2021 MGF: Problem Novels

Dec14

Problem novels are those in which a prevailing social problem, such as racial or class prejudice, mental illness, poverty, or something else, is dramatized through its effect on the characters of a novel. These kinds of novels are popular in middle grade realistic fiction because they are supposed to help children understand and cope with these issues and problems. I dunno. Sometimes the story itself transcends the problem-of-the-week genre, sometimes not.

Anyway, I read, and for the most part enjoyed, the following problem novels published in 2021:

Carry Me Home by Janet Fox. Issue: Homelessness. Twelve year old Lulu and her little sister Serena are living in a Suburban parked in a trailer park with their Daddy. Mama died of cancer. When Daddy doesn’t come to pick them up from after school care one day, Lulu must take care of Serena by herself while keeping the secret of their homelessness and abandonment from the authorities since Lulu is sure that if anyone finds out about their plight the girls will be separated and never find their Daddy again. The chapters alternate between “now” and “before” and “way before”, telling about Lulu’s struggle to provide for herself and her sister and about the family’s backstory of how they came to be homeless and alone. At 193 pages, it’s short, sweet, and ultimately encouraging in showing that there are people in the world who can be trusted and who will help.

Breathing Underwater by Sarah Allen. Issue: Depression, helping a family member who is mentally ill. Thirteen year old Olivia is sure that this road trip from Tennessee to California along with the photographs that Olivia will capture with her new camera along the way will be the keys to helping her older sister Ruth remember the happiness that the sisters used to share. Taking pictures and making memories as well as unearthing the time capsule the two sisters buried years before just must be enough to shake Ruth out of her depression and make her smile. The trip doesn’t quite turn out the way Olivia plans, and I must admit to mixed feelings about this book that didn’t turn out exactly the way I wanted. The theme is personal for me since I have family members who deal with depression, and like Olivia, I’m not sure how to go about loving or caring for or even talking to them sometimes. So, while I didn’t find this story to be, well, depressing, I also didn’t find any great revelations here. I did identify with Olivia and her desire to help as well as her fear of saying the wrong thing or not saying the right thing. And I did want to shake the negativity and moodiness and self-destructive behaviors right out of Ruth (not a solution, I know).

Paradise on Fire by Jewell Parker Rhodes. Issue: Trauma recovery. Aduago (A-DAH-go, Addy, for short) is haunted by her incomplete memories of the fire that she escaped as a young child but that killed her parents. Her grandmother guardian sends Addy to a wilderness summer camping program out west that is supposed to introduce black inner city teens to the joys and dangers of living close to nature. I hated the writing style in this novel. The sentences are short and choppy and fragmentary. Lots of sentence fragments. Survival skills. Addy is growing. Then comes the fire. (You get the idea.) But the story itself, inspired by the Camp Fire in 2018 that destroyed the town of Paradise, California, is compelling. If you can get used to the way it’s written, you might really like this book, especially if you like survival stories.

Boy, Everywhere by A.M. Dassu and World In Between by Kenan Trebincevic. Issue: refugee resettlement. Boy, Everywhere “chronicles the harrowing journey taken from Syria to the UK by Sami and his family, from privilege to poverty, across countries and continents, from a smuggler’s den in Turkey to a prison in Manchester, England.” World In Between, based on the author’s own experiences, tells about Kenan’s journey from Bosnia to the United States. Both books are decently written, worth reading to get different insights into the refugee experience. But neither book is nearly as memorable as last year’s Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri.

Playing the Cards You’re Dealt by Varian Johnson. Issues: gambling addiction, family secrets. I feel as if Varian Johnson is a good writer who just hasn’t quite hit his stride. This story of a boy, Anthony–Ant for short, who has a family legacy to uphold in the annual community spades tournament is good, but just not great. (Spades is a card game, by the way.) The reveal about the story’s narrator at the end of the book is clever, and Ant is a believable and lovable character. It’s a lot like Louis Sachar’s book, The Cardturner, but I liked Sachar’s book better because it didn’t feature a problem-of-the-week to be solved.

2021 MGF: Children of the Fox by Kevin Sands

Nov19

Warning: this book ends with the main characters setting off on a new quest to save a life. So, it’s the beginning of a series, the Thieves of Shadow Novels, and although the story itself is tied up in a somewhat satisfying way, the ending is only a beginning.

