Book Review: Beholding Bee, by Kimberly Newton Fusco (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013)

Recommended for ages 8-12.

Award-winning author Kimberly Newton Fusco really knows how to create strong female characters that stay with you long after you've finished her book.  In her most recent book, Beholding Bee, she weaves an especially magical and moving story that's perfect for middle-grade readers.

As the novel opens, we meet 11-year old Bee, who lives with a traveling carnival.  It's 1942, and Bee's parents, carnival workers, were killed when she was four and she's been raised by a kindly young woman, Pauline.  Bee fills her days chopping onions and helping at the carnival's hot dog cart.  She has to deal with teasing about a prominent birthmark on her face, although her guardian Pauline suggests it's a precious diamond.  In fact, the carnival owner only seems to be keeping Bee so that he can use her in his "freak show" when she's a little older.  But when Bee's two best friends leave the carnival, Bee decides it's time to find a real home, and takes to the road with a stray dog as unwanted as she is and a small piglet.

Bee is taken in by two mysterious but kindly old women, Mrs. Swift and Mrs. Potter, who live in an old home that seems straight out of a fairy tale.  Their clothes seem to come from another era, and curiously only Bee is able to see these women she calls her "aunts." For the first time, Bee goes to school, where she must cope with cruel bullying.  Although she's put in a special education class where she clearly does not belong, at school she makes her first friend her own age.  Gradually, Bee learns that there are people who care about her, and she learns to accept herself for who she is.

This is a lovely, lyrical, story filled with what Bookpage called "real magic"--"created by love and conjured up by need."  Kimberly Newton Fusco manages to fuse magic and realism, love and cruelty, loneliness and hope into another novel that's a treasure for middle-grade readers (and adults who love to share books with children!)

Book Review: Okay for Now, by Gary D. Schmidt (Clarion Books, 2011)

Recommended for ages 10-14.  


Release date:  April 18, 2011


In a companion to his acclaimed novel, The Wednesday Wars, award-winning writer Gary D. Schmidt revisits the Vietnam era in Okay for Now.  Doug Swietech, a secondary character in the Wednesday Wars, becomes the focus of this story; it's close to the end of the summer, and Doug and his very dysfunctional family have just moved to a "dump" of a town in upstate New York when the book opens.  Doug idolizes Joe Pepitone of the Yankees, and his most treasured possession is a jacket signed given by his idol.  His home life is dominated by his abusive father and his bullying older brother, while another brother is off fighting in Vietnam.

The library and the town's kind librarian, Mr. Powell, play a key role in the story, as Doug discovers that although "maybe stupid Marysville was a dump,...this place wasn't."  At the second floor of the library, he finds a special room, with a huge book--a book displayed under glass, with only one picture showing.  It's a gigantic picture of a bird, and Doug can't take his eyes off it.  "It was the most terrifying picture I had ever seen.  The most beautiful."  It's an original Audubon, and it haunts Doug's imagination.  Although Doug doesn't draw (since, as he quips in the book, only girls with pink bicycle chains draw), the kind librarian is soon leaving drawing supplies near the Audubon display that Doug is drawn to by some powerful magnetic force.  When he finally picks up a pencil to copy Audubon's drawing, it felt "spectacular, " and Mr. Powell is soon giving him drawing lessons (was that in Mr. Powell's librarian job description?)

As much as Doug hates "stupid Marysville", he is quickly befriended not only by Mr. Powell, but also by Lil, a girl whose family owns the town's deli, and gets Doug a job delivering groceries on Saturdays for some of the more eccentric citizens of Marysville.  Things aren't going too bad for Doug, until his older brother is suspected of some local robberies, his father's physical abuse is revealed to all his classmates, his brother comes back from Vietnam maimed physically and emotionally, and to top it off, pages of the precious Audubon manuscript are being sold off to pay the town's bills.  Can Doug stop the cycle of abuse in his family and perhaps even put the town's Audubon book back together?

Schmidt is a masterful writer, managing to incorporate pathos, humor, loss, the power of art, friendship and more into this memorable novel.  Doug's voice and his journey is one that the reader will not soon forget.  The novel is pulled together by the Audubon prints, which serve as titles for each chapter and are pictured in the novel as well, and often seem to mirror what is happening in Doug's own life.  As Doug comes up with ways to reconstruct the precious book, he is also making sense of his own life and future.

Okay for Now is already getting some pre-Newbery buzz, and perhaps Schmidt will be adding a Newbery to his two Newbery honor awards (for The Wednesday Wars and Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy.  Schmidt, who is a professor of English at Calvin College with six children of his own, is working on the third volume of The Wednesday Wars trilogy.  That's a book that will definitely be on my "to read" pile.

