Juvenile/Middle Grade

The Maid, by Nita Prose

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NOTE: There may be some spoilers in this review.

My first reaction to my local book club’s choice for this month was that it was a shoddy knockoff version of the delightful Japanese bestseller Convenience Store Woman. Like that subtle, smart novel, Prose’s protagonist is a young woman apparently on the autism spectrum who works in a menial job and loves it. Unfortunately, The Maid doesn’t measure up.

Molly Gray works as a chambermaid in a five-star hotel where she enjoys restoring each room to “a state of perfection.” Less enjoyable is the disdain with which most of her colleagues treat her—referring to her a weirdo, a robot, a Roomba—though not to her face. Still, she calls on the platitudes and proverbs she learned from her gram, recently deceased, to keep her world in order. Then one day she enters a room to clean it and finds the guest staying in it dead on the bed.

Billed as a cosy mystery, the book fails to be either. True, there is a death and cups of tea, but there is no intrepid sleuth tracking down the killer. There are no clues to follow, no investigation. Instead, the story limps through a threadbare plot, every step of it embarrassingly obvious. There are a few gratuitous “twists” at the very end which come across as cheap tricks because they are not integrated with the plot at all.

Not only is the plot childishly simple, but the language is in the middle grade range (appropriate for age 8-12), often even simpler than that. And that gets to the worst aspect of the book. Since it’s quite obvious to the reader what’s going on, the plot is not the driving force in the book. Neither is the setting, which is barely sketched in. The people in the story are caricatures and stereotypes, either all good or all bad, so nothing there to keep the reader going. The only thing left is Molly herself.

Yes, the force propelling the story is the reader’s amusement as Molly constantly misinterprets what’s obvious to all of us neurotypical folks and responds with prim childish speeches. Making fun of neurodivergent people is a bizarre—and repulsive—choice for the basis of a book. I’m aghast that so many people seem to think this is just great, and that the book has won multiple awards, achieved bestseller status, and will be made into a film.

Making Molly be so childish and naïve seems like the author knows nothing about autism. We talk about cultural appropriation in literature. If a neurotypical author is going to write a first-person novel in the voice of a neurodivergent person, they ought to at least be knowledgeable about the condition. There’s also the way Juan Manuel, who works in the hotel’s kitchen, is presented as naive, unintelligent and helpless, summoning the most despicable stereotypes about immigrants and Mexicans. The police too are shown as bumbling and cruel.

In addition to the above concerns, there are gaping holes in the logic of this story, For example, Molly bounces back and forth from clueless to astute and back again. She tells us about her condition, but sometimes doesn’t show it in her behaviour. Also, no police detective arresting a young woman in her pajamas, would cart her off to jail without enabling her to get dressed. Here, Molly even has to appear in court in her jail-begrimed pajamas, like that would actually happen.

Maids do not trundle their carts through the lobbies of five-star hotels or leave them outside the door to the bar. Nefarious boyfriends are not able to clean out a person’s entire savings account at an ATM in one fell swoop; there are limits on how much you can take out at a time. Plus, how is it that criminals can be running a drug ring in a fancy hotel without anyone noticing? Where are the security people?

Most of all, how is it that no one, from Molly’s childhood teachers to her co-workers to anyone on the police force, recognises that she is neurodivergent?

I am baffled by the praise heaped on this book. As I read it, I alternated between boredom and outrage. Of course, even though it’s a first novel, the author is a longtime editor and, at the time it was published, vice president and editorial director at Simon & Schuster, so she knows a few people.

There are some cute things in the story, like the devotion of Molly and her gram to the Olive Garden and the old tv Show Columbo. But that’s not enough to make up for the story’s weaknesses.

What story have you read with a neurodivergent narrator? What did you think of it?

The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

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I played hooky today, lured by the beautiful weather to work in the garden instead of writing the blog post I’d planned.

As I dug in the dirt, I was reminded, as I always am this time of year, of this wonderful children’s book. Ten-year-old Mary Lennox, orphaned by a cholera epidemic in India where she lived with her parents, is sent to Yorkshire to live with her cantankerous uncle in his gloomy house on the moors. There is a walled garden that has been locked and hidden ever since her aunt’s death.

Spoilt and headstrong Mary is miserable until she meets Dickon, 12-year-old brother of Mary’s maid. He teaches her about the wild things on the moors and gardening as well. The two search for the hidden garden by day, but at night Mary hear strange cries.

