Relive the Cold War

The cover of Countdown by Deborah Wiles shows a 45 record in all its glory.  One might believe it was a study in pop music.  However, the first 16 pages give a clue that this book may have a slightly different take. These pages show photographs of President Kennedy and Nikta Khrushchev, a mushroom cloud, and of students practicing ducking under their school desks.  Thiis story is set at the height of the Cuban Missle Crisis.

The story revolves around eleven-year-old Franny Chapman, whose dad happens to fly Air Force One. She has a younger brother that can do no wrong, an older sister at college who seems to have a secret, and a crazy uncle that lives with her family.  On top of all this, she feels completely insignificant.  Her teacher overlooks her, and her best friend is not speaking to her.  She is dealing with normal anxieties, with the fear of nuclear annihilation hanging over her head.  It takes a near tragedy for her to discover her true friends and her own strength.

What makes this book more than just a coming-of-age story is there are real artifacts peppered throughout.  Photos, newspaper articles, and advertisements of the era bring the age to life.  My one problem is that the pages of pictures brought me out of the story, at times it interrupted, rather than enhanced, the narrative.

Civil rights kept me up until the wee hours.....

The Lions of Little Rock by Kristen Levine came highly recommended, and that worried me.  I have often found that I am disappointed when I expect too much.  I must admit, as I started the story, I thought it this would disappoint.  It is told from the point of Marlee, a thirteen-year-old girl living in Little Rock in 1958.  She is afraid of heights and terrified of speaking....period.  In fact, her older sister challenges her to say 5 words, in complete sentences, on her first day of school.   Marlee surprises herself by not only accomplishing it, but by doing so in meeting the new girl, Elizabeth.  Elizabeth seems to be all that Marlee isn't:  funny, talkative, engaging.  And yet, they become best friends.  This is the point when I worry the book won't live up to the hype.  It seemed like a girly sort of friendship book.

Luckily, history takes over and the book lives up to the hype.  1958 is called "The Lost Year" in Little Rock.  It was a year in which none of the public high schools opened to protest the forced integration that the federal government had imposed the previous year when the "Little Rock Nine," nine black students, had attended an all-white public school.  Marlee's older sister is left home while Marlee attends Junior High.  Soon, her family, and her friendship with Elizabeth is thrown into the escalating conflict over integration.  Unable to watch the unfair discrimination she witnesses, Marlee finds her voice, risking not only her newly found friendship, but also her safety.

It is a story about standing up for what is right, even when it scares you.  And, it also deals realistically with the consequences of such bravery.  I literally couldn't put it down....finishing it in one late-night reading marathon.

Compelling MN historical fiction

I read Frozen by Minnesota author Mary Casanova because of a great confluence of events....being from Minnesota, meeting her at a conference, co-planning a historical fiction unit, and, finally, running into the right person at the right time.  The book sort of fell in my lap.  I am so glad it did.  In fact, I'm beginning to rethink my opinion that I'm not a fan of historical fiction.

It is set far in the north of Minnesota on the eve of Prohibition.  A prostitute is found, dead, frozen in the snow.  Everyone assumed she passed out and died from exposure.  Known to only a few, huddled near her body was her six-year-old daughter.  Fast forward 10 years.  The girl is now a teenager, foster-child to a state senator, and she hasn't spoken a word since she was brought to them all those years ago.  She still has dim memories of the night her mother died, and she suspects there was foul play.  She begins a secret journey to find the truth, and her voice, both literally and figuratively.  Clear-cutting, logging barons, environmentalism, women's rights, greed, mental illness and murder come together in this compelling mystery.  

This story has it's inspiration in a news story from that era about a prostitute found frozen in the snow whose body was propped in the city hall as a "joke."  I admire the creative mind that took such a sad, sordid article and created such a rich backstory.

It's all true

I had heard all sorts do good things about Once by Morris Gleitzman.  Sometimes, I'm afraid to read a book after so much positive hype for fear it can't possibly live up to it.  Nearly every book recommended by Oprah's book club comes to mind.  Fortunately, this book did not disappoint.  It is a story of the Holocaust, told from the point of view of a young Jewish boy in Poland who doesn't quite understand what's happening.  Much like the young boy in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, he has been protected from the truth.

Felix was brought to a remote Catholic orphanage years ago by his parents, who were owners of a book store.  Felix has an incredible gift for storytelling and has made up a whole notebook of stories about his mother and dad and their adventures trying to save authors so they will have books for their bookstore.  Then he receives a sign and he is sure his parents are coming to get him.  However,  before they can get there, he sees soldiers burning books, and sets off to find his parents' bookstore, which he believes is just closed for now.  He intends to hide the books, saving the store.  What he finds, unfortunately, is much different than his stories.  He runs right into the heart of Nazi brutality in Poland.

This is a journey of a young boy from innocence to stark reality.  However, it focuses, instead on his hope and bravery.   It is followed by three more books: Then, Now and After.  I can't wait to read them!

This book is difficult to place for for appropriate interest level.  It is fairly easy to read, and yet, contains some brutal details and images. I am placing it at Junior High because if a younger person reads it, be prepared to discuss the brutality that occurred during the Holocaust.

This is from the front flap of the book:

"ONCE I escaped from an orphanage to find Mum and Dad.

ONCE I saved a girl called Zelda from a burning house.

ONCE I made a Nazi with a toothache laugh.

My name is Felix.

This is my story."

Books in verse....no thank you (I know, argue away)

May B by Caroline Starr Rose has an exciting and compelling story line. Set in the time of homesteading on the Kansas prairie, eleven-year-old May has been contracted to help at a neighbor's homestead until Christmas.  Times are tough and her family can use the extra money she will earn.  A sudden, terrible turn of events leaves young May all by herself to survive with winter approaching.  She is miles away from anyone else and it is so easy to get lost in the endless prairie.

The story is told in verse, which I found annoying.  I may be in a minority on this.
 

Civil Rights from the point of view of a twelve-year-old

I finished Glory Be, written by Augusta Scattergood, a woman after my own heart....librarian, book reviewer, now author of books for young people.  My hero!  

Glory, which is short for Gloriana, lives in Hanging Moss, Mississippi.  It is 1964 and she is eagerly awaiting her 12th birthday celebration to be held at the town pool, just like always, on the 4th of July.  Suddenly, things are changing.  Her best friend, Frank, is suddenly talking badly about the "Yankee troublemakers," which Glory thinks is just plain mean.  In fact, their friendship takes a turn for the worse when she becomes friends with one.  Glory learns to look at segregation with new eyes, and finds that change can bring out the best, and the worst, from people that she thought she knew.  She must take a stand when her beloved pool is shut down, but, will her daddy, the preacher, support her?  

On a personal level, I love that the center of this town, and of inclusion, is the library.  One of my favorite quotes, "Libraries are about books.  Books have no color.  And they don't care who reads them."