The Light Fantastic

The first two sentences set the tone for the book in The Light Fantastic by Sarah Combs. “I was born on April 19, 1995, at 10:07 in the morning eastern daylight time. Minutes before, one time zone to the west, a man named Timothy McVeigh was busy sending a bomb through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. . .” On senior skip day as the first narrator, April recalls all the tragedies that have occurred during her birth month, including the Boston Marathon bombing five days before. The tension begins here and tightens as it goes forward with breathers only for recalling earlier and better times and giving clues about relationships among the players.

Pay close attention to both the narrators that often seem unrelated from across the country and the times in different time zones as the story is told from multiple teen and adult viewpoints. There is a plot headed by a Mastermind to be carried out by the Assassins. The threads of the story resemble a basket of leftover yarn that has been invaded by a kitten and become intriguing as the reader tries to follow each thread from the beginning to the end. 

I also reviewed Sarah Combs book Breakfast Served Anytime when it came out. In that review, I wrote that she captured well the joys and sorrows of coming-of-age. That is still true with this book as long as the reader is content with more stress and sorrow than joy. This is a book for someone who enjoys the tension of a psychological thriller.

Banned Books Week

I make my way most months to New Orleans for an SCBWI meeting where I spend my time looking at a sign in the front of the room like this facsimile I have reproduced. Since next week, September 5 – October 1, is Banned Books Week, it seems like a fitting thing to consider censorship blindness. Some of the frequently challenged and banned books make my head swim. Let me give a few instances.

There are those I read aloud to my students – Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor; I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou; and The Giver by Lois Lowry.

My daughter began her career as a fifth grade teacher with Maniac McGee by Jerry Spinelli as her first read-aloud book.

Coming soon is a movie of a favorite, The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson. Gilly uses some non-Sunday school language in a powerful foster child story. The book would be less without that language. Come to think of it, Katherine gets herself in trouble with the book police fairly often. Jacob, Have I Loved, probably my favorite Paterson book though I love them all, has come under their microscope more than once. Katherine, missionary’s child and preacher’s wife, what could she be thinking?

There are classics like Gone with the Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird and best sellers like The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini that have been called into question.

With some degree of regularity, I read from the Holy Bible – are the book police serious? Of course, the Bible does have quite a bit violence, harsh words, and sexuality.

It seems to me the books most often threatened are the ones that make us think and see. Hear me carefully, I’m not saying we don’t need to make judgments as to what we read. In our book discussion group last week, we got off topic – not unusual – and drifted into book recommendations. A grandmother in the group listened to get book ideas for her grandchildren. As we discussed one book recommended for her granddaughter’s age, she said, “My granddaughter would be terrified. The book would not be for her.” The difference? She was making a decision for a child she knew, not in any way suggesting the book should be banned from the library or school for those who would enjoy such a book. Reading reviews and discovering if a book suits your taste or is appropriate for those in your care is quite legitimate.

I recommend celebrating Banned Books Week – choose a book from this blog or google “banned books” to find several lists. Live dangerously and read one. You don’t really want to be blind.

A Monster Calls

The question arose as I read A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness as to whether the book or the story behind the book was the more interesting. I’ll start with the story behind the book.

Siobhan Dowd had begun her fifth novel when she died prematurely at 47 with cancer. Their common editor asked Patrick Ness to take the idea and write his own novel. According to Patrick in his author’s note, “She had the characters, a premise, and a beginning. What she didn't have, unfortunately, was time.” I’ve read a few books that were finished posthumously by somebody close to the author. I’ve not found them to measure up. This book is different. Patrick began with her idea and wrote his own book. The honoring of what happened to Siobhan is not lost on the reader.

The chilling monster of the book haunts Conor, but not the monster he’s expecting from his regular nightmare that he’s had ever since his mother started treatment. This monster is from the ancient yew tree and shows up at seven minutes past midnight. It wants the truth while Conor clings to his relationship with his fragile mother, faces a dismissive father, and struggles with a stern grandmother.

