the Newbery had” - with the possible exception of this year? I’m getting to that) and this book does a good job recapping.
Its strength is its tone (and its illustrations): this is a book that only works because of the writing style. It’s well done, though I’d say not up to the level of Cynthia Voigt, but the storyline is thin, and its thinness reminds me of why I dislike most animal stories: they try to be about people at the same time. They reach for profundity with commentary and pointed remarks that just don’t work with the overall tone....more
The only reason this isn’t five stars is because of Okay For Now. (This isn’t as perfect as Okay For Now, which is practically perfect in every way, wThe only reason this isn’t five stars is because of Okay For Now. (This isn’t as perfect as Okay For Now, which is practically perfect in every way, with the exception of that last chapter. I haven’t reread it in years and I still think about it. It is fabulous.)
Just Like That is fabulous, too. It’s also messier. It shifts between two characters. It creates jarring contrasts.
This starts as the story of Meryl Lee, who can’t face going back to her Long Island public school after her best friend dies in a car accident, and so her parents enroll her in a boarding school. In Maine. That’s... unexpected. (view spoiler)[Of course, you find out later it isn’t the only reason she’s enrolled there. Still: jarring. (hide spoiler)]
She arrives to find out there are strong class distinctions in place, enforced even by the staff, while Meryl Lee (who went to public school, remember?) is unexpectedly successful as an activist. It’s simplistic - how entrenched can those delineations be, if an eighth-grader can upend them? - but successful, too. It’s folded so neatly into the criticism of the Vietnam War, and the changing American society, and the more specific bullying you’d expect in a school story, and the friends Meryl Lee makes.
She said, “Thank you, Mrs. Mott. I would like to consider what trading with the Mets for Tom Seaver might mean to the possibility of the New York Yankees winning another World Series by the end of the decade.”
Everyone looked at her as if she had upchucked next to the splattered biscuit on the antique Persian carpet from Mashhad.
And Mrs. Mott said, “I wonder, Miss Kowalski, why you might find this to be of interest in a conversation about national and international events.”
These are contrasts, and they’re purposely out of place - but they work almost everywhere, because Just Like That is about finding a place, and finding your footing as you get there. The contrasts showcase the growing pains.
And the book also tells Matt’s story - backwards, to begin with, and simply. There are moments where suspension of disbelief is required, which is not quite in keeping with the quiet horror ((view spoiler)[a Secret Service agent? Ashley? Really?(hide spoiler)]), but even those are folded in neatly. They’re too intertwined to be picked out.
The narration changes in tone when it switches between Meryl Lee and Matt - and yet the more emotionally astute character has more simplistic writing, and the less astute character has a starker approach, and something about the mismatch is jarring. It feels a little sloppy, but it’s probably deliberate: the entire book features mismatches, in the story it tells, in the people it puts together.
Meryl Lee’s narration is almost childish compared to Matt’s. She talks about the Blank and Obstacles and Resolution and Accomplishments and Charlotte from Charlotte. But then Schmidt takes those repeated terms and applies them in other places, to other losses. There are moments when the narration just - resonates. There are even moments of decent in-story poetry. Sometimes Schmidt clarifies too much (like when he explains his Scarecrow joke), but he also writes sentences like “Me either,” said Meryl Lee, and trusts that you’ll catch that.
Ultimately, this is a pretty basic storyline. It’s made complex by the way it plays personalities off each other, by the way it gives people a chance. In a way that itself is simplistic: wouldn’t you expect to find a heart of gold beneath the curmudgeon in a story? Yet Schmidt makes these people live. They have neighbors. They have sons. Does he go too far? Are elements overdrawn? Is Marian too much of a slapstick character? Are the names hyperbolic? Should he have recycled E. B. White’s math problem joke? (view spoiler)[Should the demonstration have been less successful? Are the scholarships realistic? What will happen when what’s-her-name comes back from Budapest? (hide spoiler)]
Have I made a coherent point somewhere? I’m not sure. This book makes me wave my hands and spout gibberish, because I loved the experience of reading it. I have questions and bones to pick - but I finished and flipped right back to the beginning. Read this....more
This is so deliberate with metaphor that it’s almost ponderous with it. It has its moments, but it isn’t long enough to make it out from under that weThis is so deliberate with metaphor that it’s almost ponderous with it. It has its moments, but it isn’t long enough to make it out from under that weight.
