The House of the Scorpion

For the next seven exquisite days, I am living in the lap of luxury in my parents' home. That means no alarm clocks, a regular supply of free fruit snacks and home-cooked meals, and, my personal favorite, a whole house vacuum! Seriously, it just hooks into the wall and the tube reaches anywhere in the house (and sucks up everything)!

While here, I decided to shop around my mom's library in the basement and read one of my old favorite Newberys - The House of the Scorpion. I had a vague idea that it was a dystopian novel, that the main character was a clone, and that at some point in the book he gets really bad acne (I always commiserate with bad skin), but beyond that, it was like reading a new book! And I still seriously enjoyed it. My dad noticed me reading it and said he remembered hating the book because it was so depressing. But it's hopeful at the end!

Matt grows up locked in a house with a loving caregiver, Celia, who only comes home late at night. Then, at age six, he breaks out of his house when he sees other children for the first time just outside his front door. He injures himself in the process and is carried to a mansion just miles away by the children. He is treated for his wounds at first, but someone discovers that he is a CLONE and everyone is immediately disgusted, calls him names, and locks him away. Matt slowly grows to understand that he is a clone of Matteo Alacran, the fuhrer of Opium, a country created 100 years before on the border between Mexico and the United States. The country is run by drug lords who take care of the "immigrant problem" by putting computer chips in their brains and making them work their opium fields. Matt is well-beloved of El Patron (Matteo Alacran), so others in the household must suppress their disgust of him.

I found Matt a complex and somewhat frustrating hero. I got mad when he responded to situations childishly, but then realized he was just a child (but not like a Katniss/Harry Potter "I'm-so-whiny-about-being-forced-to-be-the-savior-of-my-entire-race" child; I can't handle that kind of child). And despite the plethora of dissolute and downright pathetic characters in the novel, there were some absolute gems (Celia, Tam Lin, Ton-Ton) that kept my faith in humanity. Thankfully, Matt listens more to these positive voices than he does to the others as he comes of age and discovers his real purpose.

Five stars.

Windy Hill

I've read this before. Recently. But I have no record of it and it's not highlighted on my Newbery book list, so even though I realized in the first chapter that I had read it and immediately knew the basic plot line, I had to read it again. Because I had to make sure that I had read it and that it was recorded.  The last few chapters did seem new to me, though, so it is very likely that I started and never finished.

Oliver and Janet visit their mother's cousin Jasper for the summer and discover something has been weighing on him for a long period of time. Annoyed by Jasper's neglectfulness, Oliver tries to go back home but runs into a beekeeper, the Beeman, and his daughter, Polly, on his way to the train and they convince him to stay. The Beeman tells several stories throughout the book (that constitute entire chapters) and I found them much more intriguing than the story of Oliver and Jasper. In the end we discover that the stories he has been telling are family history stories! They are accounts of his and Oliver's ancestors (spoiler alert: the Beeman and Jasper are cousins) that he has read in the genealogical books and records he has inherited. Oliver's story ends when the bad guy (who has been bullying and cheating cousin Jasper) suddenly repents and leaves town so everyone is happy.

Overall Rating: Meh, but I will give it credit for being much more readable than the medal that year, The History of Mankind, a book I have checked out from the library at least a dozen times and still have not managed to finish. Read Windy Hill online!