Our de Grummond Book Group read this for our July selection. Lively discussion ensued on which parts of the story were real and which were Conor’s imagination. There was no disagreement about how much we enjoyed the book that ranged from gripping to funny to moving. We could understand why it is sometimes even more appealing to adults who have dealt with loss than to its intended children’s audience. It certainly deserved the Carnegie Medal won in 2012 by the author and the Kate Greenaway Medal for the hauntingly beautiful illustrations by Jim Kay as the year's best children's book published in the UK.

The movie will be out in time for Christmas which leaves me drawn to it and terrified that the filmmakers will destroy the story as they often do. However, I’ve checked out the trailer, and they must have channeled my imagination in the casting of Lewis MacDougall in the starring role. As we say in the South, he’s the “spittin’ image” of the picture I have in my mind. The rest of the cast, with Sigourney Weaver as the grandmother, isn’t bad either. Read the book for sure. I’ll let you know about the movie.

Hummingbird Harangue

Okay, you hummers, listen up! You waste too much time chasing each other off the feeders. Two feeders hang at this house – the red one in the front and the multi-colored one in the back. Each has four feeding stations. Count them and do the math – a total of eight. I’ve never seen more than three of you at a time at either feeder. There is room for everybody.

Neither do you have to sit on the alert when you are the only one at the feeder. All the time you have your head up watching for an invader is time that could be spent enjoying the flavorful sugar water I have prepared for your feeders.

Which brings me to another point, have you ever known the feeders to run out of the tasty treat? I have plenty of sugar and plenty of water. Before your stock is exhausted, I have always refilled your supply.

Not that I see it often, but you would enjoy your meals much better if you would do as these last two hummingbirds have done when they’ve taken a place across from each other, sipping nectar to their hearts’ content. If I’m not mistaken, one of them said, “Mmm, good!” and the other answered, “You, betcha!”

If you could only reason as humans do and take a lesson on the joy that comes from sharing what you have with your neighbor instead of fearfully hoarding your possessions, keeping them for yourself.

Wait, did I just miss something in this last paragraph?

Teacher

I will admit to an ulterior motive when I requested an ARC of Teacher by Michael Copperman. The memoir from a young man with Teach for America (TFA) brought back memories of the program. I was lead teacher for ten to twelve second grade classes with as many as three of these young people assigned to teach on my hall.

Some came open and willing to learn from the experienced well-trained teachers in our school who wanted them to succeed in their classrooms. Others had attitudes that I attributed to TFA that they were coming to an area where the educators themselves were inadequate. In the multi-cultural school where I taught, the need came from a shortage in the number, not capability, of trained teachers. Classroom discipline, another major issue, seemed to come from a TFA philosophy that if the teaching is interesting, problems will not happen. 

Idealistic Michael Copperman left Stanford University for the Mississippi Delta and taught two years with the TFA program. His very honest account rang true to what I knew of TFA with the additional problem of the extreme poverty in the delta.

Political emphasis on teaching the test complicated his high ideals. Classroom management raised its head early for Mike with the “Teach well, and you’ll succeed,” philosophy from TFA crossing with the philosophy of the assistant principal’s paddle. A better answer than either of these came with the card-behavior system he borrowed from an experienced teacher – a system we used effectively in our second grade classes.

His second year began with a more realistic preparation for the challenge of classroom discipline and a focus on his students as individuals. For instance, he built on the beginning by a TFA colleague to engage one student with Boxcar Children books and the child’s determination to read them. He also came to realize one of his problems was that the world tells delta kids that this is all there is, a hard-to-fight attitude.  

After he moved away into another job, still teaching students from challenging backgrounds, he confronted a speaker who disparaged the long term effects of the TFA program on young college graduates. He said the speaker “had no idea just how affecting the TFA experience was, that he couldn’t imagine what it was like to be in America’s troubled schools, to be responsible for children with so much promise and so little opportunity.” 

Michael Copperman gives an honest and well-written account of his own experience with Teach for America. He pictures a program with high ideals that would be even more effective with practical guidance replacing some of the inspirational speeches. I would concur.  

Barbed Wire Sunday Anniversary

I’m almost a month late for an exact anniversary, but I didn’t want to skip this one. On August 12, 1961, on what has been nicknamed “barbed wire Sunday,” the barbed wire Berlin Wall went up almost overnight, soon to be reinforced with an additional solid concrete wall. Strangely, it would change our lives as well. People in Al’s age range who had been passed over for the draft were revisited with the increased need for soldiers, and he got an invitation from Uncle Sam. In his case, the Army put a square peg in a square hole, and he stayed for a career.

