Roller Girl

For the second year in a row, the committee has awarded a Newbery honor to a graphic novel! Not nearly as naive as I was way back in 2015, I saw GN on the spine of Roller Girl and immediately anticipated an entertaining and eye-catching read. I was not disappointed. There's just something so impressive about a good author who is also an incredible illustrator . . . and on top of being an incredible author-illustrator, Victoria Jamieson also skates on a roller derby team (Derby Name: Winnie the Pow). Can you get any cooler?

I'm inspired. Not to write a graphic novel (my lack of drawing ability would be too much of a handicap) . . . but to be a roller girl. Honestly, I think I could be pretty good. Then again, that's also what Astrid thought.

And then she attended her first day of roller derby camp.

Roller Girl Recipe:
1 cup G-rated Whip It
1 tsp El Deafo (yes, this has everything to do with the fact that it's the only other GN I've read)
3 Tbsp My 7th Grade Year (during which I did a lot of roller-blading, a lot of scoffing at girls who liked clothes and boys, and had lots of friend crises)

Recommendation: Read it! And then come join the Atlanta Rollergirls with me!

The War That Saved My Life

This story has all the elements of a book that I would love. The novel is set in London during World War II, the protagonist is a headstrong young girl and all the main characters make significant, positive changes by the end of the novel. And yet . . . I didn't love this book.
And I'm not entirely sure why.

Perhaps it's because I found the abusive mother entirely unrealistic. I have a hard time believing that anyone could be that cruel and it just seemed too fictional for the story to feel real (historical fiction still needs to be believable, you know?).

Or maybe because I felt like the beautiful triumph of the book - Susan's love toward Ada and Jamie that allowed both of them to overcome their PTSD and myriad other issues - was overshadowed by some weird story about Ada catching a spy near the end. It was totally unnecessary and made Ada's progress and emotional victories seem less important.

And then there was the underlying, never-explicitly-mentioned fact that Susan had been in a lesbian relationship with her partner Becky until she had passed away a few years before (which threw Susan into severe depression) and I anticipated the entire book that the author would talk about it openly which made me very nervous for some reason - maybe because I felt it was too mature a theme for a children's book? Or because I felt like the author had an agenda? Maybe both?

Don't get me wrong; I liked the book. I just re-read over several parts (since I read it months and months ago) and there are so many heart-warming, redeeming moments: Ada making Christmas presents, Susan marching into Jamie's school to tell off the teacher for tying his left hand down, Ada learning to read and write, Stephen White's altruism toward the old colonel, even the Christmas Eve meltdown when Susan holds Ada for hours during her attack. There really are some very lovely parts . . . and yet.

Rating:«««

Echo

Echo comprises three stories inside a story inside another story. Maybe I could best describe it with an already solved SAT analogy test question.

INCEPTION : DREAMS :: ECHO : STORY LINES

Each of the stories was riveting and endearing, but I liked Friedrich's the best (a story about fighting injustice in Nazi Germany is pretty much a trump card for me) and Ivy's the least (even though her story starts in my hometown of Fresno). All five stories follow the pattern of a music-loving main character who experiences some extreme hardship (war, orphan-hood, segregation), but who finds solace in and even a slightly magical escape from hardship in the same enchanted Hohner harmonica. And the stories all reach a satisfying, if slightly kitschy, resolution in the end when the main characters all end up at the same concert at Carnegie Hall (some performing, one conducting, some attending) in the final chapter, though they are unaware they had all at some point in their lives played the same magical harmonica.

I found this book particularly enjoyable because I happen to be a music-loving main character who plays a Hohner harmonica (though I'm fairly certain it is not the same harmonica they all played . . . ) and I loved that each new story started with the harmonica tabs to a song played in the story. I made sure to play them all for my son (he wasn't a fan of Auld Lang Syne).

 Recommendation: Whole-hearted. Best read with a harmonica on hand.