I first learned about the book when Miss Lewis, my fourth grade teacher, began reading it to us. Unfortunately, she passed away shortly into the term, and the substitute who took her place was not interested in reading us the rest of the book. I knew even then that librarians were the smartest people on earth, and sure enough, the woman at my neighborhood branch recognised my description and found the book for me.

Little did I know then that it would change everything for me, making me a gardener for life. Not only have I put in a garden everywhere I’ve lived, but my first overseas trip was to Yorkshire. Of course.

Burnett’s book is one of nine that I can point to as having made me the person I am today. Three I read as a child; three as a teenager, and three as an adult. While every book I read changes me to some extent, these books shaped my philosophy, my values, and my identity.

I hope that when a day is this gorgeous you, too, set aside your to-do lists and go outside. Listen to the birds. Dig in the dirt. Find or make your own secret garden.

What book changed your life?

Prince Caspian, by C.S. Lewis

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When I ran across Matt Mikalatos‘s blog posts on rereading C.S. Lewis’s work, I was inspired to look again at the Narnia books. In Prince Caspian, a sequel to the first book, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy are about to board a train back to school when they are suddenly whisked off to the world of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, though they do not recognise it at first because over a thousand years have passed.

Narnia is now ruled by Miraz who became Lord Protector of his nephew Caspian upon the death of Caspian IX but now calls himself the king. Miraz prohibits any mention of Old Narnia: the talking animals, dwarves, the dryads and other what we would call mythological beings, and most of all Aslan himself. He dismisses Caspian’s nurse for telling the child such stories and replaces her with a tutor.

Dr. Cornelius turns out to be just as devoted to the old ways but more circumspect, and it is he who warns Caspian to escape when a son is born to Miraz and his wife, thus putting Caspian’s life in danger. Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy, who had become Kings and Queens in Old Narnia are dragged back to help Caspian and the remaining Old Narnians in their attempt to restore the rightful king to his throne.

I came to the Narnia books in my late teens, not as a child, but it was a time in my life when I was on the lookout for magic, spending time in the woods, studying Transcendentalism, and caught up in the 1960s whirl of possibilities. Charmed by the magical aspects of the Narnia books, I found the overtly Christian foundation a little off-putting, though tried to fit it into my then-exploration of different religions. I was also dismayed by the treatment of women and what I now know as colonialism, but recognised where these fit in the context of Lewis’s time.

On rereading the book now, I’m less struck by the religious overtones than by the similarity to today’s political climate. As Mikalatos says:

Imagine, if you will, a political climate in which truth has been completely discarded. Even the history books are full of falsehoods that advance the narrative of those ruling the nation. Stories of the past have been ignored, abused, or outlawed. In the midst of this political rule, certain classes of people have been persecuted, harmed, sent into hiding.

That is the world of Narnia during Prince Caspian.

As Hamlet says: “The time is out of joint—O cursèd spite, / That ever I was born to set it right!” Lewis himself said the book was about the “restoration of the true religion after corruption.” Leaving aside the religious aspect, the theme of a disordered world needing to be set right can’t help but resonate for me as I watch so many people who claim to follow democratic ideals betray them. At one point, after the children have been attacked by a non-talking bear, Lucy says:

“Wouldn’t it be dreadful if some day, in our own world, at home, men started going wild inside, like the animals here, and still looked like men, so that you’d never know which were which?”

Lucy’s question about talking and non-talking animals illustrates a technique that Lewis deploys throughout the book of using pairs as foils or complements. We have Prince Caspian and the four children; the separate narratives of the boys who pursue the war against Miraz and the girls who with Aslan dance and sing and awaken the Old Narnians. The latter pairing carries forward the scene early on when Dr. Cornelius takes young Caspian up to the tower to witness the conjunction of the two stars Tarva, The Lord of Victory, and Alambil, the Lady of Peace, which together indicate a great good is coming to Narnia. Note that both victory and peace are needed.

There’s also the contrast between belief and skepticism. In the first book it was Lucy who first visited Narnia and the others did not believe her. Here, she is the first to see Aslan and the others say they do not believe her, with terrible consequences. Believing in Aslan and the Golden Age of Narnia is what sets Miraz and his people apart from Caspian and his magical beings. I don’t see belief and skepticism as absolute good and evil, though understand why Lewis made them such here. To me, like victory and peace, both are needed.

