Review of Peace, Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson

Woodson, Jacqueline. Peace, Locomotion. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2009.

There are some writers who just knock me right over with their writing talent. They know how to hone their words down to the most essential bones, so that the language is deceptively simple but contains maximum beauty and meaning. Patricia MacLachlan is one, Susan Patron is another. Simplicity, pithiness, grace, and humor – they make it look so easy.

That Jacqueline Woodson belongs on that list was made crystal clear yet again by Peace, Locomotion. This book is told mostly through Lonnie’s letters to his sister Lili, who as we know from Locomotion is living in a different foster family, as well as a few of Lonnie’s poems. This is tough stuff. Lonnie is doing really well, considering that he’s in a foster family, is separated from his sister, and is still getting over the death of his parents. After all, he has gotten close to his foster mother Miss Edna and his foster brother Rodney, he’s got a nifty new teacher who appreciates his poetry, and his friend Clyde is a great guy to have in your corner. But Miss Edna’s older son Jenkins is in Iraq, where he is wounded in body and spirit – and Lonnie can’t help but miss his sister and his parents every day.

That the good and the bad parts of life are inextricably meshed in anyone’s life comes through clearly as Lonnie writes to Lili in his clear, honest, unsentimental voice. He’s a real poet – he always tries to get to the truth and heart of the matter. There’s never any soppiness – just straightforward words like these, which made me cry after all the stuff these three guys and Miss Edna have been through:

“Dear Lili,

A few days ago, Miss Edna took some pictures of me, Rodney and Jenkins. Me and Rodney were sitting on the couch and Jenkins was in his wheelchair. Miss Edna said, I can’t believe I’m going to finally have some pictures of my three favorite men.

And guess what? Today we got the pictures back. Miss Edna waited until we was all sitting down for dinner before she pulled them out. She said, I got something I think is going to crack a smile out of the hardest nut. Then she showed us the pictures and there was Jenkins, not even smiling one bit but giving me rabbit ears!

We laughed for a long, long time.

Love and Peace and Rabbit Ears,
Locomotion”

Thanks to Woodson's skill, Lonnie comes alive for the reader - he's as vivid to me as many a real person, and more so than some I know! I'd recognize him if I saw him walking toward me on the street.

Highly recommended for grades 4 and up. Newbery contender, definitely.

Review of Shooting the Moon by Frances O'Roark Dowell

Shooting the Moon by Frances O'Roark Dowell (Atheneum 2008)

If Jamie had the good luck to be an 18-year-old boy instead of a 12-year-old girl, she’d enlist in the army so fast, it’d make your head spin. But she isn’t, and so she volunteers at the rec center, keeping things tidy and playing endless games of gin rummy with her friend Private Hollister.

It’s her older brother TJ who chooses to enlist rather than go to college, and he is sent to Vietnam as a combat medic, much to TJ’s excitement and envy. Strangely, their father the Colonel, who is chief of staff at Fort Hood and apparently a gung-ho hooah Army man through and through, doesn’t seem nearly so thrilled about TJ’s decision.

When TJ, always an enthusiastic amateur photographer, begins sending rolls of film to Jamie from Vietnam, she learns to develop them so that she can send TJ the contact sheets. This brings her in contact with Sgt. Byrd, who has a way with words and a point of view about Vietnam that startles Jamie and makes her think. Even more startling are TJ’s photos, which start out as innocuous shots of barracks and smiling soldiers but soon become grimmer as they depict the horrors of war. It’s not long after TJ sends back an entire roll of photos of the moon that he disappears.

Jamie is a straightforward person – she knows who she is, what she wants, and what she likes. It’s when the folks around her confound her expectations of them that she begins to question things. Even so, it comes as a shock to her when she learns that her own father is equally capable of thinking for himself and coming to his own conclusions about the war.

With the exception of Jamie’s mom, who remains somewhat of a cardboard figure, every character is carefully drawn, from gawky Private Hollister to Jamie’s needy neighbor Cindy. TJ is enigmatic. Was it a desire to please his dad that led him to enlist, or maybe a childish desire to see new and exotic places? Why did he always love taking pictures of the moon, and why did he revert to his old hobby? I imagined him becoming so shell-shocked that he preferred to point his camera up at the sky at night rather than down at the misery and heartache all around him under the harsh light of day. We learn that he comes home safely after two years as a POW, and the moon photos allow us to guess that his sensitivity probably made these years a hell for him even as his creativity gave him the resilience to survive.