And now for an irrelevant, but related, story.

While headed home last Christmas, I was stopped by Atlanta airport security because of something in my backpack. I quickly tried to take inventory of its contents and figure out what had alerted the guys at the x-ray machine, but I could think of nothing. I heard two of the guys talking about a 'magazine' before walking over to rifle through my bag in front of me and I thought, "My church magazines are a potential threat?!" Then I peeked at the x-ray screen and saw a circle drawn around something that looked startlingly like a magazine of bullets! How did THAT get in there? The man asked me if I had a harmonica in my bag and I told him I didn't think so, so we pulled a few things out and he ran the backpack through the machine again. The magazine of bullets was still in there hiding. He (we, actually, since I kept pointing out hidden zipper pockets where he might find my contraband) searched my bag again and this time uncovered . . . my Hohner harmonica. I sheepishly told the guy I had forgotten I packed it (was it still in there from my Thanksgiving camping trip when I thought I might play some tunes at the campfire?) and he let me go free. I purposely left it in my carry-on for the return flight in anticipation of another harmonica confrontation, but apparently the Salt Lake City airport does not care much about magazines of bullets in people's carry-on luggage.

Last Stop on Market Street

Last Stop on Market Street represented several firsts for me. It's the first Newbery . . . 

 . . . I have ever finished on the drive home from the library.
 . . . I have read since becoming a mom.
 . . . I have ever read twice in one sitting.
 . . . I have ever read to my son. 

Most of these firsts were facilitated by the fact that it is a 28-page picture book.

I feel fairly strongly that reading a review of a book should take a small fraction (<1/100th?) of the time it takes to read the book and I fear I have already violated that rule so I will conclude by saying that Last Stop on Market Street is a short and sweet story about a boy and his grandma riding a bus to provide service at a soup kitchen with a good message of volunteerism and being grateful for one's circumstances. And it made me feel like I could write a Newbery, too.

Brown Girl Dreaming

It took me considerably longer to find this last 2015 honor for the slightly odd reason that I was under the impression until three weeks ago it was entitled Brown Girl Crossing. I'm not sure why I didn't look up the title again after a handful of library databases claimed they had no Brown Girl Crossing books on record, but I did eventually (three weeks ago) do just that and discovered I had the name wrong. The next day I had Brown Girl Dreaming in my possession. The following day, I finished it.

And what a lovely book! I'm becoming more and more a fan of this free verse form of narrative. Some thoughts while reading this beautiful autobiographical story of Jacqueline Woodson's childhood:

1. How on earth does she remember so many minute and colorful details from her toddler years?! I think I remember, like, two things that happened to me before I was 6. How did she fill 200 pages of pre-6-year-old memories?!

2. I am so glad she included a family tree at the beginning of the book (I referenced it often).

3. This is beautifully written.

4. All the "how to listen" pages are haiku (I may not have figured this out until how to listen #8 (and then went back and checked the syllables on all the others)) (and who knew haiku was the plural form of haiku?!)!!

5. Seriously, how does she remember all of this?

As a related aside, I participated in a book group for the first time ever this week. Friends from church invited me and despite the fact that I had not read the two novels they would be discussing, I decided to just check it out (I mean, I love books and yet have never attended a book group?! It's time!). I brought Brown Girl Dreaming and True Grit because they were the last books I'd read. Upon entering the hostess's home, the first person to speak to me was the hostess's ten-year-old daughter, Katie. Pointing at Brown Girl Dreaming, she exclaimed, "I just read that! Isn't it so good?" We then chatted for several minutes about the story and what we loved and what surprised us. I discovered it was on her list for reading bowl this year and she was surprised to find out it had won a Newbery honor. The book group then began and all the women started discussing adult fiction books they had been reading and I didn't recognize a single title. Politely attentive but disengaged, I noticed Katie lying under her chair with a book. Quietly, I whispered, "Hey, Katie, what else have you been reading?"