Lucy’s reaction to not being believed illuminates a more important theme, that of doing the right thing even when no one around you agrees with you. Of course, the difficulty is that even they think they are doing the right thing, though as in this case a deeper look at their motives reveals more complexity. The question of what authority to follow is here handed off to religion, the old religion of Aslan. In our world and as adults this question has become more complex.

Much of my thinking about this book has been informed by Mikalatos’s posts and the ensuing discussions on them. He says of Lewis: “For him this is all about myth and fairy tales and what they signify. The stories we love are all about deeper truths.”

In my creative writing classes I often talk about tackling big ideas. As Donald Maass says in Writing the Breakout Novel:

A breakout novelist needs courage, too: the courage to say something passionately. A breakout novelist believes that what she has to say is not just worth saying, but it is something that must be said. It is a truth that the world needs to hear, an insight without which we would find ourselves diminished.

What deeper truth has a book you’ve read recently explored?

Greenglass House, by Kate Milford

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Sometimes a Middle Grade (MG) book is the right remedy for the last gloomy dregs of winter. In this first of a five-book series, twelve-year-old Milo’s glee at the start of winter vacation is dashed by the surprise arrival of a guest wanting to stay at Greenglass House, a gloriously rambling inn with many stained-glass windows, which is also the home of Milo and his adoptive parents.

Part of Milo’s dismay is that the inn, which seems to cater to an inordinate number of smugglers, is usually left to the family over the Christmas holidays. Another part is how unexpected this night-time arrival is, in the middle of a massive snowstorm which threatens to close the steep road to the house and—they thought—had frozen over the river Skidwrack, the usual approach to the house.

We quickly understand that Milo has a low tolerance for disorder and change, carefully piling his books in a certain way and always ensuring that each piece of furniture, each knick-knack is in its regular place. He’s self-conscious about how obvious it is that he is adopted, since he is Chinese, and tries to hide or at least be invisible when guests are around. His relief at being on vacation points to school being even more uncomfortable for him.

Their visitor is immediately followed by four more, each as mysterious as the last. Their cook and her oldest daughter are hastily summoned from the village, Nagaspeak, with supplies, barely making it through the storm.

None of the visitors appears to be on the up-and-up, their stated reasons for being there not ringing true. Then there’s the strange antique map Milo found, apparently dropped by one of them. His new friend Meddy, the cook’s younger daughter, introduces him to a role-playing game in which he takes on the character of Negret, through whom he discovers his own unsuspected talents. When items start being stolen, the two of them investigate.

The story takes place more or less in modern times, yet there are lovely quaint details. At one point, the Magothy is mentioned so I assume the fictional Nagspeake is set very near where I grew up on the edge of Sandy Point Park on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Also, the author grew up in Annapolis, which is not far away. I especially loved the house, with its peculiar architecture, unlikely nooks and crannies, prolific attic, and mysterious history.

I read that the book started as a writing prompt—to write something about stained glass—which as a writer and writing teacher I love! Writing to prompts can take you down unusual paths, opening up new ideas and inspiring unusual stories.

While I was too immersed in the story to do much analysis while reading, I found myself afterwards looking at how the author revealed information. Like Milo, we are learning things all the time, but each new understanding raises even more questions. Thus, the suspense kept growing—with appropriate scenes of hot chocolate and companionship as a rest in between.

Some of the twists might seem a little heavy-handed to adults whose investigative skills have been honed by decades of mysteries, but are probably just right for middle-grade readers.

I loved how the characters develop through the story—Milo, of course, but also Meddy, Milo’s parents, and the guests themselves. Also adding to the richness of the story is what Tolkien called “shimmer”: the presence of a story behind the story, a detailed past hinted at, like the shadows of our past selves or our ancestors that lurk behind us.

The book in great fun and I look forward to exploring the rest of the series.

Have you read a Kate Milford book? Which one is your favorite?

Thimble Summer, by Elizabeth Enright

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With all the political turmoil here in the U.S. last week, I turned for comfort to this middle-grade novel by the author of the Melendy Quartet (The Saturdays, etc.) and one of my favorites from childhood: Gone-Away Lake.