That said, I enjoyed Children of the Fox. It reminded me of Megan Whalen Turner’s Thief series, and I would definitely recommend Children of the Fox to fans of Turner’s novels. If references to pagan gods, in this case Shuna the Fox Spirit and Artha the Bear Spirit, and spooky magic mediated by a jeweled Eye, are bothersome to you, you won’t like this story at all. I take these things as story, not as invitations to the occult, but your convictions may be different.

A group of children are hired to steal the powerful magical artifact, The Eye, from the palace of the most powerful sorcerer in the country because the adults have failed to even get close, and this heist can only be performed by children. The team consists of Callan, the gaffer or conman, Oran, the muscle, Meriel, the knife-thrower and charmer, Gareth, the scholar, Lachlan, the scrounger, and Foxtail, a masked and mute mystery girl who can climb walls and infiltrate fortresses. As well as being skilled at thievery, the children are all survivors of trauma, and that means that learning to trust each other and work as a team may be the hardest part of the job.

Why does Mr. Solomon, the children’s recruiter and employer, want The Eye? Why is he willing to pay so much money to get it? How did the adult thieves who already tried to steal The Eye fail? Why did one of those adult thieves lose his sanity in the attempt? How can each of the children use his or her particular skills to contribute to a successful heist? Can the team encounter and deal with magic without getting burned? And what will they do with all that money if they do succeed?

Kevin Sands, author of the Blackthorn Key Adventures (I read the first book in this series, but decided not to continue), has written an intriguing start to a new fantasy adventure series. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series, Seekers of the Fox, due to be published in 2022.

The Art and Science of Drawing by Brent Eviston

Nov16

I can’t draw. At least, for sixty four years, I’ve been convinced that I can’t draw. But this book is teasing me with the possibility that I might be able to learn to draw. I don’t know, but I’m going to try.

The Art & Science of Drawing: Learn to Observe Analyze, and Draw Any Subject by Brent Eviston. Mr. Eviston, an experienced art teacher says, “Drawing is not a talent. It is a skill anyone can learn.” He says he’s been teaching people of all ages to draw for almost twenty-five years. So, I took up the challenge, read through the introductory material about “how to use this book” and “overview of the drawing process” and “materials and set-up.” Then I began with the first lesson: How to Draw Lightly. Each lesson in this book has a practice project, and the project for this lesson was to draw light, almost imperceptible, lines using an overhand grip. I hated the overhand grip that Mr. Eviston prefers, but I can sorta, kinda see its usefulness. Anyway, I’m going to persist.

I can’t review this entire book now because it’s going to take me a year or two to get through all of the mini-lessons in the book. These lessons move from basic skills, like drawing simple shapes, to form and space, drawing three-dimensional shapes, to measuring and proportion, to mark making and contours, to dramatic light and shadow, to figure drawing. I don’t know how many small lessons there are in the book because the lessons aren’t numbered. But the author says to take them in order, and there are a lot of mini-lessons. He also recommends doing no more than one lesson per day, perhaps even one lesson per week. One lesson per week, with daily practice, is my goal.

“This book will guide you through the entire drawing process.” I’m counting on it, Mr. Eviston. I would recommend the book for beginners like me and for experienced artists who want to have a framework for practice and honing drawing skills. I’m looking forward to working my way through the fundamentals of drawing.

2021 MGF: In a Flash by Donna Jo Napoli

Nov11

I’ve enjoyed Donna Jo Napoli’s books in the past; the author blurb says she’s published more than eighty books for children in her long career. Most of the ones I’ve read have been fairy tale and folk tale retellings (The Wager and Zel) or historical adventure tales (Alligator Bayou and North and Song of the Magdalene). Ms. Napoli, a professor of linguistics and social justice at Swarthmore College, is a good writer. Her books tend to fall toward the upper end of the middle grade fiction age group, maybe even pushing into young adult. In a Flash has a child narrator/protagonist, eight years old at the beginning of the story, but the subject matter and setting, the horrible plight of two Italian sisters surviving on their own in WWII Japan (1940-1946), is harrowing enough to call for some maturity in the reader. I was appalled by the suffering that SImona and her little sister Carolina undergo, and I’m a grown up who knew what to expect when the children, toward the end of the story, end up in the city of Hiroshima.

Because the chapter headings have dates affixed at the beginning and the book is written in first person from Simona’s point of view, I thought at first that the author was trying to pretend that this was SImona’s diary or journal. However, the writing isn’t a child’s writing, and the story is told mostly in present tense. Neither of those choices works for a diary entry. So, I soon realized that the dates were just there to assist the reader in knowing how much time had passed between chapters and where the children were in terms of age and in regard to the war. I found the story fascinating, a little slow-moving at first, but the details about life in Tokyo and in Japan as a whole were vivid and enlightening. The cultural differences between Japanese manners, language, and expectations and Italian cultural mores manifest themselves through the eyes of two little girls who struggle to live as the Japanese do while remembering that they are also Italians.

