THE WEDNESDAY WARS, by Gary D. Schmidt

Quick Facts:
- Newbery Honor Book
- 272 pages

The Wednesday Wars, by Gary D. Schmidt, opens in 1967 with the improbably named Holling Hoodhood bemoaning the start of his seventh-grade year. His new teacher Mrs. Baker, Holling asserts, hates him. Loathes him. Is actively orchestrating his downfall. Holling attempts to rally support from his family, but to no avail. His mother doesn’t believe him, his sister dismisses him, and his father is more worried about maintaining positive business relations with Mrs. Baker’s family than he is with his son’s concerns. And thus the stage is set for Holling, who (because he is a Presbyterian) is the only student who doesn’t leave school early on Wednesdays, and must therefore spend his final period on those days alone with Mrs. Baker, literally and figuratively. 

The book chronicles Holling’s seventh grade year, from start to finish, with historical events like the Vietnam War, the assassination of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., and Yankee baseball as the backdrop. Through his time with Mrs. Baker, Holling slowly learns to see the world as a more complicated place than he once thought, and to appreciate his ability (and responsibility!) to shape the course of his own life.

One of the strongest aspects of The Wednesday Wars is the authenticity that Schmidt brings to Holling’s perspective of 1967 and 1968. Though there are major, historically massive events taking place in the background of the novel, Schmidt addresses them always through Holling’s eyes and experiences, never giving the seventh grader more of a reaction or more of an opinion than is believable.

This balance of having Holling serve as an unbiased and yet authentic lens through which the reader experiences history is struck also in Holling’s reading of Shakespeare. When Mrs. Baker decides that reading Shakespeare is the best use of their Wednesday one-on-one time, Holling is not thrilled. Though he comes to an appreciation of Shakespeare (particularly Shakespear’s insults), Schmidt never pushes Holling's literary appreciation too far. For example, though he likes The Tempest a lot, Holling thinks that Romeo and Juliet is the story of how, “If Romeo had never met Juliet, he would have been all right,” (Schmidt, page 150).

However, Holling’s believability would have been all for naught if Schmidt had not created around his hero an authentic and relatable setting. Again, Schmidt strikes the right balance of including details and side plots that reinforce the period without taking the focus away from Holling himself. One of the strongest of these is Mrs. Bigio’s relationship with Mai Thi. Mrs. Bigio is the school cook, whose husband is killed in action in Vietnam. Mai Thi is a Vietnamese student sponsored by the Catholic Relief Agency. Without spoiling the arc of their story, Schmidt handles both of their situations with delicacy and a commitment to genuine human emotions.

The New York Times observes that, “Mrs. Baker often seems too good to be true.” Though I understand the reaction here, I disagree. True to the novel’s perspective, Mrs. Baker is seen only through Holling’s eyes. Thus, as Holling’s experiences with Mrs. Baker develop, so does her portrayal in the book. The reviewer is certainly right to note that by the novel’s end, Mrs. Baker assumed almost unbelievable integrity. However, the reader must also recall that Mrs. Baker began the novel as Holling’s most feared and diabolical enemy— a characterization equally unbelievable. If Mickey Mantle’s treatment of Holling represents the fall of an idol, Mrs. Baker represents the rise of one. There are plenty of hints to the adult reader that Mrs. Baker is as flawed and human as anyone else (asking a thirteen year old to clean out a rat cage without supervising him? Rolling her eyes at students?) These, however, are not things that register with Holling; for Holling, what resonates about Mrs. Baker is that she is there for him time and again. Her seeming “too good to be true”, then, is appropriate when one considers Holling’s perspective.

What sets The Wednesday Wars apart from other historical novels that feature the same historical events is Holling’s unique position as a character coming of age, and Schmidt’s dedication to making that journey as authentic and relatable as possible. Holling is more than a lens through which the reader views history; his is a vehicle for the reader to experience for themselves the hard questions and realities of that time. The Wednesday Wars is outstanding historical fiction because it does more than simply represent a time period or show a boy growing up; it reveals the way in which these two things are inevitably intertwined, while still writing a hero universally human enough to resonate with young readers today.

THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM - 1963, by Christopher Paul Curtis

Quick Facts:
- Newbery Honor Book
- Coretta Scott King Honor Book
- 224 pages

I had the strangest experience reading The Watsons Go to Birmingham- 1963. For the first fifty pages or so, I knew what was going to happen next. Exactly what would happen next. I knew, for example, that By would get his mouth stuck on ice in some way before he and Kenny even went outside. It wasn't that I remembered reading it before, it was more that I remembered experiencing the scene before. So while the text all felt new, the direction felt familiar.

My guess is that I began reading The Watsons Go to Birmingham- 1963 at some point in my childhood, and then never finished it for some reason. I say never finished it because the premonitions stopped after a while. But I think that it speaks to the power of author Christopher Paul Curtis' writing and of the characters he has created that even without finishing the book, such an impression was made that it lasted over nearly two decades.

The Watsons Go to Birmingham- 1963 is not a novel concerned with getting anywhere. Despite the trip indicated in the title, the first two-thirds of the book is spent focused on character development. The reader gets to know and to love narrator Kenny Watson, and to understand the complicated but loving dynamics of his family. By the time they finally set out on their trip, the  reader is left wondering what exactly is going to make this trip worth the title of the book. Those with prior knowledge of the historical events covered in the book are wondering how Curtis will do them justice with over half of his book nearly over already. The answer, for me, lies in Curtis' audience.

The Watsons Go to Birmingham- 1963 is a work of fiction. The goal of good fiction is not to tell the reader the facts of an event, but rather to make the reader feel an event as acutely as if they were there. In Curtis' case, he had another goal as well: to make the reader identify directly with the people affected by the tragedy he recounts. It is for this reason that he has the reader spend so much time with the Watsons at the beginning of the novel.

The Watsons are an African-American family, which is not something that matters much in the first part of the novel. Though there are mentions of segregation, and of the Civil Rights movement sweeping the nation, the focus is really on the Watsons as a familiar, loving family unit. By having the reader follow Kenny through his conflicts with By, his moral dilemma with his friend Rufus, and his observations of his parents, Curtis allows the reader (and particularly the child reader) to identify with Kenny as a child. Not as a distinctly African-American child, but as a child just like we once were. We see in his family shades of our own, and this is the purpose of the first two-thirds of The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963.

In Birmingham, the Watsons are witnesses to one of the most horrific events of the 1960s: the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. This is an event that younger readers may or may not have yet encountered in their studies, but one with which older students and adults are likely very familiar. The facts are heartbreaking. But the emotional impact of the event is made that much more acute when it occurs to characters with whom we've spent nearly 180 pages identifying. The reader's reaction becomes necessarily much more personal.

Had Curtis focused his novel more on the details of the bombing, had he used his characters functionally more as eyes into the event, the reader would likely learn more of the facts of what occurred that day. But by making his characters instead souls with whom the reader empathizes, Curtis drives home the emotional impact of that day: that bomb killed little girls. Daughters. Sisters. Friends. People we've come to know and love were threatened, for a reason as arbitrary as the color of their skin. By the time you reach this point in the book, you can't help but feel your heart race for Kenny's sister Joey, even if you do know the historical facts. It is this that makes The Watsons Go to Birmingham- 1963 so powerful. 

The Watsons Go to Birmingham- 1963 was made into a tv movie in 2013. There are suggestions in the trailer below that the film places more emphasis on the Civil Rights Movement and awareness of segregation. I can't comment on the appropriateness of this choice (if indeed that is the direction the film makers went), as film is an entirely different medium and I have not yet seen the full movie. However, I do think that in terms of his novel, Curtis made the right storytelling choice: to give children an experience of injustice, rather than another history lesson.

DARK EMPEROR & OTHER POEMS OF THE NIGHT, by Joyce Sidman

Quick Facts:
- illustrated by Rick Allen
- poetry
- collection
- Newbery Honor Book

"Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night" is a collection of poems linked by the theme of what happens in nature after the sun goes down. The poems are organized in a natural progression, beginning (appropriately) with "Welcome to the Night" and ending with "Moon's Lament", which reflects the moons feelings about the coming dawn.

Despite their strong thematic link, each poem is distinct and self-contained enough to be enjoyed on its own. The effect of this is that the poems complement one another, rather than relying on one another. You can enjoy "Night-Spider's Advice", for example, completely on it's own. But you see it in a different light once you've read "Cricket Speaks", simply for the way in which you can imagine these two perspectives might be at sometimes fatal odds.