Twenty years later we visited the wall with our children and were able to cross over into East Berlin on a military bus with Al in uniform. I described it in our 1981 Christmas letter.

We made our last – and by unanimous vote – most meaningful trip of our European tour in late spring to East and West Berlin. Pages and books could not describe the impact of leaving West Germany with its beauty, industry, and purposefulness and crossing into the East. Words cannot adequately relate what we saw and felt, but some that come to mind are – dilapidation, watchfulness, gloom, oppression, and heartlessness. We could tell the difference in the railroad tracks at night as we crossed the border from the modern, smooth-running ones in the West to a “Ka-bump, Ka-bump” across the East until we arrived in West Berlin. The Wall Museum, devoted to methods and means of escape, and the sight of the wall itself left a tremendous impact on all of us. Over and over again, I kept thinking that 50 years ago, these people were a part of the beautiful Germany that we had lived in for three years and come to love. I could go on, but the bottom line is that not one of us will ever again take our freedom so lightly.

Less than ten years later when the wall came down, a young German friend, who knew our link to it, came bringing me pieces of concrete with graffiti. Her father, who lived near the wall, had sent her a box of shards to share with those who would treasure them. They came from Berliner Mauer, Grenz ibergang, Berlin-Wedding, Chausseesbrase as best I can decipher her handwriting (English identification – Berlin Wall, checkpoint, district, boulevard).

Robert Frost said, “Something there is that doesn't love a wall,” and goes on to caution, “Before I built a wall I'd ask to know what I was walling in or walling out, and to whom I was like to give offence.” 

A Long Pitch Home

Natalie Dias Lorenzi knows how to write a first line that pulls a reader into a book. A Long Pitch Home begins, “They took my father three days ago, a week before my tenth birthday.” The statement forms the impetus and background for her story of Balil who gets a visa to come to the United States with his immediate family, except for his father.

Adjustments begin as they leave the airport with his uncle sitting behind the steering wheel on the left side of the car and his mother “sitting next to him, where the steering wheel should be.” His observation of other things that are different include a wide road with four neat lanes but no donkeys pulling carts, no buses with fringe hanging from the bumpers, and no people riding on the tops or hanging out the doors and windows.

The book is laced with pertinent humor. “I smell masala and am glad we are eating something normal. I have heard Americans eat hot dogs, but I do not want to try those. We don’t eat dog meat in Pakistan.” Bilal describes his arrival at the gym, “Anyone can see I’m different from the other kids at baseball camp. I’m the only one with a black eye.”

Bilal’s copes with being separated from his father by Skyping with him occasionally and remaining hopeful that he will be granted a visa soon. He learns a new brand of English that is different from what he learned in Pakistan and focuses on learning to play baseball instead of cricket. His friendship with his rival for the pitching job causes problems with the other players. Jordan is an outcast because she is a girl and team members discourage him from having anything to do with her, but they share more than baseball. She is missing her father who has been deployed to Afghanistan.

 The author’s background as a librarian in a school with a majority population of immigrants and years of teaching English as a Second Language in Japan, Italy, and the US bring empathy for this young Muslim Pakistani immigrant who adapts to life in a new country while holding onto traditions that are important to his family and culture. One of my favorite scenes was his attempt to eat customary American foods for Thanksgiving dinner and seeing those traditions through the eyes of someone who is eating them for the first time.

A Long Pitch Home, available on September 6, is an excellent choice for middle schoolers who look for diversity in the characters in their books or for anyone who loves a really good story. If you like both of those and are not in middle school, go ahead and read it. You have my permission.

It's a First

Having grandchildren is not new. Our ten began accumulating in 1994 – three within six weeks of each other – twin granddaughters when our son married their mother and a grandson born shortly after. They have all lived far away, primarily in Arizona, Texas, and Maryland while we have been here in Mississippi.

