This middle-grade novella was a great way to get into the New Year and relax in the bath during my first arduous week back at work. What Magic Is ThisThis middle-grade novella was a great way to get into the New Year and relax in the bath during my first arduous week back at work. What Magic Is This? is short and sweet. Let’s be clear: if you go into this expecting Holly Bourne’s usual perspicacity from her adult or young adult reads, you might feel disappointed by how simplistic this book is in comparison. But if you approach this from the mindset of your middle-school self, you’ll have much more luck enjoying this. Aimed at alloromantic girls in Year 9 (Grade 8) in particular, this is a book about the tensions between friendship and infatuation, and the lines we draw between reality and fantasy.
Trigger warning in this book for discussions of self-harm/cutting.
Sophie thinks of herself as the boring one in her friendship trio. Alexis is the dramatic one, Mia is the dark/quirky one, and Sophie is the boring one. She hopes to change that one night by casting a spell. Each of the girls wishes for something different, and by the end of the night, it’s possible each girl’s spell came true. Or maybe it’s just wishful thinking. This is not a book about magic. It’s a book about teenage relationships.
Bourne’s characterization, while obviously less subtle than her novels for older readers, remains just as skilled and apt as ever. In particular, I love her turns of phrase and I love the way she establishes the bonds among friends. The running gag with Alexis� ability to eat entire frozen pizzas from (insert any feeling here), for example, feels quite real, like it’s something that would have actually happened if I had such a friend group at that age. Likewise, Sophie’s first-person narration feels every bit a type of Year 9 girl who is beginning to explore her romantic feelings. Bourne captures the urgency of youthful infatuation.
The plot that frames this story and ties together its characters� struggles is perhaps the least important element of the book, ironically. What Magic Is This? uses witchcraft to help us learn what these girls are dealing with, but this isn’t a book about girls who believe they are witches. The epilogue that takes place a year later makes this clear, draws a nice line underneath the whole story and provides some good closure.
While Sophie and Mia receive a fair amount of development, Alexis feels like the odd girl out. Her struggle is coming to terms with grief—she lost a dog, whom we are told she actually hated while he was alive—and we also learn she has a flair for drama. That’s about it. Unlike Mia, who at least is revealed as Sophie’s foil through her flare-ups with both Sophie and Alexis, Alexis herself remains the most enigmatic and least used character.
This is a cute book, with many satisfying elements, tightly plotted so it doesn’t overstay its welcome. I think for its target audience it’s a win. As I said in my introduction, older readers will need to approach it with that awareness in order to appreciate it. But I am a huge Holly Bourne fangirl, and I love that she now has stories for all ages.
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So you’re fourteen years old, and you’re on a vision quest. It’ll be another hundred years or so before Europeans show up and tell your people that, aSo you’re fourteen years old, and you’re on a vision quest. It’ll be another hundred years or so before Europeans show up and tell your people that, actually, Turtle Island is going to be called “North America� and was empty before they showed up. But I digress. You want to get a vision so you can become a man, but this stupid turtle just won’t shut up � ohhhhh.
Meanwhile, you’re fourteen years old, and you’re walking along the train tracks, even though your dad told you not to, because who listens to their dad? He’s just a police officer with a totally rational fear of his kid getting hit by a train. You’re just minding your own business, avoiding a bully and saving a train from derailing because one of the tracks is out. You 徱’t ask to meet Gathering Cloud and help him fight off a wendigo.
It’s always a pleasure to receive as a gift a good book that you would otherwise probably not know about. My friend Carly gave me Out of Time because she was intrigued by the promise of a time travel novel set on the shores of Lake Superior and including Anishinabe mythology. The lives of two fourteen-year-old boys from very different times and places collide, allowing them to work together to vanquish a monster and learn more about themselves in the process. It’s an adventure combined with an after-school special in that most Canadian of storytelling traditions.
Out of Time succeeds largely because David Laderoute keeps it simple. There’s a contained cast of characters, a clear enemy, and a clear goal. The plot is simple too, the arc almost predictable—but that doesn’t mean it’s unfulfilling. The way Laderoute allows the boys to defeat the wendigo temporarily, only for it to come back stronger and with a vengeance, is pretty clever. While the moments of moral clarity, as I want to call them, are a little heavy-handed, I think this is a common problem in YA (and maybe I’m wrong to call them a problem—maybe they should be this way, and it’s only my overexposure to Star Trek: The Next Generation that makes all this moral stuff look obvious to me).