One of the most interesting choices author Joyce Sidman makes is to include an informational blurb with each poem, printed on the page opposite the poem. This information actually serves to support and deepen the reader's understanding of the poem, while also providing a teaching moment about nature. For example, on page 8 the poem "Snail at Moonrise" refers to a snail as "shell-maker". The informational blurb on page 9 then elaborates on this, telling the reader that young snails produce a special material that helps them add layers to their shells as they grow. By focusing the informational blurb to what is relevant to the poem, Sidman not only provides support for understanding her poems, but encourages the reader to be active in their reading of her poetry.

"Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night" contains many different poetry styles, each poem playing with rhyme, rhythm and sounds in different ways. For example, consider this portion of one of my favorite poems, "Ballad of the Wandering Eft":

"Come all you young efts,
so brave and so bold,
and don the bright colors
of scarlet and gold.

Step out from your puddles
to breathe the sweet air
and wander the woodlands
with hardly a care.

     For it's wild and it's windy
    way out in the woods,
    where the moss grows like candy
    and the hunting is good,
    where the rain falls from heaven
       and mud's underfoot
    It's wild and it's windy
    way out in the woods.
- "Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night", page 24

As is typical with ballads, it has a repeating verse (the italicized one), and uses consistent syllable patterns and rhyme to create a rhythmic flow to the poem. The poem is structured symmetrically: verse, verse, chorus, verse, verse, chorus.

Now consider "Dark Emperor". Along with having no rhyming pattern or syllabic consistency, "Dark Emperor" plays with words in a wholly different way:

The poem looks like an owl! The final verse, which references a "tiny hiccup" when considering the owl's predatory prowess looks (in contrast and placement) like a small animal about to become the owl's prey. This diversity in poetic style and structure makes "Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night" an excellent introduction for students to the variety of forms poetry assumes.

Finally, Rick Allen's woodcut illustrations are appropriate and support the poems not only by highlighting both the grit and beauty of nature, but by using the play of darkness against light in a way suggestive of the moon glinting through leaves:

These images support the sense that the poems give the reader of glimpsing into a familiar and yet unknown world, the effect of the woodcut style and the play with light rendering familiar images more complex then we are used to seeing them.

THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN, by Katherine Applegate

Quick Facts:
- Newbery Award Winner
- Illustrated by Patricia Castelao Costa
- 305 pages

The best thing about The One and Only Ivan is that once you've finished it, once you've cried and cheered and rooted for Ivan for 305 pages, you find out that it's true. You learn that there was actually a silverback named Ivan who lived in solitary captivity in Washington state until public outcry and pressure led to his being sent on "permanent loan" to Zoo Atlanta, where he lived to the age of 50. You learn that he was known for his paintings. You begin to wish that this book had come out just a few years earlier so that after you read it you would still have the chance to visit Ivan. To maybe purchase one of his pictures.

And that's when it starts to hit you. If there really was a silverback named Ivan whose life took the general trajectory of the titular character in Katherine Applegate's novel, then it's not just the good parts that are true, it's all of the hideousness and pain that came before them as well. It's little Ivan being ripped away from his parents. It's Tag dying en route to America. It's a mighty silverback gorilla living, alone, for twenty-seven years without seeing any others of his kind.

And didn't you- in your elation over his existence and your wish that you could visit him- didn't you just represent the very culture that allowed these things to occur?

The power of Applegate's novel lies not simply in how relatable she makes Ivan, but in the questions she forces us to face in ourselves. One way she does this is by making his captor frighteningly relatable. It's easy to read the scene in which Mack goads Ruby with the claw-stick and think, "How terrible, I would never stand around and allow that to happen!" It's less easy to say that about the scenes of Ivan growing up in Mack's house.

"It was Mack who pried open that crate, Mack who bought me, and Mack who raised me like a human baby."
- The One and Only Ivan, page 130

Ivan wears diapers, drinks from a bottle, sleeps in human beds, and is even taken to dinner with Mack and his wife. He is not abused or left in a cage alone, and really, the image of a baby gorilla in a diaper is so adorable- can it really be such a bad thing? Would we really react to it as animal cruelty if we saw it on the street? The hard answer is that unfortunately, most of us would not.

Despite the how relatable these scenes are, Applegate never for a moment lets the reader forget why it is, indeed, pure selfishness and cruelty:

"One day, after many weeks of loud talking, Helen packed a bag and slammed the front door and never came back.

