Newbery Watch: When You Reach Me

Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me is possibly the most buzzed-about book so far this year other than Catching Fire. It's so buzzed-about, and so honestly good, that it seems sure-fire for the Newbery--but I wonder, do the books with the most buzz ever really win? I haven't been following this long enough to know. Have there been years when everybody was pretty sure something would win the Newbery, and then it did?

When You Reach Me is the story of Miranda, a sixth-grader, who has enough to do sorting out her own life (remember the sixth grade, with its mysteriously shifting friendships and alliances?) without adding a mystery. But life becomes even more complicated when she begins receiving desperate notes from the future.

(Many thanks to Monica Edinger's class for sending me an extra ARC. The book comes out July 14.)

I've read so many good reviews of When You Reach Me that it feels redundant to write one of my own; they've got it covered. But I'll try, anyway.

Many have compared this to my favorite Newbery, The Westing Game, but it reminded me much more of a dearly-loved, semi-obscure Lois Lowry novel: The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline. And not just because they both take place in New York City around the same time, and feature single mothers and lower-middle-class girls with rich friends, and both are mysteries. As in Caroline, When You Reach Me is populated with both children and adults who are real people. Characters make mistakes and you cringe, but know that you, yourself, would probably have done the same thing in that situation. It makes the book astonishingly real, so that it seems like it really happened, thirty years ago when the world was different.

I'm guessing there's probably been discussion about how the book is set in the late seventies, making it historical fiction. Bloggers and reviewers often say that books shouldn't be set in the past unless there's a real reason for it, and I wonder if some find this book to lack a reason. I've never been so picky about that, but I did feel subtly absorbed into a different era. It felt right to me. I will be interested to hear what others have to say, about this aspect and any other--ARE there any negative reviews of this book out there? Point me to them; they'll help me clarify why this book is so good.

Jewish American Girl

I loved American Girl dolls from afar when I was a kid. They were a new thing, and there was only Kirsten, Samantha, and Molly. (Even then, I thought it was weird that all the dolls were white--especially when they added a fourth white doll, Felicity, instead of the Filipina doll I thought they should create.) I read lots of the books, and while they're mostly pretty boring, I have to recommend Molly Saves the Day as being an excellent and accurate summer-camp story. And I'm sure many of you have the same story--I loved poring over the catalogue and admiring all the accessories. I was especially intrigued with their school lunches, which all looked delicious.

I think I was fourteen when I finally got Molly for Christmas.

I've only sort of kept up with new innovations in American Girl since I've grown up; the decrease in quality after Mattel took it on took away a lot of the charm for me. Laurie and I did visit American Girl Place in Chicago, though. It was fascinating to finally see the catalogue accessories in real life, but mostly I just felt like I wasn't CLEAN enough to be in that sterile environment. Also, watching the young women style doll hair at the doll hair salon, I thought that they must totally love their jobs.

Anyway, you may have heard--it was reported in the New York Times--that American Girl has come out with a Jewish historical doll, Rebecca Rubin. There's been a lot of interest and argument in the children's literature world about Rebecca--much of it from people who aren't terribly familiar with the American Girl franchise, I must say. (I don't expect much of ANYTHING from American Girl books, and I don't know why anyone would.) Also, it always bears repeating, including to me: "Your experience is not universal." I've yet to hear about any "inaccuracies" in regard to Rebecca that are really serious or even proven; one scholar will say one thing, and another will totally refute it. But seriously: we're talking about Mattel. It's not like we're choosing a Newbery winner. THAT is serious stuff.

So I was really happy to read this review in a Jewish publication, which I think has a nice balance and a positive attitude that I suspect is not misplaced. Thank you, Susan Ellman!

Blog Magic

I have a guest post of sorts up today at author Laurel Snyder's blog, about one of my favorite authors, Edward Eager: Eager Readers Backwards Blog Tour. I'm in astonishingly illustrious company, because the first guest post was from author Mitali Perkins.

Snyder has a new book out, Any Which Wall, which she says is an Edward Eager tribute. I'm looking forward to it.

TOO DEPRESSING

Liz Burns has a terrific analysis of a recent WSJ article about young adult fiction. I agree with almost everything about what she says, so I'm just going to point you there.

The article is riddled with the factual errors you usually find in articles about kids' and YA books, and Liz details some of them. (It occurs to me that probably most articles are riddled with errors; this is just the stuff I happen to know about.) But overall, for once, they're on the right track. And what I especially liked, and what Liz didn't like, was that the article cited "Mary Ingalls going blind" as an example of how YA literature has always included some dark stuff. I didn't like that they said she went blind in Little House on the Prairie, when everyone KNOWS it was By the Shores of Silver Lake, which actually is a YA book. But I think it was a great example to use. Mary's blindness really is very dark and sad, though I think I see that more now, as an adult. And I love it when people writing about this stuff look at a broad historical range. (You've all heard my Newbery rants, I'm sure, about how if anything Newbery-winning books used to be even darker, like Strawberry Girl and Roller Skates.) Liz would prefer Robert Cormier as an example, but by using Mary Ingalls, the journalist reaches back further and makes a less obvious example that will really make people think.