As I indicated, the book doesn’t shy away from the gruesome details of the starvation, fear, political repression, and sheer misery and trauma of living in wartorn Japan, especially as hated Westerners, Italians who were at first welcomed as friends of the Japanese, then despised as traitors after Italy’s surrender to the Allies. The suffering of the common people of Japan, as well as the choice of some of them to resist the suicidal “patriotism” required of them, are also portrayed in the story.

Because of all the suffering and bombing and starvation and imprisonment, the novel read like a Holocaust story, but with a very different setting. I would recommend In a Flash for mature young people who have been reading about the horrors of World War II as a different perspective and view of the atrocities and difficulties of that time.

Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington

Nov10

With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and must perform his tasks even better than a white youth in order to secure recognition. But out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race.

p. 19

White privilege or black privilege? The privilege of suffering? Booker T. Washington, American educator, orator, and author, has been lauded for his leadership and vision for the Black community after the Civil War and during the days of Reconstruction and Jim Crow. He has also been criticized and even vilified for his “accommodationism” to white power and supremacy. In reading his autobiography, I came to the conclusion that he was both intelligent and wise, choosing to do the work that could be done in the time and cultural milieu in which he was placed. He did much to improve the status and education of Black people in a time and place (late 19th and early 20th centuries in the Deep South, U.S.) when such a movement was not only discouraged but oppressed and disallowed.

Historian C. Van Woodward in 1951 wrote of Washington, “The businessman’s gospel of free enterprise, competition, and laissez faire never had a more loyal exponent.” And indeed, isn’t the basis of today’s Critical Race Theory partly the idea that the structures of business and education must be changed to end discrimination against and oppression of Black people. Isn’t that what Mr. Washington was attempting to do as he encouraged Black citizens to gain skills, build wealth, and create their own businesses and educational institutions, free of the racism embedded in the institutions they were barred from attending, supporting, or owning.

Booker T. Washington is indeed somewhat self-aggrandizing over the course of his autobiography, always talking about the speeches he was asked to make in grand places, the money he was able to induce others to contribute, the numbers of students he taught, the schools he built. And yet, success breeds success. Up From Slavery is partly a sales pitch for more people to contribute time and money to the vision that Washington had for the advancement of his people. And it is a successful sales pitch.

“People called Washington the “Wizard of Tuskegee” because of his highly developed political skills, and his creation of a nationwide political machine based on the black middle class, white philanthropy, and Republican Party support.” I would like to see his detractors do more, considering the time and place in which he worked. And his idea that Black people can and should use the suffering and adversity to which they were subjected to make themselves stronger and more confident applies to all of us who face difficulties in our lives.

2021 MGF: Playing the Cards You’re Dealt by Varian Johnson

Nov9

Ten year old Anthony Joplin (Ant for short) has a family reputation to uphold: he needs to win the junior division of the annual spades tournament, just like his brother Aaron and his dad before him. When Ant’s best friend and spades partner, Jamal. gets in a fight and gets grounded, Ant needs a new partner. And he has a an idea of who that could be: the new girl, Shirley, from Texas.

Unfortunately for Ant and Shirley, there’s a lot more happening in Ant’s family and at school than just preparations for the spades tournament. Ant’s dad is struggling with the losing business in his accounting firm, the kids at school are teasing Ant for partnering with a girl, Jamal is talking trash and being plain mean, and Ant just wants everything to settle down and let him play his best game. And when Dad asks Ant to keep a big secret, who can Ant talk to? His brother Aaron who’s away at school? Or Jamal? Or his new friend Shirley?

Varian Johnson tells a good story about a Black family in crisis, but also a family that’s strong enough to deal with the problems they face. Ant’s dad is struggling with more than just work and finances, and while the gambling and alcohol issues that Dad has are dealt with compassionately, the Joplin family (and ultimately the author) still hold Dad responsible for recognizing his problems and getting help to deal with them. Ant has to face his own issues of wanting to be liked and recognized more than he wants to be a friend sometimes, but he eventually realizes that his dad’s problems are not something that Ant can be responsible for or solve.