I don't know why. I never know the why of humans.

That night, I slept with Mack in his bed.

My old nests were woven of leaves and sticks and shaped like his bathtub, cool green cocoons.

Mack's bed, like mine, was flat, hot, without sticks or stars."
- The One and Only Ivan, page 141

Though Mack does not physically abuse Ivan, he tries to treat him as though he is human, and in doing so denies the very fact that Ivan is a gorilla. This complete removal of everything that makes Ivan a gorilla is itself abuse. Gorillas are not pets, and there is no in-between about it: keeping a gorilla as a pet is just as wrong as turning a gorilla into a roadside attraction.

Here, Bob the mutt serves as an interesting contrast to Ivan's situation. Unlike Ivan, who was born and (initially) raised a wild animal before falling into human captivity, Applegate implies that Bob was the product of a different type of human cruelty altogether: overbreeding and indifference.

"Bob used to have three brothers and two sisters. Humans tossed them out of a truck and onto the freeway when they were a few weeks old. Bob rolled into a ditch.

The others did not."
- The One and Only Ivan, page 35

Bob, the product of dogs bred as house dogs even if he himself is not one, can barely scrape by on his own, in this human world into which he was tossed to die. He is not a wild animal, he is a natural and deliberately bred human companion. Thus, the fact that he ends the novel living with Julia is more than just a happy ending, it's where he should be, where (like Ivan at Zoo Atlanta) he is most likely to thrive.

And yet, still, there is something unsatisfying in both of their stories. Because really, we don't want Ivan at Zoo Atlanta, we want him to have never been ripped from his family in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We don't want Bob to have come to Julia the way he did; we wish that he and all of his brothers and sisters could be living with her. But are either of those things even possible in today's world? Or are zoos and loving people who show up after the fact the best we can hope for?

It is these complicated and emotional questions that make The One and Only Ivan such a powerful story, particularly for children. Because, of course, the answer is that if human attitude towards and treatment of animals is going to change, it has to begin with the children.

Below is a video of the real Ivan, released by Zoo Atlanta after his passing in 2012:

THREE TIMES LUCKY, by Sheila Turnage

Quick Facts:
- Newbery Honor Award Winner
- 256 pages
- Review based on audiobook:
  + read by Michal Friedman
  + 7 hrs, 57 min

". . . but dreams are shapeshifters. Get close and before you can lay a hand on them they change."

- Three Times Lucky

Before I say anything else about this book, I'm going to say this: do yourself a favor, and listen to the audiobook. Though I chose this format based on convenience (I've got a daily 2 hour commute), Michal Friedman's reading of Three Times Lucky brings heroine Moses ("Mo") LoBeau to life in a way I simply cannot imagine would have happened had I read the print version of the book. Don't get me wrong- author Sheila Turnage's writing is lively and engaging and does 95% of the work in terms of giving Mo an incredibly unique voice. However, it's a voice that begs to be read aloud, and Friedman does an absolutely brilliant job.

[As a disclaimer, quotes used in this review will be exact but will not include page numbers because, well, audiobooks do not have pages.]

Rising sixth-grader Mo LoBeau has a lot going for her: devoted adopted parents, a stalwart best friend, a community that supports her, and even an arch-enemy to keep things interesting. She's clever and funny and perceptive, and any reader who things that eleven year-olds "just don't talk like that!" hasn't ever met my youngest sister, Maggie.

The story kicks off with a local murder, which in Mo's small town of busybodies is much more than a newspaper headline. It's an event that causes waves throughout the entire town of Tupelo Landing. Distrustful of the newcomer detective that is put on the case, Mo and her best friend, Dale Earnhardt Johnson III, decide to form their own detective agency, the "Desperado Detectives" (Lost Pets Found for Free). They set off to solve the murder case on their own, and plenty of hijinks ensue.

There are reviewers who have been confused by the style of Three Times Lucky, pointing out that for a story revolving around a murder, there isn't much creepy or murder-esque about the book. It doesn't feel like a mystery. Instead, it's wacky and a bit off kilter, more concerned with character development than in the careful placement of clues that lead to a satisfying final reveal.

