Friday Review: My Brother's Shadow

My Brother's Shadow
by Monika Schröder
Farrar Straus Giroux/Frances Foster Books (September 2011)
Age 12+

There's one thing I know I can pretty much count on when I see the names Monika Schröder and Frances Foster together in a book: I'm in for a good read. I learned about Schröder's writing from her middle grade novel, Saraswati's Way, which I reviewed last fall. Saraswati's Way was published under the Frances Foster imprint as well, and when it comes to precious reading time, I often rely on the who's behind the scene to help me navigate the book piles. It took me about, oh, zero seconds to pick Schröder's soon-to-be released young adult novel, My Brother's Shadow, for review.
 
In short, it does not disappoint. With skillful restraint, Schröder's crafts yet another powerful portrait of a boy caught in the crush of value systems and a world in chaos. In this case, the story unfolds through the public/private strife of Berlin during World War I and a sixteen year old boy, Moritz, whose family is politically divided between his anti-war, political activist mother on the one side and his Kaiser-supporting, soldier brother on the other.

When the story opens, Moritz doesn't question the rightness of the war, even though he and others are barely subsisting on ersatz food and government lies. Life under the Kaiser is all he's known, and he's troubled by his mother's rebellious acts. It's a refreshing and honest insight into a period of history that, when it comes down to it, is not so much World War I as it is World War II, Act I. The fact that Moritz works as a printer for the newspaper allows his story to illuminate the clash of personal and private interests, as well as integrate the conflicts at stake.

Told in first person, the narration of Moritz is as stark and sparse as the unemotional chill of war, once again demonstrating Schröder's use of emotional restraint to reflect (rather than exploit) a harsh existence. It rings true with a voice that reads like a teen of that time, and under those conditions, would view the world, which is to say that Schröder did a fine job of getting inside the psyche of another era. It is not flowery or lyrical, but blunt and, at times, as cold as Moritz's relationship with his ailing grandmother. (There's a scene in which she asks him to apply ointment on her back that is absolutely priceless in its cringe-worthy honesty.)

The fact that the narration is also told in present tense gives the story an eerie sense of real time contemporary political struggles and war. I found myself thinking that, while we have food and shelter, not much as changed in terms of political rhetoric and the fact that it's the poor and powerless who always carry the burden of the prevailing powers' success and failure.

In the end, Moritz gets his bearings and carves a place for himself with his awakening values. He even finds a girl. A Jewish girl. We all know, of course, what that implies for his future. In this regard, the downside to ending a book at the close of WWI is that, by its very nature of unrest and mounting hostilities against Jews, it cannot feel satisfying or remotely tidy. But it does feel genuine. And that, when it comes right down to it, is My Brother's Shadow greatest strength (among many).

Due out September 24th.

Source: Advanced Reader's Copy

About my reviews:
My comments and reactions to the books I read reflect my experience of the story as a writer studying the craft. I write them to examine what makes a story work, rather than sheer reader appeal.

Peculiarity Pays Off

MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN
by Ransom Riggs
Quirk Books (2011)
Young Adult

I love risk takers—in life and in art—so when I caught sight of Quirk Books' latest novel novel by Ransom Riggs, I cheered. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children tells the reality-bending tale of a teen in search of the monsters of his grandfather's WWII youth, thanks in large part to antique photographs that ground this odd fiction in reality.

The story is told by Jacob, a privileged teen living in Florida who tries to make sense of his grandfather's childhood tales of living in a home for children with strange gifts, protected from monsters "by a bird who smokes a pipe." The tales are supported by pictures of children with peculiar abilities (a boy who has bees living inside him, a girl who levitates, another who eats out of the back of her head). When Jacob was a small child, he believed the tales and the pictures. As a teen, however, he sees the photographic tricks and comes to understand the monsters as symbolic of the Nazis who killed his grandfather's family—until his grandfather is murdered, that is, and Jacob sees the deadly monster with his own eyes.

His experience is treated as a stress reaction. The solution: visit the remote island off the coast of Wales where his grandfather took refuge during the war. Jacob plunges into the proverbial rabbit hole when he not only finds the home, but the children themselves—looking and behaving just like they did in his grandfather's pictures.

Hip hip hooray to Riggs for effortlessly blending the seemingly incongruous—an ordinary world tainted by the extraordinary—and sustaining this uncomfortable balance long enough to pull the reader in. To this end, the pictures work magic.

I think if I weren't a children's writer, I might have been able to stay the course. Unfortunately, the narration kept throwing me—part teen, part Rick Yancey (think Monstrumologist). It's the downside, I think, of a writer who hasn't been marinating in children's literature. Voice is everything. As the story progresses, it also tends to get younger in tone, maybe a result of introducing a cast of young children for this teen to interact with. The end result is a mixed bag of intriguing genius and slightly unfocused children's/YA craft. Stronger emotional/character development would have gone a long way as well.