Disclosure:  ARC received from publisher

Note:  A live webcast of Gary Schmidt from the New York Public Library will take place on May 9, 2011.  See Fuse #8's announcement of the event for further details.

Book Review: The Brothers Story by Katherine Sturtevant (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009)

Recommended for ages 12 and up.

An interview with the author of this book will be featured in Friday's post!

Katherine Sturtevant's third novel for young people returns to 17th century England, this time to the winter of 1683-84, known as "The Great Frost," considered the worst frost for which we have historical records. The Thames froze solid, two feet thick, as well as the surrounding seas, rendering commerce very difficult.

In this historical context, Sturtevant spins the captivating story of two twin teenage boys, Kit and Christy. Identical in appearance, Christy has been simple since birth, and Kit, who narrates the story, is forced to look after his brother in every way. They are so poor that their mother puts them into service with a local wealthy family, where Kit cannot tolerate the way his brother is beaten and mistreated because of his disability. In desperation, he decides, despite the frigid cold, to run away to London, where he hopes to make his fortune or at least make a better life for himself without the burden of caring for his brother. He gets a stroke of luck when at an inn on the road, he meets two brothers, one an artist and the other a tailor to the London nobility. Joining their party, he goes into service with the artist, Nate.

Born and raised in a small Essex village, Kit is amazed at the sights and sounds of London. He is particularly attracted to the saucy serving maid Priscilla, who works for his master's brother. But he is especially mesmerized by the Frost Fair, a little village built on the frozen Thames, filled with booths offering refreshments, games, merchandise, and varied entertainment, including jugglers, puppet shows, acrobats, and rides on the ice. A whole ox was even roasted on a gigantic spit during the fair.

But of course Kit has not forgotten his brother, and he aches to know what has become of him and who, if anyone, is watching over him. When his fortunes change, and he has the opportunity to have a real apprenticeship, Kit must make a difficult choice between listening to his heart--where his brother still lays claim--and pursuing the possibility of a prosperous life for himself in London.

The story of Kit, his brother Christy, and the characters Kit encounters in London emerges through the frost that covered London with burning intensity. These are characters that you will take into your heart. The relationship between the twins, and the heartbreaking choices Kit has to make, ring very true and draw the reader into the story.

Moreover, the author provides many evocative and authentic tidbits of historical fact woven throughout the story. For example, it was so cold that birds fell out of the sky, frozen to death. "The piss had froze in the chamber pot and the ale in the bucket." She also incorporates very frank descriptions of teenage sexuality during this period, incorporating bawdy vocabulary that was definitely new to me. This language is not at all gratuitous, however, since the author has gone to great lengths to reconstruct the dialect of the time, particularly the way a young man of Kit's social class would have spoken. At first I found this dialect a bit jarring, but it truly brings Kit's voice to life in an authentic way.

The author writes on her website:

The most wonderful thing about historical novels is that they help us to imagine the lives of the people who came before us, people who lived very differently than we do today.

With The Brothers Story, Sturtevant certainly provides a novel that does just that.

Sturtevant's vivid descriptions allow us to imagine the Frost Fair in "our minds eye." However, I thought it would be fun to find a contemporary engraving of the Frost Fair. Other images of the Frost Fair can easily be found on-line. Or you can read more about the Frost Fair at Two Nerdy History Girls.

Book Review: Stand Straight, Ella Kate: The True Story of a Real Giant by Kate Klise and M. Sarah Klise (Dial Books, 2010)

Recommended for ages 4-8.

The versatile Kate Klise and M. Sarah Klise have penned and illustrated a variety of titles for young people, ranging from picture books to novels to non-fiction. Their newest book, a large format picture book, is based on the true story of a real woman giant, Ella Ewing, who lived from 1872 to 1913. "Most tall tales are made up," the book opens. "But my tall tale is true. I was a giant--a real, live giant." Narrated by Ella herself, the book features delightful illustrations, which evoke a primitive style well suited to the setting, rural Missouri toward the end of the 19th century. When Ella was 7 years old, she started growing at an "alarming rate." Soon she couldn't fit into the school desks, and her father had to make her a custom one. "Stand straight, Ella Kate," say her parents in a rhyming refrain.

By the time she was thirteen, she was almost six feet tall, and life wasn't easy. The story describes how she was selected to give a speech on the 4th of July, but when she stood on the stage to recite, people in the audience yelled out that she was a freak. But Ella keeps growing--and soon a visitor from Chicago wants to put Ella on exhibit at a museum in Chicago, and offers to pay her $1,000 a month--a huge sum in those days. In fact, over the next few years, she travelled the country, appearing in circuses, museums, and a world's fair. She claimed to be 8 feet, 4 inches tall when she finished growing.