All has not been lost because of distance. I have good memories of biennial Christmas events when we have rotated among the family locations for the celebration. Three boy cousins, one from each family, dubbed themselves the “three twins” after getting matching Baylor t-shirts from one of the dads, a title that has stuck. On these occasions, we’ve learned to watch a couple of the girl cousins to be sure they leave some of my homemade chocolate covered cherries for the rest of the family. Conversely, another cousin treats us to her own homemade toffee.

Good times have included grandparent-grandchild trips to north Louisiana, West Virginia, and Flagstaff and Sedona, Arizona. We’ve enjoyed thank you notes that are not only polite but clever. I’ve had more art lessons from an artist grandson and a photographer granddaughter than I ever did in school. Sometimes the older ones even like my posts on Facebook. They’ve also become accustomed to what they will get from me, expressed by one ten-year-old grandson as he opened his birthday present, “I think it’s a book.”

It’s been good, but one thing has been missing. I’ve never had grandchildren living in the same location. I must confess to a bit of envy for people with grandchildren in the same town, handy for running by for a few minutes.

Missing no longer, on August 18, three grandsons arrived to call Hattiesburg home. One headed to Tulane the next week, but two hours away, it’s an easy trip for a long weekend. The other two? One mentioned liking a sandbox the first day he was here. The next morning Grandpa had his tools out building one. The other issues me an invitation, “You wanna play toys with me?” Oh, yes!

Now, I promise not to turn this blog into nothing more than a grandchild report or overwhelm you with how cute and smart they are. On the other hand, if you should insist . . . 

Wedding Bell Blues

Ruth Moose’s book, Wedding Bell Blues, contains every Southern cliché known to man, well maybe except this one. It begins with crazy Reba calling Miss Beth on a cell phone because God is dead, and she has killed him. This was the same God that Reba had been talking about marrying for a month. The community has indulged her, even egged her on with her preparations while speculating over whether the huge diamond she sports is real or came from a Cracker Jack box.   

After Reba confesses and is taken to jail, Beth is kept busy trying to solve the mystery, locate her neighbor’s missing white rabbit named Robert Redford, and figure out how serious Scott is about his relationship with her. Did I mention she is restoring the Dixie Dew Bed and Breakfast and helping out with Littleboro’s First Annual Green Bean Festival? (I told you this was a Southern story.)

With people getting sick, another death, another wedding, and quirky characters running in and out, the book is more madcap than whodunit although the mystery does get solved in the end. This is a light read with the Southern eccentricities more prominent than the mystery. This is the second in the Beth McKenzie mysteries written by Ruth Moose. If you are looking for a scholarly read, you will be disappointed. On the other hand, if you need a little diversion, you can find it here. 

Olympic Highlights

Everybody seems to be doing highlights of the Olympic Games now that they are over so I thought I’d give my version. I won’t mention swimmers since I’m guessing you’ve seen enough of those. I have some words that stand out to me. Except for the last, I’ll do alphabetical order.

Appreciation

They swept much of the metal for the medal stands. Then, with obvious love for each other, the ladies’ gymnastics team paid tribute to their coach Marta Karoli as they named themselves “The Final Five” in honor of their being her last Olympic team before her retirement.

Diversity

Again the American ladies’ gymnastics team was a cross section of both ethnicity and religion, and Ibtihaj Muhammad won a bronze medal in fencing wearing a hijab.

Patriotism

Brazilian celebrations when they won had to make you happy for the home country, especially for the overboard excitement when they won silver and bronze in men’s gymnastics.

Persistence

Multitudes of stories fit this word, but I think of tiny Fiji winning a medal in rugby, the number of foster kids’ stories, and the refugee group that may not have won a medal but attained a goal by overcoming circumstances to be there.

Philosophy

17-year-old Sydney McLaughlin, who lost in the finals said “This is the end of my season, not the end of my career” and then turned to her task of reading two required books before she goes back to high school. I’m waiting to see what she does in Tokyo.

Sportsmanship

USA’s Abbey D’Agostino and New Zealand’s Nikki Hamblin got mixed up in a tumble that threw them in the 5,000-meter heat. Abbey helped Nikki up and encouraged her to finish the race. Soon it became apparent that Abbey was injured and couldn’t finish. Nikki then encouraged her to run together to the end, which they finished dead last. They have been awarded the Pierre de Coubertin Medal for sportsmanship, previously awarded only 17 times in Olympic history. They also gained a friendship.

