Ood-le-uk the Wanderer

I am now at a point in my Newbery quest where I am just googling titles (only 16 left after reading Ood-le-uk) and seeing if I can find the text somewhere online. No libraries anywhere near me have any physical copies. I found this one on some digital library based in San Francisco that allows 14 day check-outs to read the text online. I suppose at some point even this method will prove fruitless and then who knows what I'll do!

Synopsis: Ood-le-uk is a creative, introspective Eskimo boy who doesn't feel particularly comfortable participating in the hunting escapades of the men in his tribe because he is often afraid and others consider him weak. Then on one particularly dangerous hunting trip, he gets separated from land on an ice floe and ultimately ends up (after ingeniously killing a walrus and making a boat) among a tribe of Siberian nomadic reindeer herders (who actually have lost their herds to sickness and are therefore no longer nomadic). He gets adopted into the chief's family and goes on many harrowing journeys, eventually acquires great wealth and becomes familiar with new cultures and people and religion and everything else that comes with travel. Finally, several years later, he builds barges and brings his adopted brother and other Siberian men with him to try to find his homeland and family in Alaska . . . and they do! And then he sets up a trade route across the Bering Straight between his people in North America and the Siberian tribes.

Reaction: I actually really enjoyed it! It reminded me of Gary Paulsen books at the beginning when Ood-le-uk has to survive on his own with only a few weapons. I was impressed that the authors were able to develop Ood-le-uk so well as a character and a hero without dialogue, but I still wished there was more conversation. Honestly, this is a people and a part of the world I know almost nothing about and I don't think I've ever read a book about them, either, so I have no idea how accurate any of the book was. It seemed like the authors had done some research and despite their clearly WASP worldview, had tried to depict the world from an Inuit boy's perspective. One thing is certain: I could never survive in a world that cold.

New Land

Another homesteading book with a headstrong, clever 17-year-old female protagonist? Yes, please! I'm not sure how I ended up reading New Land directly after The Jumping-Off Place (other than the fact that I found them both online), but there are so many similarities that I found myself comparing the two novels the whole time. Both chronicle a family of homesteaders with strong teenage girl leads, both are set in the early 1900s, both families have to deal with a "villainous" family that goes to great lengths to get them to fail on proving up (though with different motives) including vandalism and theft, both deal with crop failure and both climax with a really traumatic yet triumphant experience during a terrifying snow storm.

The books had very different feels, though, and I was more captivated by New Land. It focused more on the national and local politics at the time (not very interesting to me) and on the education required to farm successfully (somewhat interesting) and the protagonist's efforts to reform and strengthen her family members. I will admit: I wished there had been some romance! I think that's the first time I've thought that while reading a Newbery, but there was something about Sayre that just made me wish she had a prospect of some sort. Still good, nonetheless. 3.5 stars

The Jumping-Off Place

Resilience is a hot topic I've been hearing and reading about a lot lately. Studies show the lack of it is a major factor in kids dropping out of college and the armed forces during or after the first year. Studies also show that having it is a key predictor to one's happiness. As such, I've also been reading some great articles about how to teach kids to develop it. In a nutshell, allowing your children to struggle, to experience hardship and to make their own decisions are keys to helping them become resilient. And though none of the articles specifically mentioned it, after reading The Jumping-Off Place I am confident that sending your kids to homestead on their own would also be a fabulous way to help them develop this coveted virtue. Seriously, the four orphaned Linville siblings in TJOP seem to be the very definition of resilient, resourceful youth. It's also pretty cool that the story is a somewhat autobiographical account of the author's experience homesteading in South Dakota with her husband.

After a few very slow old honors, The Jumping-Off Place was actually a nice reassurance that kids in the 1930s may have had something interesting to read. There were some elements that reminded me of Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie and the story was well written. 3 stars!

Runner of the Mountain Tops: The Life of Louis Agassiz

Long ago, I read the biography of man written by his mom (entitled History of Joseph Smith Written by his Mother). I remember thinking after reading it that if I wanted the most glowing, faultless version of my life written, having my mom write it was an excellent idea. Since my mom has passed, I think a very close second place would be Mabel Robinson (the author of this book). Then again, she doesn't semi-worship me like she did Louis Agassiz, so I'd have to find my own Mabel. I mean, just comparing her version of Agassiz (the best scientist and teacher and possibly human EVER) and the Wikipedia article written about him (he made some contributions to the study of fish and the ice age, but he's a racist) proves that choosing your biographer can make all the difference.

As far as how I feel about Louis Agassiz after reading this book, I just have no respect for people (even geniuses! scientists! activists! politicians extraordinaire!) who aren't nice to or have no time for their spouses and kids. And while Mabel does her best to make all his work and passions sound so important that spending time with his first wife and young kids would have interfered, I didn't have to read in between any lines to realize he was a jerk to poor Cily and ignored her and his children. It also became clear as I read that Louis and I have very dissimilar interests and fifteen chapters about fish fossils got old really fast.