I wanted to love this book, but I like it well enough to recommend it for an interesting read and study of well-executed liminal fantasy. No doubt, we will be hearing more from Riggs and his most peculiar children.

Source: I purchased my copy at Orca Books.

About my reviews:
My comments and reactions to the books I read reflect my experience of the story as a writer studying the craft. I write them to examine what makes a story work, rather than sheer reader appeal.

The Friendship Doll

THE FRIENDSHIP DOLL
by Kirby Larson
Delacorte Books for Young Readers (May, 2011)
Ages 9 and up

Take four stories that span more than a decade of the Great Depression, each of which captures a pivotal moment in the life of a different girl, and link them through the awakening heart of a Japanese doll—you know what you have? One of this year's most compelling books in children's literature: THE FRIENDSHIP DOLL.

Although I am an admitted fan of Kirby Larson, I am not a big fan of dolls (unless they are the wicked, mangled, creatury kind); however, by the time I reached the end of the first story, I could not put this book down. Not only does Larson breathe life into the pretentious Miss Kanagawa, one of 58 Ambassadors of Friendship sent by Japan in 1927, she breathes life into the pages of this book with a subtle element of liminal fantasy that gives each episodic tale a mesmerizing mystical quality grounded in historical authenticity.

This is no easy feat, but when it works (as this does), the payoff is huge. One of my librarian friends read the ARC of this book a couple months ago, and she was raving that it "blew [her] mind." I had no idea what she meant by this, but I do now. The book—its four part structure and seamless blending of the magical with the mundane—has a numinous quality. And the voice—the voices—so pitch perfect in each narration they lend even more authenticity to the telling as Miss. Kanagawa is passed from place to place, suffering the hardship of years and diminished circumstances—but not diminished heart.

THE FRIENDSHIP DOLL closes with a fifth story that diverges from the other four by jumping to the present day. The leap jarred me at first, mainly because the Depression-era world created by Larson in the rest of the book is so hard to leave, but I can see that the book wouldn't have worked without it. In this sense, I tend to think of it more as a perfect epilogue than an ending.

On every level, THE FRIENDSHIP DOLL embodies the power of storytelling and friendship to heal and unite that which has become separated, isolated or broken. For me, there is just one thing lacking in this marvelous narrative: a cash reward for information leading to the whereabouts (or fate) of Miss Kanagawa and her missing sisters. Random House, are you listening?

Source: I bought my copy from Secret Garden Books

About my reviews:
My comments and reactions to the books I read are not so much reader-type reviews as they are my experience of the story as a writer studying the craft. I write them to examine what makes a story work.

OKAY BY ME

OKAY FOR NOW
Gary Schmidt
Clarion Books (April, 2011)
Young Adult

Problem: Take a troubled teen with a violent father, bullying brother and a shameful secret and watch him navigate the perils of downward mobility during a turbulent time when our country is perched precariously between hope and fear—the first moon shot and war in Vietnam—and you've got a dilemma: How in the world do you keep his story from smelling like cheap melodrama?

Answer: Get Gary Schmidt to write it.

In OKAY FOR NOW, Gary Schmidt's follow-up to his Newbery Honor-winning WEDNESDAY WARS, Doug Swieteck's life has all the hallmarks of an ABC after school special about abuse, illness, poverty, bullying, disability, war, and first love all rolled into one; and yet, in the hands of Gary Schmidt, it's a multi-dimensional work of art—just like the John James Audubon's drawings of wildlife that Doug studies at the library every Saturday afternoon.

In fact, the images of Audubon's birds in flight, conflict and balance provide the underpinnings of Schmidt's complex novel. He opens every chapter with a different plate from Birds of America and uses each one as a focal point for Doug to grapple with as he learns Audubon's techniques for depicting movement and stability in a perilous world. In the case of OKAY FOR NOW, life imitates art imitating life.

The parallels are worth taking note by anyone who attempts to re-create life through words or images. Both Audubon and Schmidt's stunning real life portrayals hinge on one simple technique: suggestion. The point is driven home by Mr. Powell the librarian who (pardon the pun) takes Doug under his wing:

"Don't think of the bird as a flat image. Think of it the whole way around, even the parts that you don't see. Then think of how all the different pieces of the bird are working with or against each other. Think how the body of the bird wants to fall..."

"And the wings want to keep it up."

"Exactly. All movement relies on that kind of tension. You show the movement by suggesting the tension."

Simply put, Schmidt's novel succeeds because of his ability to suggest. This single attribute is what makes OKAY soar above other books that deal with difficult subjects.