This is a heavy topic, but Jamie’s matter-of-fact voice and the plentiful touches of humor keep things from getting too grim or sentimental. In fact, the true hell of that war is kept at a distance from both Jamie and the reader, although we can guess at the anguish that her family will feel at knowing nothing about TJ’s fate or whereabouts for a long, long time when, after mentioning that her brother does come home from the prison camp eventually, Jamie says as the book’s last sentence, “But we didn’t know that yet.” What a powerful and subtle way of summing up what this family will go through – it gave me a jolt that I’m sure many perceptive young readers will feel as well.

Grades 5 - 8

Review of Greetings from Nowhere by Barbara O'Connor

Sometimes a book comes along that hits you in just the right way. It doesn’t klonk you over the head with its fabulousness, but rather it quietly sinks into your mind and heart as you read it, creating a mood that lingers.

Greeting from Nowhere by Barbara O’Connor (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008) is such a book. O’Connor’s previous book Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia was a highly pleasant read, but I must confess that I didn’t finish How to Steal a Dog – the conjunction of my mood and the style of the first 20 pages was not auspicious. Perhaps I’ll give it another try.

It isn’t often that a children’s book opens with the thoughts and actions of an adult character. Aggie and her husband Harold have run the Sleepytime Motel in North Carolina for decades, but now Harold is dead and Aggie is old and the Sleepytime Motel is run-down. Aggie decides to sell the place and move in with her sister.

Willow’s father, at loose ends after Willow’s mother leaves them, decides to buy the motel sight unseen, and he drags an unwilling and despondent Willow to the Great Smoky Mountains to make the transaction.

Meanwhile, Kirby’s fed-up and high-strung mom is driving him to what amounts to a reform school in a last-ditch effort to get him to behave. Her hair-trigger temper and apparent lack of affection for Kirby make it clear why Kirby is not exactly a delight of a boy. They are not far from the motel when their junker dies along the side of the road, and so they get a room until money arrives to fix the car.

Finally, Loretta receives a mysterious package that contains small keepsakes from her long-lost birth mother, who has just died. One of the treasures is a charm bracelet with charms from various parts of the U.S., including the Great Smoky Mountains. Her parents suggest that they visit these places, one at a time, and so they head off. When night falls, they find themselves at the Sleepytime Motel.

As the families arrive, one by one, Aggie’s second thoughts about selling her motel become stronger. This place has been her whole life! But she knows she can’t keep it going any longer. She fills out the paperwork reluctantly to sell the motel to Willow’s dad, and tries to keep her mind off leaving by getting to know the three kids who are staying at the motel.

The interactions between Aggie and the children, between the children and their parents, and among the children themselves are the heart of this tale. Kirby is antisocial and feels deeply trapped by the negative way the people around him (in particular his mom) feel about him, Willow has been uprooted from everything she knows and is desperate for any word from her mother, and Loretta – well, Loretta is such a ray of sunshine, with such amazingly sweet and supportive parents, that nothing much is ever going to keep her down.

These three kids behave toward each other as children do toward kids they don’t know – with varying degrees of wariness, friendliness, or shyness, depending on the child and the situation. Aggie likes kids, all kids, and doesn’t hesitate to bring pull them into her orbit, by gentle force when necessary. Without Aggie, they all might have stayed apart, but Aggie is a wonderfully cozy and nonjudgmental hub. They talk, play, and eventually all pitch in together to make the motel ready for a tour group. Not much goes on, but all the conversations and thoughts we overhear are right on target.

The three families are only at the motel a few days before two of them move on, but quite a bit goes on underneath the uneventful surface of their visit. Aggie’s agitation about her own impending move strikes a chord with Willow, who knows what it’s like to leave what you love; doing something to help Aggie brings a lot of healing to Willow herself. Kirby gets to experience the restful and satisfying feeling of being around people who like and value him rather than fear and resent him, something that may make his stay at the boarding school a bit more successful than it would have been otherwise. And Loretta - well, Loretta and her parents already knew how lucky they are.