This is a valid point, as is the observation that there are many plot threads in Three Times Lucky that are left unresolved (and in some cases barely even addressed!) by the book's end. However, I'd argue this is more a function of the type of story Turnage is telling, rather than poor writing.

Hint: I don't believe she wasn't actually trying to write a traditional mystery.

I would classify Three Times Lucky as southern gothic literature for young readers. I'm dubbing it "Southern Gothic Lite". Goodreads defines southern gothic as that which "relies on supernatural, ironic, or unusual events to guide the plot." Furthermore, it uses said events "to explore social issues and reveal the cultural character of the American South." (Goodreads)

Let's consider the following plot drivers from Three Times Lucky:

+ Mo's Journey to Tupelo Landing: during a great flood eleven years prior to the events of the novel, Mo's mother supposedly placed an infant Mo on a floating sign, sending the baby adrift downstream to be discovered by strangers who name her Moses (get it?) and raise her as their own.

+ Mr. Jesse's Murder: the grumpy old man that no one particularly likes (or is particularly sad to see go, beyond the worry that his killing suggests there is a murderer on the prowl) turns up dead. In his own boat. A boat which Dale Earnhardt Johnson III had just returned to him.

+ The Colonel's Lack of Memory: the man who discovered an infant Mo floating downstream eleven years earlier cannot remember anything before that date.

I think it's fair to say that all qualify as unusual, with the first two qualifying as ironic. However, what is key is that these events are not simply used for comedic effect, but to introduce social issues and cultural character unique to the American South; in particular, the small-town, poor American South. Mo's journey to Tupelo Landing sets up Mo's very real struggle with what it means to be raised by people other than one's birth parents. Mr. Jesse's murder trigger's an exploration of small-town culture and interconnectedness. The Colonel's lack of memory allows the characters of the Colonel and Miss Lana to, for the majority of the novel, be defined wholly by their position within the community and position as town "newcomers". Turnage's larger-than-life characters, rather than simply reflecting southern stereotypes, are actually being used to reflect very real, and often hard, truths.

Perhaps the best example of this is Dale's older brother, Lavender. Lavender is a nineteen year-old race car driver, who walked out of his parents' house on his eighteenth birthday as a result of his father's drinking and violence. Mo adores Lavender, and he is indulgent of this adoration, and a protective and present big brother for Dale. In his availability to help Mo and Dale, Lavender can at times seem almost too conveniently mature for his age, unless one thinks about the southern social issue his character represents.

Lavender is the eldest in a poor, rural family with an abusive, alcoholic father. The sad truth is that children in these situations are forced to grow up at a very early age. They often shoulder an increasing emotional responsibility at home, and end up trapped by the very circumstances they dream of overcoming. Lavender's "career" as a race car driver and his subsequent abandonment of it isn't just a nod to the South's preoccupation with watching motorized vehicles drive in circles, it's a statement about the limited opportunities many of these kids face in the American South: being a driver made Lavender something of a local celebrity; it was a career that both Lavender and the reader could see taking him out of Tupelo Landing. And yet, by deciding build cars rather than drive them, Lavender essentially consigns himself to never leaving the small town, and family, into which he was born.

The tiny town that Lavender will likely never leave.

Now, Southern Gothic literature typically uses grotesque characters and focuses primarily on thoroughly unpleasant aspects of Southern culture. Turnage instead uses humorously over-the-top characters and focuses on those difficult realities of Southern culture with which a child can relate. This is appropriate for the upper elementary age she is targeting. Nevertheless, there is plenty of sharp, sad, adult humor in it as well, such as when eleven-year old Dale reveals that nineteen year-old Lavender told him he was "too pretty to do hard time" in prison. Children may simply laugh about a boy being described as "pretty" but adults will wince over children having the knowledge and experience to make that kind of statement.

Which is why I'm calling it Southern Gothic Lite. In tone, Three Times Lucky is closer to the David Altman comedy film "Cookie's Fortune" than it is the much darker work of Flannery O'Connor. And yet the image of an infant Mo floating down a Southern river, along with the biblical connection to the story of Moses, makes me suspect that Turnage is not unfamiliar with O'Connor's short story "The River".

Which is all to say that Three Times Lucky is a novel that must be taken on it's own terms. It is a comedic, dramatic, Southern Gothic mystery that is at once all and none of those things. Try to pin it down and you end up compromising (or, as I did, qualifying your label with "lite" as an easy out).