Patricia Hruby Powell

In 1975 Saigon, ten-year-old Hà, wakes before dawn on Têt, the Vietnamese New Year, and taps the floor with her toe. A boy is supposed to wake first to touch and bless the house. Never a girl. Hà says, “…only male feet can bring luck. An old angry knot expanded in my throat.” What if her act of defiance has spoiled the family’s luck. Because what happens next is devastating. War-torn Saigon falls to the enemy—to North Vietnam.

So begins “Inside Out and Back Again” by Thanhha Lai (Harper 2011), winner of the National Book Award for Young People. Written in prose poems, it is succinct and fast-paced. 

Years ago, Hà’s father disappeared, undoubtedly taken by the North Vietnamese. But on this day, when the capitol is in chaos, her mother manages to escape with Hà and her three brothers to an overcrowded refugee boat at the river. They drift to the sea without being apprehended by the enemy, but no one arrives to rescue them. Finally, after days of hunger and dehydration on the open seas, an American ship rescues them.

In spite of speaking no English, the family starts over again in Alabama with the help of their sponsor who Hà calls “our cowboy”. He wears a cowboy hat, boots, but has no horse–a sore disappointment to Hà. But he’s kind, although his wife isn’t. Neither are the neighbors. They throw eggs, then a brick through the window.

The cowboy encourages the family to join the Baptist church in order to be accepted by the community. Mother says one religion is like another, so they all get baptized, attend church, but continue to chant before their Buddhist altar at home. Why not.

Unable to speak English at school, Hà is considered stupid. When her tormentor, Pink Boy, cannot multiply 18 x 42, Hà marches to the board and makes the calculation in five easy strokes. This of course makes life even worse for Hà. Not only do they taunt her with ha-ha-ha, but Pink Boy and gang corner her, ready to attack.

Having anticipated this, Hà’s big brother approaches on a motorcycle as planned. Saved. By this time, Hà has befriended a red-haired girl and a boy the “color of coconut shell”. Wise Mrs. Washington, a neighbor and retired teacher tutors Hà in more than just English.

Sparely written, this autobiographical story of assimilation is a must-read.

 

Patricia Hruby Powell (www.talesforallages.com) is a nationally touring speaker, dancer, storyteller, librarian and children’s book author. Joséphine, a picture book biography of the African American dancer, Josephine Baker, will be published by Chronicle Books and available fall 2013.

 

“Extra! Extra! Read all ’bout it! ‘Murder at the Waldorf. Terrible Struggle with a Crazy Man! Two Men Killed!’ Read it in “The World”! The world’s greatest newspaper. Just two cents!” This is how Maks hawks his newspapers on the fifth and final day of this fast-paced novel, “City of Orphans” by Avi (Atheneum – Richard Jackson 2011).

In the tenements of New York City, 1893, 13 year-old Danish immigrant Maks desperately needs his eight cent profit to help cover his family’s rent and food. Bruno, leader of the cruel Plug Ugly gang, attacks Maks and attempts to rob him. A homeless girl, Willa, defends Maks with her club. Now the gang threatens to get them both.

Maks and Willa manage to get to Maks’ home where he discovers his oldest sister, Emma, has been accused of stealing a gold watch at the glamorous new Waldorf Hotel where she works as a maid. She’s imprisoned in what they call the Tombs, awaiting trial. His parents are distraught. His mother barely comprehends what is going on in this new country.

Another sister, Agnes is coughing, due to the “wasting disease” or tuberculosis. Still, she goes to work at the shoe factory daily with her father and takes night classes so she might one day become a secretary. But now the shoe factory is threatening to close down. Maks’ three little brothers still go to school.

At this point, most readers are saying, Next to this, I have no problems. Maybe we read such books so we can put our own problems in perspective. This is the immigrant experience in late nineteenth century and Avi sets you smack dab in the center of the sounds and sights of historic New York.

Eccentric lawyer Bartleby Donck directs Maks to search for clues to his sister’s innocence. But will Bartleby, who also has the wasting disease, survive to help Maks? You start to feel you’re reading a Charles Dickens novel, which is cool.

Because this is a middle grade novel, you’re pretty sure it’s going to turn out okay, for which I am extremely grateful. You care so much for this warm tight-knit family who are trying to find freedom in America, but as Maks’ mother says, Here, more tears are shed.

