Tag / families

by cholliman1

“Surviving the Applewhites” by Stephanie Tolan

The Plot In Five Sentences Or Less:  Jake Semple is a problem child who has been kicked out of more public schools than he can count.  In desperation, his grandfather enrolls him in the Creative Academy run by the Applewhite family, a group of artistic eccentrics that run a school unlike any other.  In the beginning, Jake finds much to dislike about the place, especially E. D. Applewhite, a girl about his age who, unlike her family, enjoys order and structure.  When Randolph, the father of the clan, casts Jake in a role in a local version of “The Sound of Music, the young misfit finds that he takes quite well to acting and singing.  While Jake blossoms, E.D. finds herself increasingly unappreciated by her own family.

My Take: I appreciated this book because it turned out much differently than I had imagined.  Of course, I knew that Jake would eventually settle in with the Applewhite family, but I imagined that the plot would contain a great deal of bad, perhaps borderline violent, behavior on Jake’s part that would induce a crisis in the family.  I was expecting something closer to the Great Gilly Hopkins.  I much enjoyed that, as the novel progressed, Tolan subtly shifted the focus from Jake to other characters.  This made for a much more enjoyable read about the role and power of artistic ventures to bring people together.

One Interesting Note About the Author:  According to her website, Stephanie Tolan is “also well known as an advocate for extremely bright children.  She co-authored the award-winning nonfiction book, Guiding the Gifted Child, and has written many articles about the challenges gifted ‘asynchronous’ children and adults face as they find a way to fit into their world.”

by cholliman1

Fallout by Todd Strasser

strasser falloutFallout by Todd Strasser

The Plot in Five Sentences or Less:  Recounts the experience of one middle American family during the nuclear standoff of 1963.  The plot alternates in time between the family preparing a nuclear fallout shelter and then actually using it during a nuclear strike.  9 people make it into the shelter and tensions run high as time passes.  The story is told from the point of view of a teenage boy whose father constructs the shelter.

My Take:  Fallout is enjoyable and also educates readers on the widespread fear during the early sixties of a nuclear strike.  Strasser does an excellent job of building up the anxiety and claustrophobia in the fallout shelter.  He also does not dodge the difficult topics of burgeoning teenage sexual feelings nor the bathroom issues involved with 9 people trapped in a room.  This cannot be considered strict historical fiction as there was never a nuclear strike on American soil during the 1960’s.

One Interesting Note About the Author:  Fallout is based on Strasser’s father constructing a bomb shelter in the family’s backyard in 1962.  Strasser revisits this in the author’s note at the end of the book.

by cholliman1

Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli

manicamagee Plot: Jeffrey Magee is a an orphaned boy who blows into the town of Two Mills, Pennsylvania (a fictional place) one afternoon. Within the first day he has already made an impression on the neighborhood. He butts into an ongoing little league game and hits line drives off of ace pitcher John McNab. He strays into Finsterwald’s backyard, a place that no other kid will venture due to the local grinch that lives there. And the Pickwell kids claim that they saw him running on top of the steel rails of the railroad tracks. With all of these crazy stories floating about, people begin calling him Maniac Magee.

But Jeffrey soon hits upon the split reality of Two Mills: the town is divided strictly along racial lines of white and black. Maniac is oblivious to it all. Although being white himself, he openly wanders into the black part of town and remains oblivious to his blunder. He stays with the Beale family on Sycamore street until they begin receiving threats because they are housing a “honky fishbelly.” Maniac knows then that it is time to move on.

He takes up residence in the bison pen at a local zoo, until he makes friends with the local groundskeeper, an elderly man named Grayson. During his weeks with Grayson, Jeffrey listens to his tales about playing minor league ball and he also teaches the old man how to read. When Grayson passes away, Jeffrey again hits the road and eventually ends up back in Two Mills. This time Maniac will examine even more closely the racial strife in the town and take action to ameliorate it.

Personal Reaction: A couple of years ago I tried to listen to the audiobook version of Love Stargirl by Spinelli. I say “tried” because a couple of chapters into it, I found it to be so annoying that I turned it off. It may not have been the writing. It may have been the subject matter or the grating voice of the narrator.

As I listened to the audiobook of Maniac Magee, I thought that I was going to have a similar reaction to this book. I enjoyed the opening when Jeffrey rolls into Two Mills like
a supernatural event, performing heroic acts and getting everyone talking. Midway through, however, during the scenes with Grayson, I felt that Spinelli had lost the momentum of the narrative. I found the interaction between Maniac and the elderly groundskeeper to be cloying, especially when he was teaching him to read. Where was the hook, I wondered, to keep the reader, well, reading?
The book picks up again when Maniac returns to Two Mills and encounters the racial conflict. At this point, older readers will realize that the character of Jeffrey is really not much of a character at all. He is the personification of racial tolerance and color blindness. He is the unearthly hero who can perform great miracles and open people’s hearts. I appreciated Spinelli asking readers to make this leap to study the symbolism surrounding the character of Maniac. For this reason, I can understand why this book is taught in many middle school classrooms and also won the 1991 Newberry Honor Medal.
Themes: racial conflict, heroism/heroic acts, orphan, individual vs. society, community healing.

by cholliman1

Lunch-box Dream by Tony Abbott

It is the summer of 1959 and Bobby and his brother Ricky are on a road trip with their mother and grandmother driving from Cleveland, Ohio down to Florida.  The reason for the trip is to drive grandma back home, but on their way they are touring Civil War battlefields.

Much farther south, an African American boy by the name of Jacob is taking the bus from Atlanta to go visit some relatives that live out in the country in Dalton, Georgia.   He will spend a week there fishing with his uncle and spending time with his cousin.

Despite the seemingly pleasant circumstances surrounding both of these trips, each boy soon finds that disturbing events are beginning to affect their lives.  Touring Civil War battlefields across the country, Bobby slowly realizes that his mother has decided on this trip to get them away from their abusive father and for her to decide if she wants to end the marriage.  While in Dalton, Georgia, Jacob discovers that his big city behavior, his whistling and carrying on, does not sit well with the white people in the small town.

As the book progresses, the reader slowly realizes that we are watching these families geographically moving towards each other and, perhaps, to an explosion of violence.  The tension soon rises on both sides.  Bobby’s mother crashes the car outside of Chickamauga in a spasm of fear trying to drive away from some well intentioned black people.  They will have to take the bus home.  Meanwhile, Jacob has turned up missing in Dalton.  His family back in Atlanta boards the very same bus in hysteria knowing, just knowing, that their boy has been killed by some country whites.

Author Tony Abbott deftly builds up each of the characters, exposing a history of violence and abuse in both families.   The ending is as touching as it is painful and leaves open the questions of how these young men will continue to navigate a world and society that is fundamentally unjust.  Excellent YA literature dealing with racism, family ties, abuse, brothers, and road trips.