I liked the book. There is a bit of a ghostly presence in the background of the story, a narrator who pops into the story off and on, but he’s not too intrusive. And there’s a lot of strategy for playing spades embedded in to the story, which I enjoyed but it may be off-putting to some who are not so familiar with the card game. Overall, it’s a good solid novel about playing cards and family secrets and learning how to deal.

2021 MGF: Wilderlore, The Accidental Apprentice by Amanda Foody

Nov9

In a somewhat Harry Potter-ish premise, Barclay, orphan and apprentice mushroom farmer in the rule-bound village of Dullshire, accidentally breaks the most important rule: never, ever, ever go into the Wild Woods. For in the Wild Woods there are beasts and danger . . . and adventure, with no rules.

Barclay somehow manages to bond with a Beast and thereby gets himself run out out of Dullshire and forced into the company of the Lore Keepers, those who live in the Woods and have bonded (on purpose) with the magical and deadly Beasts who live there. All Barclay wants is to get rid of his beast-bonding Mark and go back to Dullshire. However, it isn’t a simple matter to remove a Mark or get rid of a Beast, and Barclay must ask for help from the very people he most wants to avoid, the Lore Keepers.

The world-building in this novel is well done. The book could have used a map showing the six regions of Wilderlands and the Elsewheres, including Dullshire and Humdrum. A list of some of the most important Beasts and their characteristics is included as an appendix in the back of the book. I was engaged enough in the story itself that I didn’t miss either the nonexistent map or the list of Beasts until I finished the book. Maybe a sequel will include other helps and appendices.

I do indeed think there will be a sequel. The story leaves some questions unanswered. Two characters sort of disappear near the end of the story, maybe dead, maybe trapped somewhere, but we’re not told what happened to them. Viola, another main character, has a fraught relationship with her father that is mostly left unexplored. The villain of the piece is defeated, but still alive and left in the custody of a less than trustworthy guardian. So my guess is that there is more Wilderlore to come. (Ah, yes, I see that Book 2 in the series is due out in February of 2022, with books 3 and 4 scheduled for successive years.)

2021 MGF: Across the Pond by Joy McCullough

Nov7

Author Joy McCullough once lived in a castle in Scotland with her older sister and their parents. Now, she’s written her second middle grade novel about a twelve year old girl named Callie, short for Calliope, whose American parents inherit a Scottish castle. They take the entire family, the parents, Callie, and her little brother Jax, to Scotland to renovate the castle and live there. And Callie is both excited and thankful to start a new life, away from San Francisco, where her erstwhile friends have deserted her because of a disagreement over what it means to grow up. Callie is ready to reinvent herself.

The problem is that Callie, even if she calls herself Calliope, is still the same bookish and somewhat awkward person she was back in California. And it seems as if friendships will be no easier in Scotland than they were back home. So Callie begs to be homeschooled, a plan her parents agree to, on one condition: Callie must participate in some sort of social activity.

Almost by accident, Callie chooses birding, or as they call it in Scotland, twitching. The story of how Callie becomes a dedicated twitcher, makes friends, and learns to be comfortable with her own identity and decisions, is a good coming of age/friendship story set in a very modern day Scotland, despite the castle part. As her parents settle in and remake the castle into a tourist attraction, Callie also settles and comes to terms with her own opinions and interests and abilities. She learns that standing up to bullies and irresponsible and foolish so-called friends has its costs, but resisting peer pressure and standing up for what is right also has its rewards.

Letters from the former owner of the castle to her mum, written during the evacuation of children to the country during World War II, are interspersed throughout the narrative, but I don’t really think the letters add much to the novel. Pippa, the letter writer, has an experience that somewhat parallels Calllie’s, and Pippa finds strength and solace in bird watching, too. But there’s not enough of Pippa’s story for her character to become fully realized, so it’s really Callie’s story that the reader wants to follow.

Across the Pond is a great book for Anglophiles, or Scotophiles (is that a word?), for anyone who’s ever dreamed of living in a castle, and for all of us who feel like misfits from time to time. The birding (twitching) details and the Scottish words and insults that are sprinkled throughout the story makes it even more fun to read.

2021 MGF: Sisters of the Neversea by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Nov6

This take-off on Barrie’s Peter Pan with Native American characters (to correct the portrayal of “injuns” in Barrie’s story) starts off great. The characters, twelve year old sisters, Wendy and Lily, and their little four year old brother, Matthew, are complex and engaging. Their family dynamics and structure are a little bit confusing: Wendy and Lily are step-sisters, and Matthew shares a mother with Lily and a father with Wendy. (There’s also an older brother, John, who remains a minor background character.) Lily and Matthew both have Native American heritage, while Wendy is of British extraction. This ethnic heritage is emphasized in the story, partly to counteract the unfavorable characterization of Native Americans in Barrie’s original story.