Success

I loved the people who understood that “on the platform” is a great accomplishment even if the medal isn’t gold.

Pride

My favorite highlight was Tori Bowie who swamped the pages of the Hattiesburg American because she had spent her college days at the University of Southern Mississippi. She starred on the front page of either the headline news or sports page for days, sometimes both. In addition, she featured prominently in the Facebook posts from the university’s Cook Library where she worked as a student aide to help finance her college career. One of those foster children raised by a grandmother, she is from Sand Hill, Mississippi, a town every bit as big as it sounds. We Mississippians are proud that she won all three colors in medals. Of even more importance, she seems to be a genuinely nice person as well.

Soldier Sister, Fly Home

The prologue for Soldier Sister, Fly Home by Nancy Bo Flood starts with a poem

Feathers fly,

Carrying a heartbeat.

Fly home.

Blue horse. Lii’ Dootl’izhii.

and ends with a vow from Tess that she will never shoot a rifle again. I’m fond of prologues like this that tantalize one into a book.

Tess, half-Navaho and half-white, searches for where she fits in the two worlds she travels between. Early in the book, she points out a common mistake of lumping all Native Americans together in one group, “They (schoolmates) never saw me. They never saw Navaho or white – they only saw an Indian.”

Central to the story is her six-year-older sister’s enlistment in the military after she failed to get a scholarship that would help her go to school. Gaby returns home on leave in splotchy army fatigues with her beautiful dark hair that had hung below her waist sheared short. Gaby had sworn never to cut it, but this is an accommodation to that other world.

Gaby’s deployment threatens the sister tie that includes younger Tess teaching her older sister to read at night before she enters junior high using Archie comic books. Now Gaby asks her to bond with her feisty horse Blue while she is away. A summer at sheep camp with Blue and Shima Sani, her grandmother, in traditional Navaho dress (except for her Day-Glo tennis shoes) helps her begin to answer some of the questions about who she is and where she belongs. Tess and I found wisdom in Grandpa’s philosophy, “Yes, we sing when life comes into this world. We sing when life travels out.”

The author lived and taught in the Navaho community for fifteen years and brings a sense of authenticity to this story that includes practices specific to that culture along with issues common to any coming-of-age story. Back matter includes information about the Navaho language, definitions and pronunciations of Navaho words, and a brief tribute to Lori Piestewa, a member of the Hopi tribe and the first Native American military woman to die in combat on foreign soil. Lori’s contribution is mentioned briefly in the beginning of the book.

I read the book which goes on sale August 23 in an ARC furnished by Net Galley. It is a good read for middle grade and up.

Something to Miss

The boys have lived the three and four years of their lives in the same community with a mother who believes in “adventures.” Before they moved from Maryland to Mississippi, their mama took them back for final visits and sent me pictures of places they will miss. The nostalgia may be more hers than theirs since they aren’t old enough yet to understand about “lasts” or that their favorite haunts will be too far away for a quick run any more.

They visited Brookside Gardens that took a couple of hours to circle when they were in strollers and diapers. Now Mama tried to keep up as they looped around in about forty-five minutes. As if the animals knew this was good-bye, fifteen turtles showed up in the turtle pond where the boys usually saw one or two. Another day they went to the nearby creek and enjoyed strolling through the woods and hopping across the stones in the water.

The “things to miss” pictures made me recall a favorite quote from Sarah, Plain and Tall that has often come to my mind when I have left things I will miss to move to a new place. Prospective stepdaughter Anna worries that Sarah will miss the sea and her family too much to leave her home in Maine to become Papa’s bride. She is relieved when she overhears Sarah tell her new friend Maggie, “There is always something to miss, no matter where you are.”

There are things to miss in Maryland, but things to look forward to in Mississippi. In Hattiesburg, there’s a chocolate birthday cake for Ben’s fourth birthday, baked by Grandpa and decorated by Grandma. A tub of toys waits in the grandparents’ back yard, butterflies hatch on the maypop vines, and hummingbirds fight over the feeders. Hattiesburg will have its own exploits. Since Grandma likes adventures, too, I’m hoping the excursion group will have a new member. Maybe, if I promise to bring cookies . . .