Time travel gimmicks and cultural allusions aside, this is a novel about courage in the face of selfishness. It’s about being prepared to sacrifice, and about knowing when you need to stand up for others even if you’re going to get hurt in the process. It’s about choosing your battles, knowing when to wait instead of rushing forward, and always respecting and listening to the counsel of others. There is plenty of “message� here, but it’s paired with a fairly slick action-adventure. Moreover, the book generally avoids falling into any of the sundry sub-genres that seem to have sprung up in YA in the past decade: it’s not dystopian, or about gangs, or overly-concerned with high school and dating. There are no vampires, werewolves, angels, or ghosts here. Well maybe ghosts. And I’m not trying to disparage those sub-genres or tropes if they are your thing—but if they aren’t, then you’ll find Out of Time that refreshment you want.
And of course, as a Thunder Bay resident, there’s always the thrill of seeing one’s home turf portrayed in a book. In this case it’s the smaller, fictional community of Stone Harbour. But it feels very Thunder Bay at some moments, and that’s what matters.
Gathering Cloud and Riley are both viable, vivid protagonists. They are similar in a lot of ways, as energetic and inquisitive fourteen-year-old boys are wont to be. Laderoute points out their differences across time and culture but doesn’t belabour the point. Handwaving the magic of the time travel and the language barriers aside, there’s the right amount of confusion when the two first meet, and of course the hilarity of Cloud trying to navigate a world of telephones and trains. I sincerely hope that he 徱’t catch any diseases while in our time. It would suck if he went back to the past only to communicate something to his entire tribe. We’re going to be optimistic here and say that 徱’t happen�. Similarly, Laderoute doesn’t give us much perspective on whether Riley uses this as an opportunity to continue learning about First Nations beliefs and culture. Again, let’s be optimistic.
Although Out of Time features a creature of aboriginal myth as its antagonist, not to mention several other prominent spirits, it actually doesn’t portray any contemporary indigenous people. Riley attempts to pass Cloud off as “an aboriginal kid, you know, from the reserve up the highway,� a dubious proposition at best. And look, it’s great to increase the visibility of aboriginal culture, beliefs, and ideas in this way, and to show someone like Riley interacting positively with an indigenous person from any time. However, I just want to use this opportunity to point out that what we really need in our contemporary Canadian YA market are more books that feature relationships between white and indigenous youth. Moreover, with this approach Laderoute inadvertently perpetuates a common trope: Indigenous peoples are figures of the past and erased or invisible in our present.
Moreover, I think it’s worthwhile to question whether a story like this Laderoute’s to tell at all. From what I can gather from the biography at the end of the book, he does not identify as Indigenous. He mentions the work of Basil Johnston, noted Anishnaabe author and scholar, as a big influence and source of his knowledge. Stories about Indigenous people and their culture should be told by Indigenous people. That’s not to say you can’t include an Indigenous character in your work if you’re settler—but to take aspects of Indigenous culture, as Laderoute does here, and use it for the central plot, can easily become appropriative and irreverent. As a settler myself, however, it is not my call to make. I just want to raise the issue, since it is important to be mindful of these facts any time one reads works by settlers that feature a lot of Indigenous characters/concepts.
I could have done without the smaller-than-normal font size and the spacing between paragraphs. Conventions exist for a reason; break them at your peril. ’Nuff said!
Out of Time has a good plot and great pacing. Other than the protagonists, the rest of the cast isn’t very remarkable. I enjoyed that Jonah was more than a two-dimensional bully. However, your enjoyment of this book is largely going to come from whether you manage to care about Riley and/or Cloud and their battle against an evil spirit.
I’ll end off by saying that I am always a little more than sceptical when approaching books from small presses and by local authors. This probably isn’t fair of me, but I am only human. I’m trying really hard though to convey the fact that I enjoyed Out of Time. Neither the characters nor the subject matter happens to be what I typically read in YA (or elsewhere), despite the inclusion of stuff like time travel, so it’s hard to say this book excited me or left me tingling. All other things considered, though, it’s pretty good, and I’d recommend it if it sounds like something your speed.