Everything is going wrong for David Greenberg. Entering Harman Middle School is hideous. His best friend Elliott befriends the guy who has always bullied them both. His mother left the family two years ago. But David finds comfort in his own talk show, “TalkTime” modeled after his idol Jon Stewart and “The Daily Show.” Thus begins “How to Survive Middle School” by Donna Gephart (Delacorte 2010).

David has much in common with Jon Stewart. They’re both Jewish and both vertically challenged, not to mention, they both have talk shows. David films in his bedroom, sharing camera time with his hamster, Hammy. Because his former best friend, Elliott, doesn’t show up, David must be writer, cameraman, editor, interviewer, and interviewee of his film production.

David interviews Magazine Cover Jon (Stewart). David reports, “This is tough because though I’m a guy, my voice hasn’t quite caught on yet.” His voice could crack at any moment. Still David asks Jon, did you really play French horn in school? Magazine Cover Jon responds, “That’s right, David. For viewers who don’t know what the French horn is, it’s a large shiny girl repellent.” Alas, David’s voice squeaks mid-joke.

Camera rolling, David barges into big sister Lindsey’s room to find her face covered in zit-cream. Lindsey rants in a fury. David retaliates by using the footage in “TalkTime,” saying “Today’s acne forecast is cloudy with a chance of blackheads.” Okay, cruel, but funny.

David and Lindsey, united in grief over their absent mother, eventually work things out between themselves.

Thank heavens for classmate Sophie, who was formerly home-schooled. When she and David are paired to do a science project together, she discovers David’s “TalkTime” posted on YouTube. She gets the word out to her home-school network, and overnight David becomes a YouTube sensation. This brings more perks to David’s life.

However, his classmates haven’t quite caught on yet, how cool this kid is, but the reader surely will. I wish I’d gone to school with him.

David Greenberg is  funny. That is to say the author Donna Gephart is a riot. Her previous book, “As If Being 12 ¾ Isn’t Bad Enough, My Mother is Running for President” (Delacorte 2008) won the Sid Fleischman Humor Award in 2009. She has another book forthcoming from Delacorte, so keep your eyes peeled for that one, too.

“All the World’s a Stage: A Novel in Five Acts” by Gretchen Woelfle (Holiday House 2011) centers around twelve year old Kit, a street urchin in 1590 London.

Kit’s first apprenticeship to a gang of thieves involves stealing purses from audience members at the Theater playhouse. That “career” ends with shouts of “cutpurse” and clever Molly tackling and pinning him the ground. The theater managers offer Kit the opportunity to work off his debt cleaning the grounds and eventually running errands. The resident playwright, one William Shakespeare, takes great interest in every detail he sees, including the capture of a young and spirited orphan thief–Kit.

It’s a little hard for me to believe that Kit is so reluctant to be fed in exchange for working for the Chamberlain’s Players, considering how hard life was on the street, but okay, he is. Eventually he’s bitten by the theatre bug, but what will he do? Work to become an actor? Women’s roles in Elizabethan theater are played by young men before their voices mature and deepen. Kit is still young enough that he’s eligible and he’s fascinated by acting, but there is the issue of his stage fright.

Kip, a fictional character, lives through a historic episode, when Shakespeare’s players had to dismantle their theatre, beam by beam, in secret and rebuild it across the river to escape its being demolished by the landlord. It’s a grand adventure and a perfect opportunity to learn stagecraft or woodworking. There are opportunities for a young man and Kit needs an opportunity. This device shows much about filthy stinking exciting Elizabethan London in the more specific setting of the rowdy and ribald Shakespearean theater.

Instead of chapters, the story is built in five acts, which are broken into scenes, like a Shakespearean play. In Kit’s eyes, the people behave like characters in a play, all of which furthers the meaning of the book’s title.

Way-too-fun vocabulary includes: bung – a little purse; cutpurse – the person who steals the bung; thribble – the actors’ comeback to hecklers in the audience. I invite you to throw those gems into conversation. And there are others to be found by anyone who reads the book.

What a fine book to introduce Shakespeare’s life and times.

 

 

Most Newbery winners and honor books are fiction. Sometimes they’re non-fiction. On occasion books of poetry are awarded, such as “Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night” by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Rick Allen (Newbery Honor 2011).