Anyway, diversity aside, the story is exciting, and the themes of family bonding and dealing with anxiety and responding with grace to change are well handled without becoming too preachy. Although divorce is a possibility—the girls’ parents aren’t getting along well—no one reading this book will feel as if they are being duped into a “book therapy” session. Peter Pan in this iteration is a self-absorbed bully, but again his characterization is a part of the story, not an exercise in the psychology of bullies.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story, and I was completely absorbed in figuring out how Wendy and Lily were going to save Matthew from becoming one of the Lost Boys and how they were all going to escape from Neverland. I wanted to know what would happen to Peter. Would he reform and grow into maturity or remain a selfish tyrant in Neverland? Would his shadow come back to him? Could the Native children on one side of the island, the Lost Boys on the other side, and the pirates in their ship, not to mention the innumerable, mostly invisible, fairies, ever come to terms and be at peace with one another? Was Neverland big enough for all of these groups, or would someone need to “leave town”, so to speak.

BUT just FYI, although it’s well written and engaging, about halfway through, the author introduces a minor character named Terri who goes out of her way to tell the reader that she is “two-spirit”. What in the world? The book never explains what the designation “two-spirit” is supposed to mean (not even in the author’s note at the end), and the Wikipedia article is more confusing than illuminating. But I gather that it’s some sort of alternative gender designation, and it was totally unnecessary to the story for Terri to be introduced with that identity. I found it to be confusing and propagandistic. As you can see, by my need to look it up and then try to understand what purpose the two-spirit identity had in the story, that particular passage, a very minor part of a good story, completely threw me out of the narrative. I think children will either skim over it or be similarly confused and inquisitive.

If “two-spirit” indicates a kind of third or fourth or whatever number alternative gender, the gender confusion that is rampant in our society at this particular juncture in history doesn’t need to be inserted into children’s literature. If it’s an indicator of some sort of Native American spirituality, the lack of an explanation doesn’t serve the reader or the story. In fact, this propaganda unfortunately rather spoils the entire story.

2021 MGF: Once Upon a Camel by Kathi Appelt

Nov5

First of all, I have a prejudice in favor of books set in Texas, as long as the Texas culture and history is authentic. Once Upon a Camel, set in my native West Texas, is spot on. Secondly, I absolutely loved Kathi Appelt’s The Underneath and thought it should have won a Newbery Award a few years ago. However, not everyone agreed with me. So you may or may not agree with me that Once Upon a Camel is in the top tier of middle grade fiction published in 2021.

The novel is similar in style to The Underneath, but as I said, it’s set in West Texas, not East. And it features an aging, storytelling camel and a family of kestrels caught in a haboob, a giant, overwhelmingly destructive, dust storm. I loved the storytelling and the way it was woven into the greater story. I loved the kindness and courage exhibited by the animal characters.

The animals are anthropomorphized, but they also stay true to their animal nature for the most part. Zada, the camel, is sometimes loud, nurturing as an honorary auntie, and fond of racing (at least, she was a racer in her youth), and not so fond of horses. The kestrel couple, Pard and Perlita, are fierce and loyal and persistently loving. The baby kestrels, Wims and Beulah, are, well, they are babies, much like human children, quarrelsome yet tender with each other, impulsive, prone to getting into trouble, yet definitely lovable. Even the mountain lion, Pecos de Leon, is only a little bit scary and ominous, and he, too is susceptible to the calming influence of a good story.

Zada’s stories come from her history, and they’re the kind of stories that humans would tell in family groups or in communities. They are family stories, and the book is yet another iteration of the theme that “stories will save the world.” In the author’s note at the end of the book, Ms. Appelt writes:

“In these days of so much anger and division, it’s more important than ever that we take time to share our stories, which at their most basic level tie us to each other in fundamental ways. After all we’ve been gathering around campfires and kitchen tables for thousands of years and doing just that. We are, all of us, story beasts, made to tell stories, built for them.”

p. 321

I highly recommend that you make your acquaintance with Zada, the camel, and that you read her stories and the story of the haboob and how Zada and her friends survived in it. We’ve all been experiencing our own massive “dust storms” through the past couple of years, and perhaps a fictional West Texas camel can help us find our own survival strategies. And even if there are no profound lessons to be learned from Zada, a little humor and a light story never hurt in the midst of a storm.