Bonus points for a literal Chekhov’s gun, though: the crashing end to the fantasy element in this book made me wish for something less metaphorical about grief, because there was something so raw and empty about it. That distance makes me wonder if maybe this was DiCamillo’s suitcase - a novel version reflecting the characters themselves....more
I decided to read a bunch of Kate DiCamillos this weekend as my way of protesting the Newbery overlooking Beverly Right Here. (Everyone should read thI decided to read a bunch of Kate DiCamillos this weekend as my way of protesting the Newbery overlooking Beverly Right Here. (Everyone should read that, by the way.) This is the best of them: it’s fabulous. DiCamillo never loses sight of the tone needed to pull this book off. This is also impressively brief in a way that manages to both cover a lot of ground - good pacing! - and get away with discussing some real ugliness; it never feels like it’s luxuriating in its darkness (in a great balancing act, it also doesn’t feel like it’s glossing over issues). This is creative and clever and haunting, and I’ve read almost nothing else like it.
There’s a really brief moment in Streatfeild’s Family Shoes that’s stuck with me for a long time: when Jane says that their father once preached that “too late” are the two saddest words in the English language. This book puts forth a strong contender for the three saddest words: “You disappoint me.” It hits you like a ton of bricks....more
November 2020: Still more spectacular than anything published last year and - from my admittedly limited knowledge - better than this year’s crop, tooNovember 2020: Still more spectacular than anything published last year and - from my admittedly limited knowledge - better than this year’s crop, too. Deceptively simple. A tour de force.
January 2020: What a spectacular piece of writing this is, from its title about Beverly, who is always leaving, to the story, about where she ends up, and what she does when she gets there. This is a book distinguished by its setting, by its beautifully deliberate writing, by the brightness of its colors and the way those colors convey contrast and place and characterization.
Instead, she went down to the beach. She stood and stared at the big indifferent ocean. It sparkled as if nothing at all were wrong. The sand was hot. The sky was a merciless blue - not a lapis lazuli blue, not an angel-wing blue, but the washed-out, giving-up blue of the end of things, the blue of August in Florida.
I think Elmer steals the show. This is Beverly’s book - but it’s Elmer, who is steady and open and present, who facilitates that. The way his story is told - the way Elmer tells it, in bits and pieces; the way Beverly listens and responds, piecemeal as well, to the extent she can - they break my heart.
And the way the book ends, like it’s a too-bright interlude interspersed with both the mundane and the fantastical (the world’s largest turkey, the tackle, angels in dreams, the crooked sea, the equity strike, Dartmouth, the seagull, that horse) - there’s something both larger than life and very contained about it, as if it’s not quite real while also the first time Beverly has come to grips with her own impact on the world around her. With the questions she asks, and the way she asks them, and the way that changes over the course of the book - (“It’s not killing me,” said Beverly. “It’s doing the opposite of killing me.”) -
“It will always have the crease, I suppose,” said Iola. “But it’s yours, and you should keep it, honey.”
Ain’t that the truth.
I’m resorting to cliche because I’ve run out of words for how spectacularly written this is, with its colors and contrasts and characters. I want more. I want a sequel about Elmer. I want another story about Raymie, who’s been left again. Beverly wasn’t ready to think about collateral damage when she left; she just couldn’t stay. In a way this is her pre-coming-of-age story. She’s unstuck now - now she can begin growing up.
This is beautiful, beautiful classic middle grade fiction. If the Newbery doesn’t recognize this later this month, I will strike....more
This is an impressive piece of writing. Not just of nonfiction writing - of writing. The pacing is jerky in places, particularly in the beginning, butThis is an impressive piece of writing. Not just of nonfiction writing - of writing. The pacing is jerky in places, particularly in the beginning, but the writing is understated in a way that’s beautiful - that makes this work about its content, not its prose or its author.