So – a quiet tale, a humble setting. Nothing earthshaking happens. The characters are regular folks. Somehow, though, thanks to some wonderfully understated writing and a keen knowledge of how people think and talk, it all comes together in a satisfying package.

For grades 4 - 6

Review of Savvy by Ingrid Law

Savvy by Ingrid Law (Dial Books, 2008)

Mississippi (but call her Mibs) Beaumont is about to turn 13, a momentous occasion in her family; on their 13th birthdays, family members come into their “savvy,” a special and unique gift. Mib’s brother Fish creates heavy weather, her brother Rocket has an affinity for electricity, and her mother does everything perfectly – which is luckily not as annoying as it sounds.

Days before her birthday, Mibs father is in a terrible accident, and her mother and older brother Rocket drive out to Salina, the town where he lies in a coma in the hospital. On the dawn of her birthday, a couple of small events convince Mibs that her savvy is the ability to wake people up – the perfect way to help her father. Before her birthday is many hours old, she has abandoned her own awful birthday party and has stowed away, along with Fish, her younger brother Samson, and two other kids, on a pink bus driven by a bible salesman. She is determined to get to Salina as quickly as possible to wake her father up.

Needless to say, things don’t go very smoothly. Mibs realizes to her horror that her savvy is to read the thoughts of people who have inked pictures on their skin – tattoos, of course, but even a happy face drawn on with a ballpoint pen. What a useless savvy, she feels – the voices in her head drive her bonkers and worse, she can’t help her father. As it turns out, Mibs is wrong; her savvy comes in very handy in the end.

Throughout the book, Mibs discovers again and again that folks are endlessly mysterious. Everyone has secrets, not just the members of her secretly talented family, and even when those secrets come to light, there are usually plenty of hidden depths left to ponder. Appearances can be deceiving, Mibs learns, and there is a lot to appreciate in most people, once you get to know them.

These small discoveries and surprises move the story forward in an unpredictable and thoroughly charming way, matched by the quirky language used by Mibs, the narrator of the tale. It courses and curlicues its way like a particularly rambunctious stream, throwing up fascinating words and turns of phrase – one nasty character has breath “a loud mix of bluster and buffalo wings;” when you have learned to control your savvy, you’ve “scumbled” it. But the writing has a purpose and goal, so the story keeps flowing, never getting bogged down in sentimentality or folksiness.

This is an all-around satisfying book that kept me intrigued all the way to the end. My only quibble – surely the bible salesman’s big pink bus would have been pulled over within hours of those kids running away!! Magically, none of the folks looking for the missing kids managed to figure out that the pink bus and the kids left at exactly the same time. Oh well, I happily suspended my disbelief and kids most likely will, too.

Ages 9 - 12

Review of Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson (Simon & Schuster, 2008)

Freedom is snatched away from 13-year-old Isabel and her 5-year-old sister Ruth before they have a chance to experience it – after their gentle owner Miss Finch dies, having filled out paperwork with a lawyer to set the girls free, her nephew simply sells them off to the Locktons, a Loyalist couple who live in New York City. As it is 1776, this puts Isabel right in the middle of the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

Madam Lockton, a nasty piece of work, mistreats Isobel and gives her endless work, while she makes the sweet and pliable Ruth a sort of pet. Unfortunately, Ruth suffers from occasional “spells,” and they so unnerve Madam that she sells her, devastating Isabel.

The chaos and fervor swirling through New York City eventually pull Isabel from her dark despair. Although she had served as a spy for the Patriots after they promised her freedom, she becomes disenchanted with them when it becomes clear they only want freedom for white people; Isabel even briefly helps the Royalist cause when she hears that they offer freedom to slaves who escape and join the army. However, it seems that if a slave escapes from a Loyalist household, that’s a whole different matter.

When the only person in New York whom she might call a friend, a slave and Patriot named Curzon, is captured and held under terrible conditions by the British, Isabel shakes off her torpor and fear and smuggles in food. Once again, she is drawn reluctantly into the Patriot cause, carrying messages from prison to captured officers and back.
When Madam Lockton finds out, she promises to sell her immediately, and so Isabel escapes the household, ending part 1 of this saga. Will Isabel escape to freedom? How will she find Ruth? We’ll have to wait for part 2 to find out.