Doug's father is abusive, but Schmidt doesn't come out and tell us that; he suggests it. Doug never tells the reader his father hits him. That would make him a chump. But he does say his father's hands are quick. He doesn't say his mother feels trapped and hopeless; instead, he shows us how he feels during those rare times she smiles. Often, Doug doesn't assign any value to an event, other than to say. "You know how that feels?" Thanks to suggestion, the reader feels the emotion more keenly than being told outright.

Like Audubon's birds that Doug learns are indirectly defined by the space around them, he is likewise being shaped and defined by the narrative unfolding around him. It's an effective technique if you can pull it off, which Schmidt does without being too overplayed. He does tend to draw the comparisons a little strongly at times, but since the story is told first person by a boy who's trying to figure himself out as he goes along, it works.

The other technique that works beautifully is Schmidt's introduction of an object on page one that will ultimately save the story from becoming distractingly improbable at times, and that is this: Joe Pepitone's hat. It's established right at the beginning that Doug was given that hat the year before by Joe himself (which readers of WEDNESDAY WARS would recall and new readers can easily accept as fact). Without this element of something slightly fantastical, much of Doug's storyline later in the book would feel unearned and parts could be dismissed as too unrealistic for such a realistic story. As a result, I can buy into anything Schmidt delivers at the end (except maybe what happens with the father).

There's so much going on in OKAY FOR NOW, I won't even attempt to lay out all the plot threads; but trust me, none of it would work if Joe Pepitone's hat did not make an early appearance.

And with that, I leave you to READ THIS BOOK and decide for yourself.



About my reviews:
My comments and reactions to the books I read are not so much reader-type reviews as they are my experience of the story as a writer studying the craft. I write them to examine what makes a story work.

Monsters Eat Whiny Children

MONSTERS EAT WHINY CHILDREN
Written and Illustrated by Bruce Eric Kaplan
Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing (2010)
Ages 4-8

I zeroed in on this book the other day because it had just about everything going for it that screamed READ ME:

• The title, which does not leave me wondering if the trajectory of the plot will be on point. I already know where this story is going and I want to watch it unfold.
• The back cover, which reads, "The crumbs are the best part." Okay. Now I know this is going to be brash, dark humor. Love it.
• The color and illustrations, which are simple, bold cartoon style.(Very raw and monsterish.)
• The inside cover pages, which display a map of the children's neighborhood, including this gem: "Store where people think Eve is a boy." It's one of those random, quirky details that tell me this book will not be the usual fare.

As I read the story—about a brother and sister who, despite the warnings from their "kindly father," continue to whine until they are taken by a monster to his lair "in the bad side of town"—I immediately felt an old conflict rising inside my gut (and it wasn't dinner). Here was a fabulous concept with off-beat twists...but the story had all the hallmarks of a writer for adults (Kaplan wrote for Seinfeld and Six Feet Under) who has just written his first children's book.

I love television writers. They're quick, witty, sharp and edgy—all qualities that, when combined with proven conventions of children's literature, could make for a dynamite story. But the key word is, conventions. There's a reason children's writers study them, practice them, and are rejected for years until they get them right: THEY WORK.

I think one of my biggest disappointments in MONSTERS EAT WHINY CHILDREN is that, while it's still a fun read, it could have been so much better. If only a few simple conventions were adhered to:

Make the children the protagonists. In MONSTERS, the protagonists are the "adults" (the monsters) and not the kids. How much more lively and empowering it would have been to see the kids get themselves into trouble, then deeper and deeper trouble as they tried to fix the problem; instead, the story shows us the monsters making all the decisions and mistakes, which his falls under "those dumb grown ups" category. (Yawn)

Stick to the rule of three. It's hard to tell how many problems and turns this story takes. It's a little muddled in this regard. The monster makes a whiny child salad, but the monster's wife doesn't like the dressing. So they make a new dressing, but the neighbor shows up and says they should be making whiny child burgers. But they have trouble with the grill... You get the picture. It's a very adult daily life sort of problem, which is fun to laugh at, but how much better would it have been if the children had been outwitting them or doing something (anything) to affect the storyline?

In the end, the children find a way out, but they didn't earn their way there. So, from my perspective, it felt much less satisfying.

Does this lessen the enjoyment of a reader? Probably not. On the other hand, why not make the most of a promising story and, at the same time, maintain the quality of of craft that we all want young readers to recognize and expect as they grow into the world of literature and life?

About my reviews:
My comments and reactions to the books I read are not so much reader-type reviews as they are my experience of the story as a writer studying the craft. I write them to examine what makes a story work.

BOOM

I've been trying a different approach to book reviewing, which is to discuss only those books I have positive things to say about—ergo, the long stretches of silence.

It's not as though I haven't been reading or doing anything interesting; I've been trying to be nice. And, frankly, it's killing me. I'm a person with strong convictions. Strong doesn't mix with nice, which has always felt fairly gutless, even if it's for a good cause.