The waves kept coming. A few adults were able to grab some children and hold them above the waves, but Bess watched child after child drown right in front of her.
I’d never read about this particular boat before, or about Mary Cornish (I’d remember if I had, she’s impossible to forget). Their stories are shocking and immersive. There’s a grimness in the subject matter that gives the book heft, makes its importance obvious.
And yet the year is 1940 and this is one of many, many ships torpedoed, and a few dozen of millions of murdered children. I’m editorializing here: I think it’s interesting how, in the cover design, the words “World War II” are so much more prominent than the rest of the subtitle. World War II gives any work immediate gravitas. We carry so many impressions of it, and we bring that sense of enormity - of impact, of destruction - to every piece of media on the topic. I’m not saying that this work borrows on our preexisting knowledge - I think it acknowledges it, in telling this story. I think it says, by the simple fact of its being written, that behind every statistic is a child, and a grieving family, and a network of people who were affected.
That this is a work of nonfiction, that everything in it is true, and beautifully and respectfully presented, makes it so that that these people’s deaths are not absorbed in the vastness of the twenty million deaths of the war.
If the Newbery recognizes this, I will be thrilled....more
I found the writing of Butterfly Yellow weak almost to the point of incoherence. It never clicked for me - the sentence structure was jittery and the I found the writing of Butterfly Yellow weak almost to the point of incoherence. It never clicked for me - the sentence structure was jittery and the word choice often incomprehensible, and that threw me out of the story almost as soon as I began. The characters never worked for me, I never understood their motivations or believed their stories, and I had a difficult time with the dialect and so never understood how they could communicate.
A few examples:
A tingle begins in her toes; her cheekbones lift. This, despite a distrust of hope.
Is she - smiling? What are lifted cheekbones?
Living in the Bronx, the cousin always introduces LeeRoy to the latest.
Arghhhh. That’s my least favorite form of dependent clause.
Eating, though, can’t be imagined, not when more time will be spent on this lumbering truck. Not as tormenting as the boat/bus, it still bounces and swerves aplenty.
PICK A WORD. Slashes are for unpublished drafts.
Also, those discourses on grammar (something I’d expect to love!) felt completely different in tone and unrelated to the story. This is an actual paragraph:
Every sentence forces her to contemplate subject-predicate agreement, matching tenses (remembering the tense is determined by the first word in a verb phrase), transitive verbs needing a direct object, or intransitive verbs requiring none, or irregular verbs that can’t add -ed for past tense, then the pronoun must match the noun, then ridiculous articles “a, an, the” (if dismissed the meaning would remain unaltered), dangling modifiers, gerunds that can be subjects or objects, then parts of speech that require dizzying costume changes. After that, she must pronounce the whole scheme and hope her brother can understand.
...Yeah, that didn’t work.
Something I did really like:
He parks underneath a scraggly tree, the only shade near a store. “Be right back.”
Three concise words, without any fat. English at its best.
Mostly, though, the writing threw me out of the story, to the point where I wondered: why does the put-upon LeeRoy stay? Where are the rest of Mr. Morgan’s employees, and what was he planning to do if his neighbor’s not-quite-adopted unforeseen long-lost sister hadn’t shown up, along with a ride somehow persuaded to stay out the summer?
Too much has to be explained after the fact, because the text doesn’t do a good job earlier, to clearly present impact (like the note in that ending), but sometimes the bits which are parceled out slowly are too obvious and repetitive (like the flashbacks, repetitive early, but with so little information that they feel meaningless, and more information is revealed too late).
I wanted to like this; I really liked Listen, Slowly. Alas....more
I know, I know, this is a book about animals, and those aren't usually my thing. But this is spectacularlyHey, Newbery committee! You missed this one!
I know, I know, this is a book about animals, and those aren't usually my thing. But this is spectacularly done in that regard: what the animals know, how they learn it, how they communicate. It's impressive.