I would also like to note that:
-I don't really think The Hunger Games is that dark, and
-Please, tell me WHEN YA has chiefly consisted of "fizzy escapism". NOT EVEN IN THE FIFTIES, PEOPLE.

Maybe This Time

There's a series of books that I love, perhaps, better than all others, and it's being reissued yet again, thanks to HarperCollins. It's the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace, and actually the first four books have been in print for quite a while, but the later six have been out of it and are the ones coming back in.

It's hard to explain, or even for me to put a finger on, exactly what makes these books so good. Even people who get past the fluffy-sounding titles and romance-novelish author's name sometimes have trouble letting go of their irony to see that these are actually GOOD, well-written books. Good on their own merits, not just as nostalgia pieces.

HarperCollins has been generous in their reissues; but the "high school" books were dropped because of poor sales. Now they're being returned in an innovative idea: the later six books are being published two to a volume. (With forewards by Meg Cabot, Anna Quindlen, and Laura Lippman!)

I think this is a great plan, though some of my numerous Betsy-Tacy friends are skeptical (we are always skeptical about any Betsy-Tacy related innovations; don't ask about cover illustrations). Why? Maybe this time, they'll sell enough... because maybe this time, they're long enough.

(You may remember that I mentioned "long" as being one of my guesses as to what makes YA novels sell well to wide age ranges.)

A bit of background: the series, fictionalized autobiography of a Laura Ingalls Wilder stripe, covers Betsy's life from almost 5 to young married life. There are ten main books. The last one ends where World War I begins.

I first read the high school Betsy-Tacy books when I was in elementary school, and I was sure not only that my high school experience would be pretty much like that, but that it was exactly what I wanted in high school. Dances, football games, pep rallies, a crowd of friends over every Sunday night. Then I got to high school and realized I would have hated, hated, hated going to Deep Valley High. I hate all that stuff and avoided it as much as possible. And yet I still like to read about it. Why? I think it must be because Betsy herself is so normal, so timeless, so much like me in spite of her pep rally attendance.

Freckles were fading out of a pink and white skin, the delicacy of which she guarded carefully.

"It's the only pretty thing about me," she often muttered savagely while rubbing in creams at night. "Straight hair! Teeth parted in the middle! Mighty good thing I have a decent complexion!"

As a matter of fact what one noticed first and like best about Betsy were her eyes, clear hazel, under dark brows and lashes. But her frown, as she tied on the sunbonnet, expressed disapproval of her entire physiognomy.

In Heaven to Betsy, which covers Betsy's freshman year of high school, you find the parties and pretty dresses, but there's a lot more going on. Betsy is anxious about impressing new friends, about doing well in school, about possibly changing church denominations. Are she and her best friend growing apart? Is it disloyal to like new things better than old, beloved things? Why isn't she prettier?

The Betsy-Tacy books will poke your nostalgia button, for sure, and if you love descriptions of vintage clothing and elaborate hairstyles--well, you've probably already read them. But if you're looking for solid, time-tested YA, for quality writing, for affirmation that teenage girls have been the same for at least a hundred years, hang up your irony and read Heaven to Betsy. And then hand it to any middle school girl you know.

Two Books I Loved This Month

I'd wanted to read Jennifer Bradbury's Shift for a long time; lots of people recommended it to me, sometimes without even having read it, because they know I'm into cycling. My longest trip so far has been three days/150 miles--nothing even close to the two months/multiple thousand miles covered by Chris and Win in Shift--but it was enough to give me a taste; enough to be able to assure you that Shift is brimming with authenticity. The never-know-what's-going-to-happen excitement, the shifts between wanting to ride together and feeling like it's too much trouble, and most of all, the instant awesome-cred you get when people find out that you're on a bike trip--Bradbury captures it all, with a fresh and easy tone that never makes the book feel like it's a thinly-veiled recap of her own (significant) bike adventures.

Shift is a bike trip story, a college story, a mystery. Why did Win abandon Chris just a short ride from the end of their journey, and where is he now? I had some theories, but I wasn't ever exactly sure. Bradbury mentions Chris McCandless early on (that's the Into the Wild guy), which pleased me, because of course someone like Win would know all about Chris McCandless and spend a lot of time thinking about him. Mentioning McCandless might be a little bit risky, because readers might have said "just a riff on Into the Wild", but instead I think the name-drop makes the world of Chris and Win seem more real, more like the one I live in. (Except that McCandless was not found frozen solid, as a character states--it was midsummer--but I accepted that because the character wasn't an expert, like Win was.)

In an interview, Bradbury said this was about friendship in general, not specific to boys. I was surprised, because one of the elements I loved best was that this seemed to me a really accurate portrayal of boy best friendships. I don't know how Bradbury did it, but this is one of my favorite male voices since Rats Saw God. And I would never believe a story that unfolded the way this one did if it had been about two girls.

Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell is just a few months old, and is creating big excitement. I'm afraid to say much of anything for fear of spoilers. Eventually, I'm sure, this book IS going to be spoiled; read it now before you know too much. You don't even want to know what the general themes and plot elements are.