Talk about come-from-behind challengers. I was so certain I had my Carnegie nominees sorted, and then I read the The Weight of Water. I almost 徱’tTalk about come-from-behind challengers. I was so certain I had my Carnegie nominees sorted, and then I read the The Weight of Water. I almost 徱’t read it. It’s getting close to the end of the school year, and in a week’s time I’ll be on a plane back to Canada for the summer. I wasn’t sure I wanted to invest the time in reading this book, particularly because it is written in verse. Poetry and I are � fairweather friends.
Not reading this book would have been a huge mistake, one I’m glad I 徱’t make. Sarah Crossan has created an utterly engrossing story about a Polish girl whose mother has uprooted her and brought her to England in pursuit of her father, who has left their family. Kasienka is devoted to her mother but confused by her father's desertion and her new situation in England. She is upset about being placed in a Year 7 class, despite being nearly thirteen years old, just because of her English skills. And moving schools makes it hard enough to find friends and wage the wars of popularity; moving to a new country and learning a new language makes it even harder.
I come from Thunder Bay, a city that is somewhat multicultural but not exactly a bastion of diversity like one would find in Toronto or, indeed, many major towns in England. My experience dealing with the intersections of different cultural backgrounds, and particularly the psychological effect on a child of moving around the world, is limited. Having taught at a school with a significant proportion of students for whom English is a second language, I have a better idea of the challenges that students—and teachers—face on a daily basis. Crossan captures all of these in the voice and verse of a twelve-year-old girl.
The verse works well because it forces you to pay attention to every word. With prose, it is so easy to skim and still get the gist of the plot. This book has a plot, but the story is definitely about the trajectory of Kasienka as a character. She begins as a scared girl and matures, with each challenge teaching her something valuable about who she is becoming. She faces down the Popular Girl, develops shy affection for a boy in Year 9, and even struggles with keeping a secret from her mother that could tear them asunder. Because everything is narrated in her poetry, we only ever get a sense of Kasienka—the other characters are more like shadows of themselves than real people—but that’s enough.
The best "plot point", if you will, concerns Kasienka becoming aware of her father's new life before her mother does. She has to choose whether to keep this a secret from her mother or reveal it, risking both parents� disapproval. As Kasienka”s relationship with her mother deteriorates, her relationship with her father improves, to the point where his new partner invites her to come live with them. She would have everything she doesn't have in the one-room living space she shares with her mother: a bedroom, a bed of her own, a computer. She could be more like a “normal� English girl her age. But it would mean leaving her mother, and even the thought of that makes Kasienka feel so guilty. You can see her thinking about it though, feel the pain as she considers her options.
The book takes its title from Kasienka’s newly found love of swimming. Several people encourage her involvement, and she persists until she gets to go to a national competition in London. Again, the poetry works well here, communicating through vivid imagery the relief that Kasienka feels as she swims. Her mundane worries slide off her body; she revels in the feel of the water on her skin, the intensity of the competition of which she is a part. For her, the weight of water is something special, something almost holy. Crossan portrays the refuge that children (and adults, often enough) seek in a hobby or singular activity, something they can focus on—something they can control.
I'm having a hard time, now, deciding which nominee I’d like to win the award. I loved Code Name Verity: it was tops, because I was entertained even as I nearly cried. The Weight of Water, which I almost spurned, is a strong challenger. It is something that would work for children around twelve or thirteen, provided they can swallow their prejudice against poetry like I did. And I think it has a very rich message, both for people who are not from England as well as people who have grown up here and lived here their entire lives. It's a potent book, and one I’m very glad I deigned to read....more
There’s a boy, and a bear, and they are on a boat. No, . Actually, more kind of in a boat. A rowboat. Named Harriet.
Bears are not cuddlThere’s a boy, and a bear, and they are on a boat. No, . Actually, more kind of in a boat. A rowboat. Named Harriet.