Honestly, this book was complete drudgery to read. I read it online. I think I started it three years ago and have read a chapter or so any time I thought of it (not often). I finally made it a chore on my to-do list and pushed through the last several chapters this week. I'm glad it's over.

Merci Suarez Changes Gears

A pick-up game of soccer ends in a bloody lip.
A bike ride ends in a black eye.
A P.E. baseball pitch ends in a head injury and another bloody lip (and a really unfair detention).
A (really cool jackal) costume gets smashed to pieces (maliciously).
A drive home from school ends in a car-totalling accident (and more bloodied facial features).
A Halloween party ends in body-covering sea lice bites?
An Egyptian school project ends in someone losing their eyebrows. 

I believe that every incident in Merci Suarez Changes Gears results in either blood or destruction. And it's just a coming-of-age middle school book! But you know what they say . . . "If it bleeds, it leads."

My biggest Merci take-away: Communicate with your children! Trust that your kids will be able to handle difficult and sometimes uncomfortable topics and know that hearing it from you is the best way for them to learn (definitely better than the internet! or them living a life of ignorance!). All that secrecy about Merci's grandpa having Alzheimer's was so frustrating. For most of the book, I thought it was because her family didn't know what was happening either. But no, for some reason they just didn't think they should tell Merci and it made it a lot worse. Don't make the same mistake.

The Book of Boy

Once, while serving as a missionary in Chile, I experienced a memorable moment of acute spiritual irony. I was on a 12 hour bus ride by myself, heading to pick up a new companion. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was playing on the bus television. I had spent the last 9 months preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, inviting others to come unto Him through faith and repentance and baptism. I had taught the importance of living a Christ-like life by heeding Christ's teachings and showing Christlike love to everyone. I truly believed (and still do) that doing this is the key to happiness in this life and eternal life in the life to come. As I tuned in and out of the movie, I realized that Indiana, his dad, the Nazis and everyone else in the movie were also on a quest for immortality (via the Holy Grail). And they were killing, backstabbing, deceiving, stealing and sleeping with women in an effort to achieve it. The irony of their pursuit struck me suddenly. They were doing the exact opposite of what would actually help them obtain eternal life in an effort to achieve it.


I experienced a similar feeling while reading The Book of Boy. Segundus the pilgrim is in search of seven relics that will get him to paradise. So he steals and deceives to get these bones of St. Peter that will save him. The one 'saving grace' of The Last Crusade's irony is that none of the characters actually achieves eternal life by doing evil things (not even Indy). But Segundus actually does! Thankfully, he's not nearly as depraved as the characters in Indiana Jones and actually has some lovely, redeeming moments where it's clear he has repented of the evil he committed in his life and learned to show love to the weak and friendless. But I wanted THAT to save him, not some dumb 1300 year old rib bone he steals. Okay. Spiritual rant over.

I loved Boy from the very first page. He's so good and innocent and keen. I'm not going to lie; it was super weird when we discover he's an angel. I made guesses about his secret for most of the book but I did NOT see that coming. I guess my big question is: What's the point of being an angel if you don't know you are one? Where the heck did he come from and why is he here if he isn't given any knowledge beforehand? I guess my understanding of angels is completely different than Catherine Murdock's. And so is my understanding of how one gets to heaven.

Cognitive dissonance aside, it was still a good read.

The Night Diary

Sometimes it surprises me how little I know about the world. Like, that I really had no idea that Pakistan only became a country when India gained independence from Great Britain and the country was split in two?! I had never even heard of the conflict, in fact. Is that part of K-12 history curriculum? I am so ignorant. One of the reviews on the back of The Night Diary claims it is set in a time "little known to American children" which made me feel a little better, but then again, I'm definitely not a child. It's a good thing Veera wrote a Newbery-honor-winning novel about the "Partition" or I may have continued in ignorance forever.

The Night Diary is a lovely book. There's plenty of peril and injustice and frustrating family silence, but it does all seem to resolve nicely by the end. Nisha's family becomes stronger and closer, she becomes wiser and kinder, her father becomes softer. The conflict itself, of course (ha! as if I even knew this conflict existed 12 hours ago), does not resolve nicely, but it is a relief that the fictional book family comes out alive and happy-ish.

One Not Very Important Note: The book is written as a series of journal entries by Nisha addressed to her mother (who died while giving birth to her and her twin Amil). Toward the beginning of the book, I was being hypercritical of the believe-ability of her entries (there's no way a 12-year-old could or would have written that much in a single day's journal entry; she would not have written a journal entry that poetically; there's no way she remembered that conversation verbatim), but by the end I was so caught up in the story, I hardly noticed they were journal entries. I think that's a good thing.