Each of twelve lyrical poems is presented as a double spread. Each explores the mystery of an animal in the night forest and is further explained in a sidebar. In the poem, “Night-Spider’s Advice”, she says “eat your triumphs/ eat your mistakes” referring primarily to those unfortunate insects caught in her web. In the succinct sidebar we learn that most orb spiders, at dawn, eat their damaged webs for the nutrients needed for the next night of silk spinning.

“Dark Emperor”, the title poem, is a dramatic concrete poem written in the shape of the great horned howl. The poem speaks of owl’s “hooked face and/hungry eye” as he hunts a mouse. The sidebar tells us that owl flies silently due to his soft-edged feathers, so that its prey never hears his approach.

In “Cricket Speaks”, cricket tells us all day he is “napping and gnawing.” By “midnight/the trilling hour” he sings a “single/ searing/ unstoppable/ sound.” The sidebar explains how noisy the woods is at night, due to chirping frogs and hooting owls. But the loudest sound is made by the stridulating of the male cricket. One wing scrapes against the other, which has a serrated edge, and this can make a deafening sound. Stridulate. I love this word, which is included in the glossary. I’m looking for as many ways as I can to use it.

The illustrations are ink prints made from linoleum cuts then painted with gouache. The process is more fully described in the book. The resulting artwork is beautifully detailed and invites the eye to scan and discover. You might want to try the art form for yourself.

This book can be used in the classroom to study various forms of poetry, for natural science, for vocabulary, for artwork, but mostly it’s a great read.

I now plan to stridulate. I’m clapping, rubbing, brushing, slapping. No wonder Aesop’s grasshopper plays a violin—or maybe that’s just the Disney version of the “Ant and the Grasshopper”. I’ll supply links on my blog.

1934 The Grasshopper and the Ants – Walt Disney http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM1DgihKHVI

So…the last four reviews I’ve written have been books that have are all the Newbery Winners of 2011, all books published last year. If you’ve read some of them, you might want to leave a comment telling whether you’ve liked them. In fact, you might want to vote for your favorite. It’s always interesting to discuss books you’ve read. So please let me know. For review those books are

Moon Over Manifest

Turtle in Paradise

Heart of the Samurai

One Crazy Summer

Dark Emperors and Other Poems of the Night

My choice for the Newbery Award for 2011 would have gone to “One Crazy Summer” (Amistad – HarperCollins 2010) by Rita Williams-Garcia. It is one of the group of five winners. That is, a Newbery Honor.

In 1968 at the height of the civil rights movement, three black sisters, Delphine, (eleven years old), Vonetta (nine), and Fern (seven) travel from Brooklyn to Oakland, California to visit their mother, Cecile.

Delphine only has fleeting memories of her mother who abandoned them and Papa days after Fern was born. Now Cecile, who calls herself Nzila, writes poems and prints them on a press in her kitchen. She has neither time nor warmth for her children and so sends them to the People’s Center summer camp each day. The Black Panthers run the camp, feed the poor, and educate the children of poor black Oakland to what they called revolution, but we today see as “black pride.”

Through Delphine’s practical eyes we begin to understand a changing world where she, in charge of her sisters, does not want them to make a “grand Negro spectacle” of themselves on the airplane and where the summer camp teachers insist they are “black” when she and her sisters insists they are “colored”.

Through the responsible and straight-forward Delphine, we experience the rifts that occur between “showy crowy” Vonetta, sweet baby Fern, and herself. Each character is distinct and well-developed, and we feel we know and love this family. In fact, we’ll never forget them.

As the story unfolds, and as the girls develop black pride, we begin to discover, through Delphine’s eyes, why their mother left them. We see the fragile connection between mother and daughters build to an honest, aching climax. We see how a political movement affects personal life in the example of one family. This is an emotionally charged and honest—oh so honest—novel. A jewel.

My second “reading” of this book was listening to the Recorded Books production of “One Crazy Summer,” read by Sisi Aisha Johnson. Ms. Johnson’s inflection is a perfect portrayal and support of the author’s voice, giving just enough softness to Delphine’s voice and Fern’s gentle little girl-ness with one half ounce of sass added in. Her adult voices and men’s voices are all spot on. What a fine collaboration between reader and author.

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“One Crazy Summer” also won the Coretta Scott King Award, I’m happy to report.