And the writing, unsurprisingly, is superb:
Toaff understood - of course he did - that a smart squirrel would go back up to his den. He understood it as well as if his mother was right there reminding him. But he also wondered what it would be like to slide along the ice. Slide was a word that went on and on before abruptly ending, as if its paws had gone out from under it.
Missus began to talk, but not in the voice she had used before. This new talking was that long line of sound the color of squirrels' tails, or silver moonlight. Missus talked and talked, winding the line of sound around her baby, and the baby grew quiet.
And there's what Toaff learns, and how, and each day being almost a war with nature; how carefully considered the point of view is, and how there's no traditional structure or end.
This reminds me a little of that Selden book where Tucker ends up in the country: somehow more human for not being about people. Really beautifully done....more
The more things change, the more they stay the same...
I first heard of this radio production in elementary school, in one of those reading compilationThe more things change, the more they stay the same...
I first heard of this radio production in elementary school, in one of those reading compilations, and my general impression was of mass hysteria and gullibility - for years. I read Getting It Wrong a few years ago, in which the author posits that this narrative was a result of sensationalist newspapers trying to limit an upstart new media; I found that terribly plausible and fascinating, but I largely forgot it: that book was only one source, after all, and I had years of vague historical impressions counting against it.
And then I read this book, which is really, really good. I think Jarrow outlines three things that contributed to the "gullible Americans" narrative. (Or maybe it's four: the show, in contrast to Orson Welles's expectations, was apparently fabulous and convincing.) 1. Sensationalist headlines sell newspapers, and newspapers on strict schedules don't look too closely at stories. (That woman who lied about her broken arm because she wanted her picture in the paper? The more things change...) 2. Newspapers were worried about that young new media form directly competing with them! 3. A Princeton study which I'd never heard of before, which surveyed 135 people, deliberately including 107 people who admitted beforehand that they'd been frightened by the show, assuring the public that their sample was representative and their results scientific. (They weren't.)
I also did not know that "The War of the Worlds" was written in program listings, or that it was announced at the start of the show, before and after the break, or to close the show.
This is all incredibly fascinating. Interestingly, I found the information parceled out confusingly, maybe to avoid taking sides? It's all there, though, and I like how Jarrow keeps the contemporary implications in mind while staying clearly in the historical nonfiction camp.
But my favorite parts are the excerpts she prints of letters sent to CBS and the FCC. It's amazing stuff. In fact, I'm tempted to track down these records and read them in full myself. Here's a taste:
"Perhaps if you'd put on your little play fifty years ago it would have been a joke but the way science has progressed in that time, surely nothing is impossible."
"This only goes to prove... that the intelligent people were listening to a dummy, and all the dummies were listening to you."
"We trust that the air was released from your auto tires and your windows thoroughly soaped."
"Don't people THINK anymore? My God, what the propagandists of the next war can do!"
"The American public got a slight taste of the fear which overshadows the people of Europe constantly."
"It shakes one's faith in democracy to think that such hysteria and panic can affect people who are supposed to vote intelligently next week."
"The infernal machines passed within a few blocks from my house... and I didn't think to step outside to see them. After New York was destroyed we all went to bed."
I read three compelling books this weekend. This was the first, and the easiest to talk about. It's a straightforward story - maybe too straightforwarI read three compelling books this weekend. This was the first, and the easiest to talk about. It's a straightforward story - maybe too straightforward - the sort of children's book where the child is the focus of the story, that which propels it forward. There's a charm to that, because often children are reactive. I don't mean passive: think of Narnia, where they walk through a wardrobe and find themselves in another world. How many children's books read like that?
There's a certain unreality to this type of storytelling, too. It's exciting, the idea that children can shape their worlds. But somehow it's less convincing to me than Narnia. "What if?" is a more persuasive foundation upon which to build a book. "What if my world is bigger than I imagine? What if I face something unexpected?" It speaks to me more than "How can I solve everyone's problems, armed only with a good heart?"
