Whistlers' Van

Long ago, I attended a university (BYU) with a never-ending supply of old, out-of-print Newberys. And by never-ending, I mean that I never exhausted their supply while I was a student. It was only after I left that I discovered that not all university libraries are so equipped (which discovery actually led to this blog). Many times I have wished to be close to this library again as I search in vain for my remaining 15 Newberys (none of which, it appears, are even in the state of Georgia). And then, just two weeks ago, I found myself near my old university library and it occurred to me that my husband's little brother had a library card! I immediately set up a library date with him and I now have in my possession THREE old Newberys from my list (the only ones I could remember!!).

Whistler's Van - 1937 Honor - was my first pick for my vacation.

Synopsis: The story follows Gwilym, a teenage Welsh boy, whose grandfather/guardian leaves one night without telling anyone and he suspects it is to follow a band of gypsies. So Gwilym leaves the next day with a band of "gipsies" or "Rommany" in search of adventure/his grandfather/wanderlust. 

Review: It wasn't as bad as some other old Newberys, but the speech used (lots of Welsh and Rommany words) and the style of writing (weird) both made it hard to follow. Half the time I was not actually sure what was happening or who was talking or what they were talking about. 

Discovery: I don't have an ounce of "Gipsy" blood. The idea of traveling around in a "caravan" and never setting up a permanent home was completely unappealing to me. I kept hoping the whole time that Gwilym would just go home already!

A Snake Falls to Earth

The first several chapters of this book were fascinating to me. The whole idea of animal-people as part of Lipan folklore was magical and mesmerizing. I liked Nina, too, though her story never felt fully fleshed out.

I started to get confused when Oli (the cotton-mouth) made a new friend who was a hawk and the author kept referring to the hawk with plural pronouns. At first, I thought she was referring to many hawks, but I went on Goodreads for clarification and realized that this hawk, Brightest, was non-binary. I mean, I understand that many people are experiencing very real confusion about their gender identity and it's a hot issue right now and probably very hard for people, but Brightest is a hawk. And for a hawk to be confused about its gender and think it's neither a male or a female, but actually a "they" and for Oli to just automatically know that without needing to ask or have Brightest explain it to him, felt wrong. It did. I understand that saying that is unpopular, but this is me being honest. And since I'm the only person who reads this blog, I'm going to be honest. I would never recommend this book to my kids. Brightest wasn't the only one, either. There were two non-binary characters, two asexual characters and a lesbian coyote. ::sigh::

The story itself had a little bit of an anti-climactic climax when Oli and Nina finally meet on Earth and everything seemed to work out perfectly in the end. 

Watercress

Short and simple with lovely watercolor art. Watercress won the Caldecott Medal this year, too! Andrea Wang tells an autobiographical story of "harvesting" watercress out of a ditch on the side of the road in Ohio which her mom has spotted from their car. She is embarrassed and won't eat it at dinner, until her mom shares a painful story of growing up in China and losing her brother to starvation during the Great Famine (a disaster that I didn't know about until I read this book). So then 

I take a bite of the watercress and

it bites me back with its spicy, peppery taste.

It is delicate and 

slightly bitter,

like Mom's memories of home. 

 

Together,

we eat it

all

and make a 

new memory of 

watercress. 

The Last Cuentista

A dystopian novel! What joy! Apart from a couple re-reads of The House of the Scorpion and The Giver, this is the first dystopian novel I have read in decades . . . and I've missed them. In fact, I only own 5 Newberys (I don't like having a lot of books . . . that's what libraries are for!) and two of them are dystopians (the ones mentioned above). So, the genre alone had me hooked. 

Here is my recipe for The Last Cuentista:

2 cups Wall-E

1.5 cups The Giver

2/3 cup The House of the Scorpion

1 Tablespoon Interstellar 

1 teaspoon Nazis (pick any book depiction you like)

That's right; it's a space-travel dystopian novel with bad guys who champion same-ness and an ambiguous ending! 

Petra Peña, the protagonist, is really smart, resourceful, good at deceiving people and good at not getting caught. Like, too good at all those things. But the story wouldn't work if she wasn't, so I'll allow it. I mean, she has to pretend she's been brainwashed after 380 years in hyper-sleep and does a convincing job at age 13 while dealing with considerable personal trauma and loss? It's a stretch.

Like any futuristic dystopian story, I had a lot of questions. Is that what would really happen? Could a society like this really survive? Would those kids really have acted like that? Could the Collective really have changed their skin like that in just a few hundred years? How? What? What now?? But considering all these possibilities (and impossibilities) is really the reason these books are so appealing to me and The Last Cuentista did not disappoint, though I should note that this book will not be joining the ranks of my owned books. 

Red, White, and WHOLE

I am pretty sure* the last two Newberys I read that were written in verse were first person accounts of immigrants trying to navigate a new life in the United States (Other Words for Home and Inside Out & Back Again), so it felt comfortable and familiar to discover that this semi-autobiographical story of a second-generation American Indian girl was also written in verse! Reha's parents are from India, but she is born and grows up in the Midwest. Her story is poignant, well-written and TRAGIC. But, unfortunately, I've already started mixing it up with the other two free-verse immigrant Newberys.

*I just looked through the last decade of Newberys after making that claim and I stand corrected: Brown Girl Dreaming and The Crossover were also written in free verse and I've read those since Inside Out & Back Again.

Too Bright to See

When I first began this novel, I remarked to my husband, "I think it's weird that a tweener coming-of-age novel about a girl was written by a man. What would he know about what it's like to be a young girl?" Ha! Joke's on me. 

*SPOILER* Bug decides she's a boy by the end of the novel and the author is actually a trans-man who is  sharing his own experience as a child (in fictional format). 

This book left me feeling unsettled, uncomfortable, confused and a little sad. 

All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys' Soccer Team

This book was mesmerizing and riveting and very informative. Christina Soontornvat takes a huge media story that I feel like most people probably heard about and makes it seem like an entirely new, fresh, nail-biting mystery. I mean, the very title makes it pretty obvious that all thirteen boys are going to make it out alive, but I still was nervous that it would actually happen until it did! That's good non-fiction story-telling right there. I also appreciate that the author tried to highlight everyone who contributed, especially those (mostly Thais) who didn't take the spotlight and do the daring cave scuba-diving but who provided materials, food, vehicles, prayers and days of endless service to make everything happen. Christina for the double-win in 2020!! (She is the first author, by the way, to win two honors in the same year for a fiction and a non-fiction book. And both were really good.)

Read it! Even if you watched the news coverage while it was happening, I promise you will be shocked by everything you didn't know.