Bears are not cuddly. They are ferocious wild animals that really just want to be left alone, to roam through the wild and eat fish and have bear sex. So I’m not quite sure how we went from bears mauling people to teddy bears and anthropomorphic bears who wear boots or hang around with that Christopher Robin kid. I wonder if there is a middle, transition state out there somewhere � a kind of supercharged Pooh Bear on steroids, looking to defend his territory and steal your camp food.
Huh. I just Googled for that last thing, and � I don’t recommend that you do the same. I am now scarred for life.
Literature has a long, rich history of irresponsible parents letting boys get into boats captained by a vicious animal. (Yes, I maintain both that one book constitutes a tradition and that Richard Parker was the captain of that lifeboat. Because he totally was.) My initial reaction was, “Gee, I wonder when this boy will be eaten?� What followed was a long series of suspenseful events in which Dave Shelton expertly manipulated this expectation to the point where I was completely hooked.
First there was the sandwich debacle. The boy wakes up after dozing off only to find it’s the next day, and instead of arriving at their destination, they are lost. Well, he thinks they are lost. Captain Bear insists they are not—but you can’t trust a bear to read a map, because bears can’t read. Everyone knows this. Also, as it turns out, the map is actually just a massive blue rectangle with a grid system overlaid. The bear has several such maps, one of which has a rock marked on it. I can only assume that the bear hired a particularly lazy cartographer. Or perhaps just one who wasn’t very good.
So the boy and the bear are lost, with their boat. They use up their provisions until they are down to the Very Last Sandwich (capitalization not mine). It’s not a very appealing sandwich, so they lock it in a lunchbox, until it escapes. It then becomes Chekov’s Very Last Sandwich, in the sense that it reappears later in the book to wreak further havoc and destruction. Meanwhile, the boy and the bear need to resort to some creative fishing to survive, which lands them in a different sort of trouble. As the hazards mount and their relationship deteriorates, it starts to look like the boy and the bear will never get home.
There is never a dull moment in this book, despite the boy’s protests to the contrary. And accompanying these action-packed paragraphs are pages of beautiful illustrations from Shelton himself. Indeed, though the story itself is a little simplistic, the illustrations definitely augment it. Everything from the boy’s grumpy looks to the bear’s particular sense of detached bumbling comes alive in Shelton’s hand.
Considering its audience, I suppose this is a satisfying book. I think it could overstay its welcome, and Shelton doesn’t always raise the stakes; he merely changes them. The boy and the bear aren’t on an adventure or a quest so much as a series of unforeseen events, and while it’s an entertaining read, at the end there isn’t really much of a sense of accomplishment. Perhaps it’s true that the boy learned something. But we’ll never know, of course, since the bear ate him.
Kidding.
I can only express some disappointment that A Boy and a Bear on a Boat is rather lonely among this year’s Carnegie nominees. I’d like to pitch my tent behind this endearing little tale, but there really are just a few other novels that captured my attention more, if only because they are for the older crowd. This is monumentally unfair, and I expect that Shelton would be entirely justified in dispatching his crack team of aqua-bears to dispose of me. If you’re reading this with someone among the target audience, I suspect you’ll enjoy it. And it could make for an interesting conversation starter, especially with the cliffhangers that Shelton often uses to end his chapters. This book isn’t quite in my wheelhouse, but I enjoyed it anyway, and you might be surprised too.
My grandmother died in January. We were expecting it for a while. She had been in and out of the hospital for months, her diabetes causing circulationMy grandmother died in January. We were expecting it for a while. She had been in and out of the hospital for months, her diabetes causing circulation problems with her legs to the point where he body could no longer keep up. I had realized prior to that what a loss my grandmother would be, but it was still hard for me to understand how it would feel—this was the first death in my family that I had experienced. Sometimes, the isolated nature of our cognition inevitably leads to a mild form of solipsism. It is hard to conceptualize of other people, previous generations, having adventures and experiences and memories of their own. My grandmother saw and did so much that I just can’t know about any more. It’s so weird, thinking that all these unique experiences that she had are now lost.