People are definitely agreeing that Shadowed Summer has a terrible cover. We complained because The Underneath had a cover that looked cozy on a book that was sad and hard-hitting; the cover of Shadowed Summer is worse, because it has a cover that looks like it belongs on a bad book on a good book.

It was already on my to-read list(here's the review that made me want to read it originally), but a review from my friend Claire made me hop on a bike in the rain and ride ten miles round-trip in the rain to pick up a copy immediately. (Seriously, no hyperbole.) Claire didn't even say anything--just rated it five stars and marked it "love-love-love". I had to know right away what it was about this ordinary-looking book that made her praise it so highly. A few hours later, I knew.

Shadowed Summer--in which three young teens try to solve an old mystery in their town--has a lovely Southern voice and a dreamy quality that's not overdone. The mystery isn't obvious; there are scary moments. Up until close to the end, I was thinking that it was a good mild suspense story. Then something surprising is revealed, but it's the kind of surprising that hits you because it makes total sense--and it also turns the book into something much bigger and more important than you'd ever have thought.

Read this book now, then pass it around to middle schoolers of your acquaintance. It's possible we'll be hearing more about this one come awards season.

Pious YA

Lots and lots and lots of teens are very religious Christians. Are there books for them in mainstream YA literature, or is YA a vast wasteland of inappropriate content and unrelatable characters? I read two books recently with Evangelical Christian protagonists: Evolution, Me, and Other Freaks of Nature by Robin Brande, and the brand-new Pure by Terra Elan McVoy.

(A note about terminology: "Evangelical Christian" is perhaps not the right term, but it's the best one I can come up with; it's what evokes the way religion is treated in these books for me. Tabitha in Pure is probably a mainline Protestant, but her beliefs and ways of expressing them are similar to that of evangelicals I have known.)

I picked up Evolution because I read a blog review that said this had a lot of "Christian-bashing", and I was curious to see if I thought this was true, or a case of someone taking offense where there's none to be found. It's the story of Mena, who was kicked out of her church (and, therefore, alienated from all of her friends) for getting the other kids in trouble when they harass a boy at their school. Mena's friends' next project is to keep evolution out of their biology class, and Mena finds herself unsure what to think either about her friends or about evolution. She falls in with a group of politically active students (including an awesome boyfriend) and--I'm sure this is not really a spoiler--ends up being able to reconcile her religious beliefs with evolution, based on stuff she finds in the Bible and advice from a teacher who really shares way too much with her student (my main quibble with the book; this part was both uncomfortable and incredibly didactic, and felt like a liberal-religious tract). While Mena sort of abandons her previous belief system for a liberal Protestant attitude, I didn't find any Christian-bashing whatsoever, only bashing of cruel behavior and unthinking obedience. It is, in fact, a pro-Christian book, and I think might be an uncomfortable read for a teenager who wasn't. I liked that Mena mentioned just a couple of times that she's planning to "wait for marriage"; it isn't a focus of the book, but she doesn't necessarily act like it's going to be a piece of cake.

That IS the focus of Pure--the hot topic of purity rings, True Love Waits style. Pure is a muddled book, with characters that aren't fleshed out well and a crazy climactic school assembly where every club from the Model UN to the Golf Club performs an elaborate and meaningful presentation (I could write a whole post about the strangeness of this scene, but I'll just say that it felt like School Assembly Ex Machina and was not unlike one of my favorite parts of High School Musical, except without the semi-unintentional hilarity). The protagonist, Tabitha, does talk about her religious beliefs quite a bit, but they never felt quite sincere to me; I could only read her as a girl who firmly believes in purity rings now but will abandon the whole idea by the time she gets to college, if not sooner. And I felt like the book was somewhat mocking toward the girl who has the strongest belief in her purity ring. (Okay, I wanted to mock her, too. But still.) Despite those things, there isn't really a lot of nuance to the book; it always felt like a book written around a topic. I think it'd be more likely to be of interest to junior high girls, who might notice less--IF their parents will let them read it. (I hated the cover, which I thought was inappropriately suggestive and very likely to turn off the parents of the very girls it's aimed at.) Here's a review with a different opinion.

Reading both of these books, I thought that neither was the right book for evangelical Christian high schoolers; neither is really that accepting of and kind to that belief system. It's a cliche, but I guess what I'm looking for is a YA book with a very religious Christian protagonist that's about something other than religious belief; that shows a group of friends similar to those in the lives of the intended readers. Maybe, if YA is going to reach these kids, they should just stick to the non-religious but innocent YA, like Jennifer Bradbury's Shift or stuff published before 1970.

I can think of a few books that might fit in, like Paula Yoo's lovely Good Enough, but maybe that has too much rebellion. Still--isn't that really one of the defining things about YA, the beginning of serious separation between kids and parents? And if that's the case, is mainstream YA ever going to satisfy? Should it be left to the Christian imprints to try? What YA would you recommend to devoutly Christian teens, if your aim is only to help them find books that reflect their lives?