Applesauce Weather

I first became acquainted with Helen Frost’s writing while reading books with a friend who was on the Newbery Committee. I loved Diamond Willow and had it on my short list for the award – not that my list counted with anybody. Consequently, I anticipated a good read in Applesauce Weather when I received the ARC from Net Galley.

Ripening apples would usually signal time for Aunt Lucy and Uncle Arthur to be on their way for a visit. As this year’s first apple falls, Faith and Peter question whether Uncle Arthur will come now that Aunt Lucy has died. Of course he does, beginning the story-poem that is told in the voices of Faith, Peter, and Uncle Arthur with “Lucy’s Song” giving introductions for each section as she tells her version of life with Uncle Arthur, a love story that began at ten and lasted into old age.

Humor tempers the emotions of nostalgia and grief as the family remembers Aunt Lucy. Uncle Arthur tells tales with a twinkle in his eye, especially the ones about how he lost his finger. In her song, Lucy says, “Oh, the stories I heard him weave – I never knew quite what to believe.” Neither do Faith and Peter. Every kid needs an uncle like Arthur just as he needs them. The telling and listening bring needed solace to the whole family.  

Amy June Bates’s illustrations fit the mood of the story and personality of the characters and add the perfect finish.

So, how well did Applesauce Weather meet my expectations? When I finished the book, I turned back to the beginning and read it again. It won’t be my last time.

Nature's Law

I had some second thoughts about the book for the 2016 Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Award. In the story line of Sonya’s Chickens, written and illustrated by Phoebe Wahl, Sonya adopts three chicks and cares for them like a mother until they grow into fluffy hens. One night she hears squawking in the henhouse. When she goes to check, she discovers feathers all over the floor, but only two of her three chickens. My first reaction was protective against Phoebe’s very realistic telling small children about what happens when a fox finds a way into the henhouse.

Then I thought about my own experience last summer when I had become enamored of the Gulf Fritillary butterflies hatching on my maypop vines. I found an anole in the act of eating one of my butterflies. As if he knew he had been caught, he took his protective coloration right into the vines. It took me a bit to consider the law of nature that allows for the food chain and know the anole was hungry, too.

Fortunately, Sonya’s father helps her come to the same conclusion and repair her damaged coop so it will be safe for the remaining hens. Her family joins her in honoring and mourning her lost hen while remaining glad that little foxes were fed.

So should we protect children from the nature’s law of the food chain? I think not. I’d rather believe that even very small children can understand Sonya’s mixed feelings (and mine) when we mourn a hen (or butterfly) but are glad that the little foxes and anoles have a good meal. One doesn’t have to live very long to have experiences that bring simultaneous joy and sorrow. Nor does one need a long life to know that “happily ever after” is only a fairy tale.

Besides, I wouldn’t want the small children in my life to miss this lesson in science and life, disguised inside a beautifully written story. 

Big Jim Eastland

Senator James O. Eastland wrote me a letter congratulating me on my high school graduation. It was not mentioned in biographer J. Lee Annis’s book Big Jim Eastland: The Godfather of Mississippi. The letter fit with the picture painted by the author of a complicated politician.  My familiarity of the time and the man made me eager to read the book in a Net Galley ARC from University Press of Mississippi. My letter, one of a multitude sent to graduates Senator Eastland did not know, but hoped to add to his voter base, was typical of his outreach to the common people of Mississippi. I was about as common as they came.

Democratic Governor Paul B. Johnson, Sr. appointed James Eastland, a member of Mississippi’s Delta planter class, to the Senate in 1941. He ran and won the seat outright in 1942 and served until his retirement in 1978. For most of his career, he was a staunch segregationist even as he began to realize he was fighting a losing battle. Paradoxically, he was friends with the Kennedys and worked with them on some legislation that both of them thought important and became friends in the latter part of his life with some of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Because of his senior committee positions and his personality, he wielded much influence in the Senate which he often used to improve the lives of those common people back home.