I don’t believe in ghosts. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t cool to entertain the notion of the existence of ghosts. What if my grandma were still around, haunting us, watching us grow and change and have our own children? That’s what Mary’s great-grandmother does in A Greyhound of a Girl. When she dies from flu at the beginning of the century, she stays on the family farm as a ghost, hidden from sight but privy to the life of her child, Emer. Tansey watches as Emer grows up and has her own daughter, Scarlett, who in turn gives birth to Mary. Four generations on, Scarlett and Mary live in Dublin, the family farm long ago sold to a neighbour as the family diminished and broke apart. Mary’s grandmother, Emer, lies in hospital at the end of her life, and one day while walking home from school, Mary meets a peculiarly-dressed woman who calls herself Tansey. It takes a while for Mary to realize that Tansey is the ghost of her great-grandmother. After this, she introduces Tansey to her mother (like you do), and they reunite grandmother with great-grandmother before embarking on a touching road trip.
With A Greyhound Girl, Roddy Doyle explores the connections, implicit and explicit, between generations of women in an Irish family. It’s ultimately something explored from a child’s perspective, despite chapters told from the limited third-person view of Tansey, Scarlett, and Emer. This is Mary’s story, the story of how the youngest in the generation somehow brings together the older three for one, last moment of shared experience.
The ghost aspect definitely adds something here. Indeed, it’s essential, because it allows Tansey to be absent while simultaneously witnessing Emer’s life. This would be a very different story if Tansey had been present, had known Emer, and a different story still if Tansey had been absent but somehow alive. By reintroducing Tansey as a ghost, ripped from Emer in an untimely manner by disease, Doyle sidesteps the need to address recriminations. Emer, at the end of her life and ready to find peace, deals with Tansey’s unexpected presence with the equanimity that only those who have accepted their forthcoming death possess.
But so does Scarlett. And Mary. I mean, I can understand a child, particularly a twelve-year-old who has decided she knows everything about the world and nothing can surprise her, reacting with a weary haughtiness. And maybe Scarlett is just a particularly hip mother? The fact remains that all three react to Tansey’s existence in essentially the same way. Mary tells her mom that Tansey is a ghost, and mom doesn’t bat an eye. They all smile and exchange polite words and then go off to visit Emer in the hospital, Tansey in tow.
There is a notable lack of drama or conflict in this book.
There, I said it.
Even the fact that Emer is dying, and that she gets to meet her mother after all these years, feels less sensational than turning on a television. All of these characters are just so cool and collected, so glib and flip with their dialogue, that they don’t seem alive. They don’t seem real. There is precious little fighting between mother-and-daughter—Mary prefers, instead, to spend her time tracking whether or not Scarlett’s sentences end with !!!. I groaned the first time I read that exchange and quickly skimmed any further such paragraphs as they appeared. In his attempts to give his characters depth and definition, Doyle just reduces them to trite exchanges better suited for a Saturday Night Live sketch.
Generational stories are hard to do. To work effectively, they need a real sense of loss and sacrifice. They need secrets, moments of haunting, twisted darkness that have been repressed down the decades. They need confrontation and revelation. There is very little of that present in this book. Beyond Emer’s loss of Tansey as an infant and subsequent reunion now, just prior to her death, there is little hardship or suffering. The reunion doesn’t lead to much in the way of conflict. No one yells or screams. There is some sadness and melancholy, as one might expect from people who are watching a relative slowly decline. But sadness alone does not a compelling story make.
For a novel that culminates in a road trip, there is hardly any sense of adventure. Worse still, there is no sense of danger. This experience changes Mary and Scarlett; they become different people for having known Tansey and seen this side of Emer. Nevertheless, when I read a novel, I need to be more than a voyeur to an extended family reunion. I need something that is going to grip me by threatening real, three-dimensional characters. A Greyhound Girl doesn’t do any of that.
What saves this from a one-star rating, in my mind, is some of Doyle’s writing. The dialogue is corny and the characterization flatter than an opened bottle of Coke. Yet he still manages to capture some of the truths about family life. Mary’s brothers, for instance, who seem so alien and remote having hit puberty. Or, as I mentioned previously, the doom that tinges every aspect of their day as they contemplate Emer’s decline in hospital. These little things hint at a skill that Doyle deploys more effectively, according to other reviewers, in his other books, none of which I’ve read.