First published in 1939 and winner of the Newbery Medal that year, Thimble Summer is the story of nine-year-old Garnet Linden who finds a silver thimble in a dried-up waterbed. She wonders if it might be magical, and indeed that night rain finally comes to her family’s drought-stricken farm, saving their crops.

Depression-era Wisconsin is beautifully captured in this story, as is life on a small family farm. Garnet adopts the runt in a litter of pigs to raise and by the end of the summer is ready to show him at the fair. The joy of a dip in the river after a day in the fields or threshing is captured with imagery appropriate for someone of Garnet’s age.

It’s not all swimming holes and ice cream cones. During an all-night vigil tending the lime kiln that must be continually stoked if they are to have the necessary lime to build their new barn, a mysterious figure appears in the woods. It turns out to be a boy not that much older than Garnet who, left parentless, has been hitchhiking around the country taking jobs as a farmworker when necessary. The Lindens ask him to stay on to help with building the barn, wanting the help but mostly wanting to feed the undernourished boy.

In another adventure, Garnet and her friend Citronella stay too long at the library and are locked in for the night. What starts out as a fun adventure gradually becomes something more, as Enright expertly channels the mind and heart of a young girl.

Last week someone who is writing a memoir questioned her right to do so when her life has no terrible tragedies. I have come across this fear in the memoir classes I teach, so I told her that every life, no matter how blessed, has setbacks and difficulties to overcome. Handled well, these create the necessary conflict to drive the story. Memoir doesn’t have to become what some have called the trauma olympics. What matters most is the quality of the writing.

As noted in Anita Silvey’s The Essential Guide to Children’s Books and Their Creators, in writing this book Enright called on memories of summers spent on Frank Lloyd Wright’s farm in Wisconsin, as well as family stories passed on by her mother and grandmother.

Knowing this adds an extra dimension to the story for me, but truly I was just grateful to be back in the world of my own childhood, happily curled up in a corner of our neighborhood library reading everything from fairy tales and King Arthur stories to books about the adventures of ordinary children like me.

What is a favorite childhood book of yours?

The Famous Five, by Enid Blyton

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Just what the doctor ordered: three adventure stories of children in rural England. The five are siblings Julian, Dick and Anne along with their cousin George (aka Georgina) and her dog Timmy. They actually think they are just going to explore or hike or perhaps camp out, armed with torches, lashings of sandwiches, and ginger beer, but inevitably stumble upon a mystery to be solved.

Five Go to Mystery Moor, the first story in this fifth FF collection, has Anne and George, and Timmy too, spending a week at Captain Johnson’s riding school while the boys are away at a school camp. Anne loves the horses, but George is bored and annoyed that there is another tomboy there. Henry (aka Henrietta) doesn’t have curly hair like George, so seems even more like a boy. Then the news comes that George’s father is ill, so they have to stay longer and the boys are to join them.

The young people are fascinated by nearby Mystery Moor, even more so when they learn from Old Ben the blacksmith how the name originated. Exploring the moor, they come across the group of travellers who had been camped near the riding school and are warned off by the threatening men. Weird lights, blinding mists, and long-buried secrets draw the five and Henry into dangerous encounters.

The other two stories take place at George’s home, a cottage beside the sea. Julian, Dick and Anne usually go to Kirrin Bay for the summer holidays to stay with George, Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin.

In Five Have Plenty of Fun, George’s father has been drawn into a top-secret government project. A highly respected scientist, his absent-mindedness is just mild enough to fuel humorous episodes without seeming stereotypical. The daughter of one of his colleagues is foisted upon the other children who have to adjust to the much younger American and her little dog. Mysterious lights at night lead to a boat trip to Kirrin Island in the bay where surprises and danger await.

The final story Five on a Secret Trail has the children camping out when they stumble across a ruined cottage and an old archeological dig where a very strange boy is continuing to excavate. Wailing noises and strange lights in the night set them investigating.

This collection of three middle-grade novels by beloved author Enid Blyton provide a little respite from today’s grim news. No surprise then that the first Famous Five book was published in 1942 with more coming during the war years and the lean time afterwards. These three were first published in 1954, 1955, and 1956.

Blyton is less well-known in the U.S., which is a shame because these are delightful stories that bring mid-20th century rural England to life. The children provide a range of personalities for young readers to try on. Julian is the oldest and most responsible, while Dick is much like my younger brothers: always ready for a game or a new adventure. Unlike George, with her vehement determination to be as capable as any boy, Anne loves horses, setting things to rights, and keeping everyone on an even keel. The main thing, though, is that they are realistically presented, acting and speaking like children we know.