It's not a fantasy-over-contemporary preference, either. Mia has so much success that I find her almost incongruous in her own story. Possessing enormous, inspiring goodwill isn't really the key to clawing your way out of poverty before you've hit teenagehood, is it? Mia's circumstances are important, though, and maybe, like her parents say, this is the story of America, and you are freer here. It's a message I didn't expect to find in these - let's say tumultuous - times.
As an aside: I can make a strong case for Jason being the best character in the book, starting with the fact that he's the only one who actually changes. The world needs Mias, scarce though they may be. But it needs more Jasons, people who come to look beyond themselves, to learn empathy - simply because there are more Jasons in the world....more
I loved absolutely everything about this. I'm thinking of buying it. In hardcover.
There is so much that is so great in Inkling: the story, for starteI loved absolutely everything about this. I'm thinking of buying it. In hardcover.
There is so much that is so great in Inkling: the story, for starters! The smart conflict, where Ethan doesn't try to hide things for too long! The way Inkling learns! And then there's the story beneath the story, because this is also about the way we all learn. It's about great books and violence in fiction and writer's block and talent and plagiarism and ethics. And parenting. And grief. It's got complex conflict and comic-book conflict; a great child "enemy" and a great adult comic-book-esque villain; an eye to all sorts of ways of telling a story all while - very beautifully - telling a story itself.
YOU MUST HAVE COURAGE. IF YOU DRAW ONE TRUE LINE AFTER ANOTHER, YOU WILL NOT FAIL.
"Who's he talking like now?" Soren asked.
"I think he's still on Ernest Hemingway."
I stopped reading to laugh.
There are moments that are less subtle, and even they are pitch-perfect in tone:
"I keep newspapers for him to eat. He likes comics a lot, but they make him hyper. I've been trying to give him more books."
I found that hilarious, sure, but that actually does so much more than obliquely mock! It puts Ethan in a parenting role, and then you realize just how familiar that role is to him, and so this becomes a commentary on grief, too.
There's an amazing balance here, because so much happens while so much is simultaneously referenced, and it's all so deft.
And then there's the ending, which is FABULOUS: clever and satisfying and so suggestive of more story. I spent a good five minutes after I finished this thinking of all the ways in which this story could go. There's so much possibility here.
It's been a while since I could babble about a book like this, desperate to convey how much I loved it and convinced I can't possibly be doing it justice. So finally, because I can't say more: this is great, and you should read it....more
I can't stand Dear Diary format; I find it overly self-aware to the point where it veers into uncomfortablThis is written in Dear Diary format. Sigh.
I can't stand Dear Diary format; I find it overly self-aware to the point where it veers into uncomfortably self-conscious. Case in point:
Dear Diary,
The only thing weirder than me is my teacher creature. Aurelia. I know I said she might feel like she has to introduce herself to you again, even though she's been around as long as you have, but I just realized that it's been years, so maybe you don't remember her. Maybe it's you who needs the again-introduction.
Sighhhhhh.
I suppose I could enumerate all the many ways in which I find that type of narration incredibly frustrating. Or maybe I'm old and out of touch. But goodness: unless you're the Dowager Duchess, and your diary entries come after a series of hilarious letters (so the actual details are already set) and their purpose is to provide shading and context instead of all the narration - maybe skip the format? It's nails-on-a-chalkboard grating. We all know you're talking to us, not the diary. No one writes in a diary like this.
Anyway, the actual story is fine, even though it's simple and straightforward and short (maybe too short), and I like Sunny's voice when he's not pretending the reader doesn't exist.
And there is one fabulous paragraph:
I asked him if he was okay, and he just nodded. Then he bent over, his puzzled face kissing my mother's puzzled cheek, then swiped the puzzle box off the table. All the peace, but none of the pieces.
If only the entire book was this inventive, this delightfully experimental, this playful with words - this focused on voice and writing instead of an imaginary, artificial audience....more
I'm filling in the blanks leading up to the last book's release and so far nothing's lived up to The Penderwicks in Spring. This is delightfully writtI'm filling in the blanks leading up to the last book's release and so far nothing's lived up to The Penderwicks in Spring. This is delightfully written, and old-fashioned, and charming, and I believed not a word of it....more
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