A Greyhound Girl feels like a book that is either too big or too small—in terms of scope, not length. To truly sprawl in a generational sense, it needs more girth. Or, Doyle could have gone the other way, focused on the relationship between mothers and daughters. Instead, he treads some middle ground between the pinnacles of the two extremes. As a result, rather than being a successful synthesis of the two approaches, the book is an unambitious presentation of an unexamined story.
**spoiler alert** Certain books only work in the first person. I wouldn’t think Maggot Moon would work any other way: you need to experience the world**spoiler alert** Certain books only work in the first person. I wouldn’t think Maggot Moon would work any other way: you need to experience the world through Standish Treadwell’s eyes—of two different colours. Sally Gardner creates an alternative history dystopia in which an authoritarian Motherland has absolute control, thanks to a combination of propaganda, self-policing, and secret police. It is going through the process of meticulously faking a moon landing, but a single dyslexic child with just enough gumption might be able to screw it up and expose the hoax.
Standish’s voice helps establish the creepiness of the Motherland’s regime. I imagine (because, fortunately, that’s all I can do—imagine) that the way he describes how the enforcers of the Motherland act is similar to how a child of resisters might have experienced Soviet Russia. Standish and his grandfather live in “Zone 7�, an area comprising an uncomfortable mixture of the collaborating, nouveau rich and those like Standish’s grandfather who have narrowly escpaed re-education. Like most children who have been hard done by, Standish views all adults who are not his grandfather with a certain amount of distrust: he has learned early to be wary of authority, so the actions of the hard Mr. Hellman and the kinder Miss. Phillips are viewed with the same lens of suspicion.
The perspective also means that Gardner doesn’t have to explain much. I struggled, at first, to decide whether I was comfortable with the dearth of exposition. There’s something to be said, when one is working in an unfamiliar world, for providing skilful primers. Ultimately, Maggot Moon doesn’t spend much time spelling out what its world is like or how it came to be, and I’m OK with that. Gardner still manages to tell her story, which is of paramount importance, and she doesn’t get too sidetracked.
In this respect, Maggot Moon reminds me a little of The Giver. The two are similar because they have protagonists who are different from the average child, who reject the dystopia around them and learn that there may be more to the world—Standish thanks to his grandpa and television, and Jonas thanks to the Giver. I wasn’t a fan of The Giver, particularly as a work of dystopian fiction for children. The opposite is true for Maggot Moon.
The totalitarian motif that Gardner taps in this story is going to be different depending on whether the reader is my age (or older) or a child. Most children, even older children who have learned about World War II and the Cold War, won’t necessarily understand the historical context in which Gardner’s world lives. This is why her lack of exposition, which effectively decouples the Motherland from any Earthly origins and sets it adrift on the sea of possibility, works well. Children will recognize that this is a world that tries so hard to be fair it is as unfair as it can be; it is a world of fear and darkness hidden by a shabby coat of brighter paint.
This is actually a rather depressing book. In retrospect, that should have been obvious. Consider the title: Maggot Moon. What an unattractive concept! Yet it makes perfect sense, given the nature of the book. And then there are the illustrations: the first pages of each chapter have an illustration going across the two facing pages, and it progresses (almost but not quite like a flipbook animation might) with each subsequent chapter. The first such illustration is simply of a fly flying across the page from left to right. Then, at the bottom of the page, a rat emerges from a hole. Then the illustrations become darker: the rat finds a bottle of poison, sniffs it, tips it over, and then tastes it out of curiosity. It dies, and as the rat’s corpse begins to decay, the fly lays its eggs, which hatch into maggots�. I actually reached a point where I started to find the entire process rather revolting. I’m not sure what children would think (or if they would notice it in the same way).
This is actually a book of hope. In retrospect, that is obvious. Though subtle in other ways, Gardner doesn’t conceal that Standish is a little bit of a Mary Sue as he prepares to play a pivotal role in trying to bring down the Motherland. He plans to show up on camera, to reveal that this moonlanding business is a hoax. Never mind the fact that there is no reason they would possibly be broadcasting the “moonwalk� live, that they couldn’t just edit out the footage of him spoiling the conspiracy. The point isn’t that we see Standish succeed: we see him try, try and struggle and maybe he succeeds. (The ending implies, at least to me, that he dies and joins Hector in heaven. But that isn’t really a downer anyway, is it?)