I wondered if there were a real Kirrin Island, since the riding school’s Milling Green is a real place in Gloucestershire. The answer is no. Two candidates for its inspiration are Corfe Castle on the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, where Blyton spent a lot of time, and Brownsea Island, in Poole Harbour, Dorset, visible from where Blyton played golf at Godlingston Heath. A National Trust property, Brownsea is better known as the home of the Boy Scouts.

If you know some young readers or yourself want a break, dip into some Famous Five stories.

What middle-grade (aimed at ages 8-12) stories do you like?

Best books I read in 2017

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As a writer, I learn something from every book I read. These are the ten best books I read in 2017. Please check the links to the blog archive for a fuller discussion of each book.

1. The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton, 1965-2010, by Lucille Clifton

What makes Clifton’s work so astonishing to me is the way she uses plain language in what are often quite short poems and yet addresses complex themes. Moreover, she packs her poems with music and emotion. What a privilege to be able to delve into a lifetime of work from this remarkable woman!

2. Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

We start with the story of a notary sailing from the Chatham Islands home to California in 1850. This story is followed by others that moved forward in time to the present and beyond. Part of the fun is detecting how the stories fit together. Each of Mitchell’s eras is written in a different style: a journal, an epistolary novel, a genre mystery, etc. It’s masterful writing!

3. Thérèse, by Dorothy Day

Social activist Dorothy Day was deeply influenced by St. Thérèse of Lisieux, also known as the Little Flower. Thérèse came from a humble background and lived what would seem to be an unremarkable life until her death from tuberculosis at 24. What sets her apart from other saints is her simple approach to spirituality, one that is open to all of us.

4. Dante’s Tears: The Poetics of Weeping from Vita Nuova to the Commedia, by Rossana Fenu Barbera

Sometimes you find a book that answers questions you didn’t know you had. This book roused my curiosity about many things, not just Dante and tears, but also silences, numerology, medicine, and religious beliefs during the Late Middle Ages. By tracing the way Dante presents his own tears and those of others, the author demonstrates how Dante’s philosophy and world view developed over the time he spent writing these works.

5. Bread and Wine, by Ignazio Silone

In this 1936 novel by an Italian who worked underground against the fascists and was exiled, the main character, Pietro Spina, much like the author, works against the fascists. Depending on who is talking, he is either a dangerous revolutionary or an admired freedom fighter. The meat of the story, for me at least, is not his political work but his own inner transformation.

6. H is for Hawk, by Helen Macdonald

In this memoir of training a hawk as she copes with her grief over her father’s death, Macdonald lays bare her emotional journey in language that is achingly precise, with moments of grace that left me breathless.

7. The Man Who Knew Infinity, by Robert Kanigel

Subtitled “A Life of the Genius Ramanujan”, this dual biography tells the story of one of the world’s greatest mathematicians and the man whose support made him known to the world. Their stories raise questions pertinent to today’s societies about prejudice, privilege and education.

8. The Noise of Time, by Julian Barnes

In this new book from Julian Barnes, we enter the world of composer Dmitri Shostakovich. We begin in the year is 1936 when Shostakovich is about to undergo the first of three “conversations with power” that will alter the course of his career, his life, and his self-respect.

8. Collected Poems, by James Wright

Before reading this book I had only read one poem by James Wright, his most famous one: “The Blessing”. I was drawn in and held by the gentle images, too specific to be sentimental, until the final image hit me like a fierce wind, lifting me out of this life. How lovely, then, to find this collection by the beloved and influential poet.

9. The Penderwicks, by Jeanne Birdsall

There is nothing like a good children’s book when you want to take a little break from the world. Jeanne Birdsall’s modern series about the Penderwick family is a delightful romp, reminding me of some of the best books of my own childhood. In this first book, the four Penderwick girls and their father take a cottage unseen for their summer vacation. It turns out to be on an estate called Arundel owned by a snooty woman named Mrs. Tifton, whose formal and conventional life is turned upside down by the influx of rambunctious girls.

10. Hélène, by Deborah Poe

In this chapbook of poems, a young woman, Hélène, works in a factory-convent in 19c France weaving silk. Gently, always leaving space for us to make Hélène’s story our own, Poe juxtaposes the beauty of the silk tapestries with the working conditions of the time. We cannot help asking ourselves what confines us and how we escape.