Klise and Klise enrich the story with fascinating anecdotes about Ella, including how she appeared on exhibit holding a $1,000 bill in her hand. "Anyone who could reach the money unassisted was welcome to take it. No one ever did." With the money she bought, Ella paid off her parents' farm, and built herself an especially big house, with custom furniture designed for her large size. Her neighbors loved to come and hear stories about all the places she had visited, since this was a period where few people ever ventured more than a few miles from their homes. In the folk-art inspired illustrations, we see Ella with an elephant, a tiger, and the skyscrapers of New York. According to this book, Ella soon missed her traveling, and returned to work as a circus star.

An author's note at the end of the book offers biographical information about Ella, including an explanation of the disease she had, gigantism, which was not understood by the doctors of the day. We learn that Ella died at the early age of 40, and was all but forgotten except for the area in Missouri where she had lived, a community which knew her as the Gentle Giantess.

This book would make a great read-aloud for kindergarten to third grade classes. The story emphasizes how we should be sensitive and respect the differences of others in a way which is not heavy-handed, and children will be fascinated by this tale of a woman who would have towered over the basketball players of the NBA.

For those who would like to know more about Ella, an extensive website is available on "The Missouri Giantess."

Book review: Chasing Orion, by Kathryn Lasky (Candlewick, 2010)

Recommended for ages 10-14

Kathryn Lasky's newest novel is set in Indiana during a polio epidemic in the summer of 1952. The story is narrated by 11-year-old Georgie, who has just moved cross-town to a new neighborhood, where she knows no one. Georgie is bored out of her mind, since she's not allowed to swim in public pools, go to camp or to the movies because of the all-pervasive fear of contracting polio. Georgie has a strange obsession with the disease, tracking the number of new cases daily in the newspaper and memorizing lists of polio symptoms, just in case.

It's a strange quirk of fate that right next door to Georgie and her family lives Phyllis, a beautiful, flirtatious teen-aged girl who seems right out of the Archie comics Georgie loves to read--except that she's a polio victim who is trapped in an iron lung, with a useless body that is withering away. Completing the triangle of main characters is Georgie's brother, Emmett, a socially awkward high school basketball player who's an expert amateur astronomer.

As Georgie and her brother get to know Phyllis, Emmett falls in love with her, spending hours with Phyllis looking through his telescopes at the stars. Phyllis makes Georgie feel very grown up by engaging in "girl talk" with her and even gives her some real lipstick. Georgie, whose hobby is building miniature worlds, makes for Phyllis an elaborately detailed miniature diorama featuring the myth of Orion. But Georgie becomes increasingly uneasy with Phyllis; she has an uncomfortable feeling that there is more to this beautiful yet pathetic neighbor than meets the eye. Georgie even starts to have nightmares that she and her brother are ensnared in some kind of evil web, spinning out of control, and begins to grow fearful of Phyllis. Without giving away the ending, let me just say that the resolution of this tense situation brought tears to my eyes.

I highly recommend this novel for young people (boys or girls) ten and up. In telling the story of Phyllis, Georgie, and Emmett, Lasky touches on many deeper themes--what does it really mean to live? Why do bad things happen to good people? The book is also likely to spark conversation about polio and other highly contagious diseases--those that are still a threat, and those that have been eradicated. Many of the young people reading this book may have grandparents who recall vividly the terror that polio struck into their families when they were young, and therefore this could be an especially interesting book to read for book reports or other school assignments. Home schooling parents also might be especially interested since the book could easily serve as a gateway for an interdisciplinary lesson combining astronomy, biology, history, and literature.

More about polio and iron lungs...
After reading this novel, my curiosity was piqued about iron lungs and whether they were still around today. I would have liked to see an Author's Note in the novel providing young readers with some photos and additional factual information. However, a quick search of the Internet found many fascinating resources.

An overview of the history of iron lungs can be found in an on-line exhibit from the University of Virginia.

I also found this bizarre photo of a smiling little girl in an iron lung, that reminded me of how Lasky describes Phyllis with her beautiful head and hair sticking out of the giant machine.

Polio victims could survive for many years in the iron lung machine. Marsha Mason, who died in 2009, lived for over 60 years in one, even graduating from college and writing a book.

There is still no cure for polio. However, because of the discovery of the polio vaccine by Dr. Jonas Salk in 1955, polio has been eradicated from most countries. According to the World Health Organization, in 2008, only four countries in the world still had polio epidemics, down from more than 125 in 1988. The remaining countries where the disease is still found are Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan.