Anderson captures the milieu of 18th century New York City with a completeness, immediacy, and (I am guessing, though I am no expert) accuracy that set the reader right down at street level. It isn’t so much the sensory descriptions that set the tone as the certainty that this is how it must have been for a slave like Isabel. Anderson achieves this through Isabel’s voice, which has a truly authentic ring to it without sounding either stilted or too modern. A masterful use of period turns of phrase and a touch of dialect (not much, though – Isabel is a reader who was brought up by a loving mother and an educated mistress) give Isabel a narrative voice that conveys a convincing picture of her times.

Being a slave, Isabel’s world is quite circumscribed. She can’t describe what she hasn’t seen, and so the reader gets to know the few places and routes that she – the Lockton’s house, the market, the route to the water pump, the prison. Her knowledge of and opinions on the political situation are gained by the conversations she hears around her and by the ways she and Ruth are affected, which gives all events, whether small or historic, a very personal immediacy. For the reader, learning about life in New York City during the Revolution could not be any more enthralling or effortless than this. Well-written, impeccably researched, exciting, and heart-clenching, this is a fabulous read and a definite contender for the Newbery.

Review of The Underneath by Kathi Appelt

Look at the cover of this book. Do you see those sweet kittens cuddled against the saggy jowls of a loyal old hound? Do you? If you think this might be an adorable, frothy story of animals facing slight and perhaps even comedic danger, do not open this book.

Do not!

But, on the other hand, if you are ready for an intense, moving, and stomach-clenching tale of heartbreak, survival, and love, then dive right in.

By now, The Underneath by Kathi Appelt has been reviewed all over the place, so most folks are familiar with the story. An abandoned pregnant cat (see? The sadness has already started) finds her way through the swamp to the home of Ranger, a hound dog who (more grimness here) remains eternally chained up by his quite hideous master Gar Face, who makes his living by selling the skins of just about any animal he can shoot or trap.

The mama cat takes to Ranger right away, and he to her. She has her kittens under the house, which provides a safe haven for them – until Gar Face discovers them one day. Nastiness ensues, and death. The boy kitten, Puck, ends up on the far side of the river, with an overwhelming desire and need to get back to Ranger and what remains of his family.

Meanwhile, there is a more mystical tale going on. A shape-shifting snake spirit called Grandmother Moccasin, older than time itself, has been trapped in a jar beneath the roots of an ancient tree for the past 1000 years. 1000 years ago, she rediscovered love in the form of a much-beloved daughter – but then lost her when the daughter fell in love and assumed her human form. Grandmother Moccasin reacted badly – and tragedy resulted. She has been seething for 1000 years, and wants her revenge.

Grandmother Moccasin’s tale is told in a slow and stately manner, as befits an ancient spirit to whom time is nothing, while Ranger and the cats are allowed no such luxury – their story is one of heart-pounding suspense punctuated by both terrifying swoops of action and piercing sweetness. Naturally, all the stories arrive at one place in one moment in time in an almost unbearable climax – and by then, the reader is a limp and soggy wad of nerves. But a happy wad of nerves! Some characters are redeemed, justice prevails, and the swamp subsides into business as usual.

The ancient 100-foot-long Alligator King, who has seen all and mostly keeps his thoughts to himself, is the most mysterious character of all. Only once do we get a sense of his moral character (or that he even has one), when he feels compelled to give a piece of advice to his old friend Grandmother Moccasin. She doesn’t heed it, of course. Meanwhile, the Alligator King lives, breathes, swims, and eats – and plays his own crucial role.

The omniscient narrator’s voice, with its tendency to lecture, exhort, and warn the reader (“Do not go into that land between the Bayou Tartine and its little sister, Petite Tartine. Do not step into that shivery place. Do not let it gobble you up. Stay away from the Tartine sisters.”) jarred me at first, but then the intimate feeling of being directly addressed, as well as the lulling, mythical repetition of various words and phrases, began working its magic on me. I’m curious to know how children will react to this narrative voice, and to see if the find Grandmother Moccasin’s story, which is slower and more distant, compelling or boring.

Drawings by David Small manage to be winsome and moving without succumbing to unsuitable adorableness.

This is one of the most powerful and skillfully told books for children that I’ve read all year, and it is certainly a strong Newbery contender. Read this book.

Read it.

Read it now!