What were the best books you read last year?

Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse

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Another Middle Grade coming-of-age story told in verse—pure coincidence that this was next up on my TBR (to be read) pile when I stopped to read Brown Girl Dreaming. Hesse’s story is also a Newbery winner but is fiction rather than memoir. Thirteen-year-old Billie Jo loves playing the piano when she isn’t busy helping her father and pregnant mother try to keep body and soul together in Dust Bowl Oklahoma.

She is good enough to be asked to play in shows, often with handsome Mad Dog. If she gets well enough known with her music, she can leave the failing farm and the ubiquitous dust behind and go to California. Then a terrible accident throws all her plans into disarray.

Spanning a two-year period from January 1934 to December 1935, these poems paint a vivid picture of what life was like during that terrible time. She describes having to turn the glasses and plates upside down on the table until the last second before serving the meal, and still the food is saturated with dust. There is the heartbreak of a field of wheat, already decimated by drought and wind, be flattened by hail or devoured by grasshoppers.

In some aspects, Billie Jo’s life is similar to many teens: wanting more independence than her mother is willing to give her, feeling as though she’s stuck in the middle of nowhere. When her teacher is in a production of Madame Butterfly, and Mad Dog says that “most everyone’s” heard of that opera, Billie Jo is miffed.

How does that
singing plowboy know something I don’t?
And how much more is out there
most everyone else has heard of
except me?

And she has a best friend. But when Livie leaves for California with her family, Billie Jo says, “I couldn’t get the muscles in my throat relaxed enough / to tell her how much I’d miss her.”

Poetry works well as a form for this novel. The fractured narrative adds to the feeling that you are reading a diary. Also, the necessary compression distills each scene into its essence while retaining the emotional impact. Hesse makes effective use of symbols as well, such as the mother’s special cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving. Here is one complete poem, called “Broken Promise”:

It rained
a little
everywhere
but here.

Other poems are longer and tell a more complete narrative, such as “Blankets of Black” about going to Texhoma for Grandma Lucas’s funeral. Billie Jo’s detailed description of the ordeal is riveting.

While written for ages 11-14, Billie Jo’s story will certainly appeal to adults as well. For younger readers, it’s a good introduction to the terrible tragedy of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl during the Depression.

Have you read a Young Adult or Middle Grade novel that brought an historical period to life for you?

Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson

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Woodson’s memoir in verse invites the reader into her childhood. Reading these poems felt as though Woodson and I were leafing through a photograph album while she told me about these people and places.

Her family’s story, like so many of ours, is a fractured one, with lots of moving around and relationships that fall apart due to death and divorce. Being people of color during the 1960s and 1970s adds further complications. Still, there is a strong current of love and security holding the family and their story together.

In “home” she writes of being taken as a newborn to meet her grandparents in South Carolina. She describes the porch, the azaleas, the red dust on her mother’s shoes. Then:

Welcome home, my grandparents say
    Their warm brown
arms around us. A white handkerchief,
    embroidered with blue
to wipe away my mother’s tears.
    And me,
the new baby, set deep
inside this love.

This book has won several awards, including the Newbery Honor, and was chosen as the 2017 book for Vermont Reads. While it falls in the children’s book category, it appeals to adults as well.

The title tells you all you need to know about the book to entice you into reading it. While being a perfectly straight-forward description of what the book is about, the title also gives you an idea of how the story will be told. The reversed syntax is intriguing, and the startling use of “brown” let’s you know that we are going to sidestep stereotypes about race and speak plainly .

Here’s the opening of “rivers”:

The Hocking River moves like a flowing arm away
from the Ohio River
runs through towns as though
it’s chasing its own freedom, the same way
the Ohio runs north from Virginia until
it’s safely away
from the South.

Most of all, the compression and music of these three words place you in the realm of poetry. It’s had to resist hearing the echo of the opening of Langston Hughes’s great poem “Dream Deferred”:

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?

As I’ve mentioned before poetry works well for memoir because of its fragmentary nature. Gathering poems together in a collection such as this doesn’t create the same sort of linear narrative as a prose memoir.