But who am I kidding? I read with undiluted passion, eager to find rare gems, disappointed when the stories fall short, and a muttering hot mess when my favorites don't get the recognition they deserve. I don't want to be this picky. In fact, I long for the days of pre-educated reading when I could get lost in a story and simply enjoy it without noticing moments of clumsy craft.

I wondered. Could I revert to those days? Could I randomly sift through the bookshelves and see what appealed to me, just like a regular person?

Yes I could. And this is what I found:

I'm not sure what drew me to this book. It certainly wasn't the fact that the author, Mark Haddon, wrote THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME...because I detested that book.

It wasn't for the blurbs. (There were none.)

Or the blog buzz. (The book was originally published in 1992 under the title GRIDZBI SPUDVETCH! and revised/released again in 2009)

Or the cover. (It's orange, with a rocket. Big whoop.)

What grabbed my attention was the immediate engagement of Haddon's writing on the first page—his clipped, breezy style and unpretentious humor. Nothing about this book is striving for higher ground. It is what it is.

And here's what it's about: Two boys overhear their teachers talking in a strange language and decide to investigate. Before they know it, the entire planet is at risk; and worse, their parents are going to be really upset.

There's an out-of-work dad, a work-obsessed mom, a sister's criminally thuggish boyfriend and a lot of smashing, crashing, injury-inducing mishaps. What you will not find is any great character development or meaningful growth. The main character—Jimbo—sleeps through a few key plot turns (because it just feels good to sleep, right?) and falls out of step with the action. No clever craft techniques or plot twists. Nothing along the lines of outrage that this book did not win any awards.

But guess what? I didn't mind. It was just plain fun to read. It reminded me a bit of M.T. Anderson's WHALES ON STILTS (wherein whales on stilts are trying to take over the world), and well, I sure wouldn't mind being on his playing field.

In fact, I wouldn't mind if all I ever wrote were fun stories like BOOM! that provided a little escape from a pretty treacherous world.


Source: I bought my copy at Orca Books.

A Book in Flight

NO PASSENGERS BEYOND THIS POINT
by Gennifer Choldenko
Dial Books for Young Readers
ages 10 and up

Gennifer Choldenko's newest arrival, NO PASSENGERS BEYOND THIS POINT, delivers a rare blend of skillful craft and great storytelling that captures the hard-to-bottle quality of a book that, once it takes off, cannot be put down.

In this reality-bending story of three siblings whose world has been uprooted through the foreclosure of their home and forced relocation to another state (without their mother), Choldenko manages to pull off the extraordinary.

She effortlessly transports her characters to another plane of existence that is as understandable as it is mystifying, inviting the reader to put the pieces together without feeling overwhelmed or confused. Nothing about what happens to the three young protagonists should make sense, but it does. And that is the beauty of this refreshing novel.

The story is told through three points of view: India, a self-obsessed fourteen-year old striving for independence; Finn, a reliable man-of-the-house twelve-year old saddled with being forgettable in the eyes of his peers; and Mouse, their brilliant six-year-old sister with an equally brilliant invisible friend (Bing).

This narrative approach works beautifully, especially when the kids' flight to Denver takes an inexplicable detour to Falling Bird, a place known only by what it is not. In fact, Falling Bird is littered with signs indicating an endless assortment of "Nots"—Not Las Vegas, Not Albuquerque, Not Denver. Once separated, the different narrations serve to heighten the tension and deepen the storyline.

Falling Bird operates with its own strange, dreamlike logic built from elements of real life. Each of the kids has his and her own home that satisfies every desire, right down to a "cool mom" for India, a "dad" for Finn and plenty of explosive crafts for Mouse. And yet, all is not well in this world where new arrivals are welcomed like rock stars. For one thing, they have to choose to be citizens of Falling Bird and never see their mother again, or forever be passengers looking for a flight that doesn't depart.

Choldenko wastes no detail, making every element work double and triple duty to drive the narrative through character motivation, rather than exterior plot. India, Finn and Mouse create their own outcomes according to their individual flaws and desires—digging themselves to varying depths of difficulty (India more so than her siblings). Not only do they have to solve the puzzle of Falling Bird and find a way out of a place no one leaves, they have to overcome their own individual and collective challenges.

I'm not sure if the targeted reader will be able to tell what's really going on in Falling Bird, or if Choldenko intended to keep it a mystery to the end. I knew right away (though I will be mum about it here), but my knowing did not diminish the enjoyment or suspense; in fact, it was enhanced. So, either way, the story works beautifully.

It's not often I read a book that I get this excited about. It's the perfect middle grade attention-grabber for boys and girls alike. If you haven't already put it on your TRB list, get it on there!


Source: I bought my copy at Orca Books.