When I read nonfiction, especially biography, I look first for accurate information.  The portrayal of the senator was consistent with my memories. I sensed the depth of scholarly and personal research as I read, verified when my Kindle had 26% of the book left at the beginning of the bibliography.

I also want a good story with a protagonist who grows and changes. The senator had great loyalty to those who had helped him achieve his place in life and to those whom he mentored. He worked on legislation with those with whom he had fundamental differences. He moved a long way from his strict segregation construction even though he never became free of bias. For readers who love well-documented biography couched in a crucial historical time, Big Jim Eastland meets the criteria.

Where's Durell?

Long before “Where’s Waldo?” became popular, the Hannah family was looking for Durrell. A couple of recent references to the Civilian Conservation Corps on morning TV and The Saturday Evening Post reminded me of a family story I heard during my eavesdropping days sitting on the edge of Papaw’s front porch. The short-lived CCC got accolades from both sources for its salvation of and improvements to American forests. The CCC’s usefulness to Uncle Durrell had little to do with altruism

As I remember the story, valedictorian or salutatorian was the graduation standard set by the first three Hannah children from Sturgis High School in classes of about a dozen, beginning with my mother shown here with her class.  Uncle Durrell’s ambition never reached that level. Could his nonchalance have been one of those middle child things since he was fourth of six? Could it have been that his mother died in his early high school days? Even though he had become a responsible adult by the time the story was told, I remember Uncle Durrell as the uncle who was the most fun.  My guess is that he had more enjoyable things to do than hitting the books.

At long last, his high school days were finished and graduation night came. The family dressed in their finest for the occasion with no delusions of high honors, just glad it was over and looking forward to seeing him receive his diploma. They found their places and waited expectantly in the auditorium. As his class filed in, they looked at one another asking, “Where’s Durrell?” Uncle Durrell did not appear, nor was his name called.

After the fact, they learned that he had failed algebra which meant he did not graduate. Instead, he ran off and joined the CCC. The poster, reproduced in the July/August Saturday Evening Post, touts, “A Young Man’s Opportunity for Work Play Study and Health.” Uncle Durrell might have added “and to keep from facing your family after you flunk algebra.”

Hundred Percent

Who would ever choose to be twelve or in sixth grade? Wouldn’t it even be nice if parents could give their children and themselves a bye to just skip that year? Karen Romano Young in her middle grade novel Hundred Percent describes a common sixth grade perception well in the voice of Tink. “When it was just her, she sometimes felt beautiful. She liked herself. Alone, she was a sugar cube, settled, with firm edges and strong corners. But when other people were around she thought some of them were better – smarter, funnier, cuter, thinner, hotter, cooler – and she felt herself come apart a little, like sugar on the kitchen table, spilled from a spoon.”

Is she really Tink for Tinker Bell as she has been called since she was a small child? Or is she Chris, short for Christine Bernadette Gouda, a more grownup nickname bestowed by her best friend Jackie for their last year in elementary school? Or maybe Hundred Percent, given by Bushwhack, the boy whose sarcasm keeps the class laughing. 

Does she need to keep up a relationship with her childhood best friend Jackie who stays on the edges of the “in” crowd, sometimes bringing Tink or Chris along with her? Tink questions her friend’s loyalty. “How many more times would she try those people on, like fancy clothes, and come back to Tink, who must have felt to her like cozy pajamas?”

The novel captures middle school stress as we get to know Tink aka Chris aka Hundred Percent. There are all those relationships to maneuver – friends, frenemies, parents, teachers. Her questions belong to the age. Am I part of the “in” group and do I even want to be? Is my physical development too fast or too slow? And the big question, in the midst of all this, who am I?

I read this book that goes on sale August 2 in an advance reading copy furnished by Net Galley. While the audience is limited to middle school girls, they will find a character and a story the validates this stage of their lives and even hints that better things may be ahead.

What Mama Didn't Know

What Mama didn’t know, didn’t hurt me. Let me explain.  She had it on good authority from somewhere that all children needed ten hours of sleep. Since the McGee household got up at 6 AM, that meant an 8 PM bedtime.

Now, I’m in favor of a good night’s sleep and enjoy one almost every night, but even when I was a child, it didn’t take me ten hours to get it. To play on the old saying, you can put a kid to bed, but you can’t make her go to sleep. I never bothered to share with Mama what I heard after I went to bed, knowing she would find some way to put my entertainment to a stop. My fun started habits that continue to this day.