Book review: Cursing Columbus by Eve Tal (Cinco Puntos, 2009)

There are many books out there that focus on immigrant stories, both historic and contemporary. Eve Tal's newest book, a sequel to her acclaimed novel Double Crossing, is a worthy addition to that genre. Her story focuses on two characters, a brother and a sister, who alternate as narrators in this young adult novel.

Three years have passed since Raizel and her Orthodox father fled the pogroms against the Jews in Czarist Russia for the possibilities of a new life on New York's Lower East Side. Papa has finally saved enough money to send for the rest of the family--Mama, baby Hannah, and Raizel's two brothers, Lemmel and Shloyme. In America, Raizel is thriving at school, learning English and trying to fit in. But adjusting to America is not so easy for her brother Lemmel, who hates school just as much in America as he did in their village. "Reading English was worse than Hebrew. There were letters with straight lines and letter with circles. I couldn't tell them apart and they jumped around on the page," he tells the reader. His younger brother quickly surpasses him in reading English, adding to Lemmel's discomfort with school.

Papa's not forgotten about Lemmel's upcoming bar mitzvah just because they've come to New York, but "no matter how hard I worked," Lemmel despairs, "I wouldn't be able to read a passage from the Torah. Because I couldn't read." It is clear to the contemporary reader that Lemmel is not lazy, like his teachers think, but probably dyslexic, a disability that no one understood in the early 20th century. Raizel, on the other hand, loves learning and school, even participating in a city contest for the best essay in honor of Columbus Day. She dreams of going to university one day and becoming a teacher, and of the possibility of romance with a young man, Reuben, whom she first met on the boat ride to America.

The day of Lemmel's bar mitzvah finally arrives, and he is so desperate to avoid the humiliation that he is certain awaits him that he runs away from home, falling into a life of petty crime on the streets of New York. His family is heartbroken, and to top things off Papa has lost his job. When Lemmel is arrested for breaking into a house, he is put on trial. Will the judge be able to see through to Lemmel's good heart? Will Rose have to quit school at age 14 to help support her family or will she be able to pursue her dreams of success in America? Fortunately the novel concludes happily with a new job for Papa, the redemption of Lemmel, and even a new baby for the family.

This is a novel that would be greatly enjoyed by anyone who was interested in exploring the immigrant experience in America, and would be an excellent choice for a multicultural unit at school on immigration. One aspect of the book that I especially appreciated was the way Tal portrays the many difficulties encountered in America by the immigrants. Despite the stories that circulated in "the Old Country" about the riches and plenty in America, many immigrants worked long hours in sweatshops, lived in cramped apartments, and even went hungry. The author does not shirk from portraying these harsh realities.

I was so touched by Tal's poignant and sensitively done story that I purchased her first young adult novel, Double Crossing, which I will review later in a separate post. However, Cursing Columbus can be read with no problem without having read the prior book.

Kudos to Tal for the excellent critical reception this book has received thus far; according to her website, Cursing Columbus has been chosen as chosen as a Sydney Taylor 2010 Notable Book for Teen Readers by the Association of Jewish Libraries and has also been selected as a finalist for the National Jewish Book Awards in the Childen's and Young Adult Literature category.

Book Review: Alchemy and Meggie Swann by Karen Cushman (Clarion, 2010)

If you enjoy historical fiction for young people, you can't do better than reading Newbery-winning author Karen Cushman, who in this novel returns to England, the setting of several of her most acclaimed books including Catherine, Called Birdy and The Midwife's Apprentice. Alchemy and Meggy Swann takes us to Elizabethan London, where we meet Meggy, another very strong heroine in the tradition of Cushman's other novels. Meggy hasn't had an easy life--lame since birth, she is ridiculed by the villagers where she grew up, who consider cripples to be cursed by the devil. When the novel starts, she is dropped off in London with her only friend, an equally feisty lame goose named Louise, to live with her father whom she has never met. Her father, we discover, is an alchemist, who has little use for his lame daughter. Told in the first person by Meggie, this novel captures the smells, sights, and sounds of Elizabethan London, while creating an appealing heroine that readers will root for as she confronts physical, social and ethical challenges in her life with wit and humor. A poisoning scandal at the highest levels of the court and a friendship with a charming actor add to the plot. Recommended for ages 10-14.

I look forward to seeing Karen Cushman later this afternoon, when she will be signing books at Mrs. Nelsons Toy and Book Shop, our local independent children's bookseller. I hope to be able to publish a brief interview with her tomorrow if her time permits.