For me, finding that narrative was the hardest part of writing my memoir. Life does follow a neat narrative arc. When we’re in the midst of it, our life seems chaotic and subject to chance; it’s only later that we try to impose some sort of coherent story out of it. Thus, capturing the past in individual poems And it actually reflects how memory works: it throws up a scene seemingly at random, and we are left to make sense of it.

Then the challenge for the poet is to find a way to make these fragments of memory, these separate scenes hang together without the usual transition tools. Woodson accomplishes this with deceptive ease. Arranged chronologically, the poems sometimes also reach back to tell stories of her parents and siblings and other family members.

This is a book that all ages will enjoy. One of the great benefits of reading is the opportunity to step into another person’s life and see the world through their eyes. I’m grateful to Woodson for her gift of her story, much of which reminded me of my own childhood and even more that helped me understand another kind of experience.

Does your state choose a book each year for everyone to read and discuss? If so, which book was chosen this year?

The Penderwicks, by Jeanne Birdsall

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There is nothing like a good children’s book when you want to take a little break from the world. What seemed like a monolithic category when I was a child—probably because I read everything on the children’s side of the local library—is actually broken into picture books, middle grade (MG) or juvenile (ages 8-12), and young adult (YA) (ages 13-18). Of course, there are gradations within each of these categories; a story aimed at an eighteen-year-old may not appeal to a thirteen-year-old.

There are also differences other than age at play. YA books are longer and have fewer restrictions on content. More interesting to me is that while YA characters are able to see the world through the eyes of others and to face real-world problems, characters in MG novels are quite different. Like children of that age, they are still the center of their universe and likely to see every setback as the end of the world.

Jeanne Birdsall’s modern series about the Penderwick family is classified as juvenile/MG. It is a delightful romp, reminding me of some of the best books of my own childhood.

In this first book, the four Penderwick girls and their father take a cottage unseen for their summer vacation. It turns out to be on an estate called Arundel owned by a snooty woman named Mrs. Tifton, whose formal and conventional life is turned upside down by the influx of rambunctious girls.

Twelve-year-old Rosalind feels the responsibility of being oldest keenly. Skye, the next youngest, is pure tomboy, determined to go her own way. Then comes Jane who at 10 has her head in the clouds when she isn’t writing flamboyant novels about an adventurer named Sabrina Starr. The youngest is shy, four-year-old Batty who wears butterfly wings all the time and communes with Hound, the most beloved of dogs.

While tunneling though a hedge in the forbidden Arundel gardens, Skye runs into a boy—literally—who turns out to be Mrs. Tifton’s son. Jeffrey quickly becomes an honorary Penderwick and the girls rally to his cause when Mrs. T. and her boyfriend, the Dreadful Dexter, decide to send Jeffrey to a military boarding school.

Individually and collectively the children scamper through the story, having adventures and escapades. Although I’ve enjoyed the post-Potter deluge of magical childrens’ advetures, I especially liked that the only magic here is the ordinary magic of childhood, when so much of the adult world seems incomprehensible.

Most of all I loved the family rituals the girls have developed, such as calling a MOPS (meeting of Penderwick sisters) or understanding the responsibility of being the OAP (oldest available Penderwick). Having grown up in a large family, much of this rang true for me, as did the way the sisters sometimes had to transcend their different personalities to respond to various crises.

One of my adult sons reads across all the categories of children’s fiction. They are a good balance for his serious reading and his often stressful job. One aspect that he particularly appreciates in them is the focus on right and wrong, good and evil.

In this book, while we clearly start with Mrs. Tifton and Dexter as thoroughly evil, by the end they have acquired more subtle shadings. They seem more misguided than cruel. When it comes to Jeffrey and the Penderwick girls, their essential goodness doesn’t prevent them from behaving badly at times.

Also, there are shadows in this lovely world. Their mother’s death when Batty was born affects the girls just as Jeffrey’s missing father affects him, though these griefs do not weigh heavily on the story: a difficult trick that Birdsall pulls off beautifully. A missing parent is a common trope in children’s stories. Being left unprotected, or less protected, enables the child to be the protagonist, to be the one to solve the problem, instead of expecting an adult to take care of it.

This book and the others in this series are a delightful reminder of my own childhood, back in the days when children were tossed out of doors to entertain themselves without parental oversight. We got into trouble and found our way out of it. And even then I loved stories like this one about mischievous but good-hearted children.

Is there a children’s book that you enjoy reading as an adult?