The radio was on the other side of the thin wall. The first treat was hearing the whodunits that Daddy loved. He refrained from listening to them while we were up in deference to Mama’s theory that they would terrify us and we would be unable to sleep. I was intrigued rather than fearful and began a habit that continues with NCIS  and its spinoffs, Criminal Minds, and Blue Bloods.

The other habit has come to mind in the last few weeks. The first political campaign that I remember following – after the eight o’clock bedtime – was the race between Truman and Dewey. I heard the politicians’ campaigns along with my parents’ conversations as the election approached. They voted on election day and, with hopes for a win for Truman, listened to returns well into the night before they gave it up and went to bed.

Counts were much slower in those days. So slow in fact, that the Chicago paper went with their supposition that Dewey had won and ran their erroneous, and now famous, headline “Dewey Defeats Truman.” Nobody loved the mistake more than Daddy. That election started me on the road to being a political junkie. Since I came of age, I’ve voted in local and national elections, going now with my husband in his red truck where we often patriotically cancel each other’s vote. If I am honest, there are a few votes I’d love to take back and do better, and none that have helped elect perfect officials.  

Once again this last two weeks, I’ve watched the pageantry and machinations of two conventions. I could wish that we could disagree without being disagreeable, but I remain grateful to live in a country where we can participate in the process.

Mama might not be thrilled with my partiality to cop shows, but I think she would approve of my taking advantage of my rights and responsibilities as a citizen. And I must admit, what Mama didn’t know may have started a habit that has hurt me a trifle. I have once again lost a bit of sleep a few nights staying up to watch past my bedtime.

Where Are You Going, Baby Lincoln?

Should somebody tell Kate DiCamillo that the protagonist of a children’s book should be a child? Where Are You Going, Baby Lincoln? is the third book of her tales from Deckawoo Drive, available from Candlewick on August 2. Illustrator Chris Van Dusen alerts us with his art, even before we begin, that it has been a long, long time since Baby Lincoln was actually an infant.

Baby Lincoln enjoys a very good dream where she is traveling on a speedy train through a night filled with shooting stars on a necessary journey. Rudely awakened by her older sister who still calls her by the childhood nickname, the day begins with Eugenia giving Baby instructions on goals for the day that she has to write down. For the first time in their gray-headed lives, Baby rebels against her older sister. Her dream has given her this necessary journey that she must take.

Aided and abetted by her next door neighbor Stella, who does happen to be a child, she purchases a ticket to Fluxom since she doesn’t have enough money to go to Calaband Darsh. Her travel gives Baby and the reader a delightful trip with some interesting travel companions, once she learns to answer to her real name of Lucille. Make that Lucille Abigail Eleanor Lincoln – but she doesn’t really need to use all of that.

Back to my original question of telling Kate about using children to star in children’s books – she’s not going to hear it from me. This tale will delight a kid reader or an adult who is reading it aloud. One word of caution. Have a bowl of jellybeans ready to munch as you read. You’ll be glad you did.

Moon Landing!

July 20, 1969 is one of those dates that bring memories of where one was and what was happening when the event appeared on the small screen TV. Exactly 47 years later, the Smithsonian has begun a year-long display of artifacts from Neil Armstrong’s “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” A trip to see it might make a good bucket list item.

While I shared the excitement of this great achievement, I must confess the first occasion that comes to my mind when someone mentions 1969 is not the moon landing but an event that occurred one month and one day before – the birth of our only daughter. (I apologize, Anna, for giving away your age.) We had been hoping for such an event for at least three years, so I hope you’ll excuse us if a Red Cross message to her father in Korea informing him that he had a baby girl has slightly more significance in the Butler family than the moon landing. This was back in the day when the obstetrician’s announcement at delivery settled the blue or pink question.

Our first big event of 1969 does color where I was and what I was doing as I watched the news of the second. My memories include sharing the excitement of the moon landing with an inquisitive five-year-old son while I juggled care of the new baby with making tapes and writing letters to an APO address in Korea. 1969 was a very significant year.