Maggot Moon is impressive because it manages that balancing act between complexity and subtlety required in books about weighty matters aimed at children. It’s not quite in the same league as Wonder � but it isn’t aiming to be. Whereas Wonder is character-driven, Maggot Moon is more about symbols and metaphors. This makes it simultaneously a more difficult and an easier book: more difficult, obviously, because it requires that extra layer of abstraction; and easier, because the characters are less complex, as they are there primarily to represent certain things.
All in all, it’s a good book. It hasn’t quite displaced Wonder as my favourite of the four nominees I’ve read so far, but I can see why people champion it, and champions it deserves.
My Carnegie reading list continues with Wonder. With this book, R.J. Palacio swept me off my feet and took me on an incredible, moving journey. She coMy Carnegie reading list continues with Wonder. With this book, R.J. Palacio swept me off my feet and took me on an incredible, moving journey. She combines believable, authentic voices of children and adolescents and a sensitive, sensible approach to her subject matter to create a book that is evocative without being too cheesy or trite. Wonder is about a young boy trying to integrate into a society not so accepting of physical difference—but, it’s also about a society trying to accept a young boy who is different.
The story begins with the main character, August, as the narrator. He introduces himself and his unique, congenital facial physiognomy that some might characterize as disfigured or deformed. August has spent most of his life in and out of the hospital for one surgery or another, and until this year he has been homeschooled. That’s all about to change. August is entering grade five (or “middle school� as the Americans call it), and his parents decide it’s time to enrol him into a small private school, Beecher Prep. Everyone braces themselves for the worst.
It’s interesting how we judge other people by physical qualities. We often assume that conformance to our narrow definitions of physical fitness also convey mental fitness, and that failure to conform to the former means the latter is also questionable. August might not look like a normal ten-year-old, but he is just as smart, if not smarter, than most ten-year-olds. Palacio is careful to assert this point—but not over-emphasize it—and it becomes an important character trait. Later in the book, a bigoted parent openly questions August’s fitness to attend Beecher Prep. She claims that because Beecher is not an “inclusion school� and doesn’t need to mix “normal� students with those who have “special needs�, August shouldn’t have been admitted. Palacio skilfully conveys, through this parent’s email to Beecher’s principal, a haughty tone dripping with false concern, making it obvious that this parent is using this abelist language as a mask for her own discomfort with August’s appearance.
I like this touch, because it gives younger readers a very good example of the duplicity that adults—and particularly parents—often practise “for the children�. It’s similar to the sadly all-too-frequent request to ban certain books “for the children�. Parents request things, citing the protection of children as a reason, when in reality they are attempting to warp the world to fit their own narrow, bigoted definitions of what makes for a civil society. It bothers me, as a teacher and a person, that such close-minded people exist and are raising part of the next generation.
But I digress. August enters Beecher Prep’s fifth grade and goes through the usual ups and downs, making friends of various fidelity and foes as well. His first big trial comes at Halloween, ordinarily August’s favourite time of the year. When he wears a different costume to school on the spur of the moment, no one recognizes him, and he unwittingly eavesdrops on several other children discussing him. He overhears one of his “friends� say something so vile that he flees and doesn’t want to return to school. Palacio has us hooked � and then she moves on to Part Two, narrated by Via, leaving us in the lurch as to whether August returns or not.
Via is starting at an elite high school. In middle school, despite August not attending, she was still known as the “kid with a deformed brother�. Hence, while Via’s love for August and desire to protect him knows no bounds, she is determined not to be “labelled� in such a way. As a younger child, Via had a lot of time to pay attention to August; as an adolescent, she is starting to become more concerned with her own needs. Her best friends have completely changed over the summer, and she drifts away from them and tries to rediscover or reinvent herself. Nevertheless, Via still manages to be a sounding board for August—she is the first one he confides in after the Halloween incident.
Next, August’s friend Summer picks up the narration, explaining why she sat at August’s lonely lunch table that first day. Summer is an important figure in August’s life because she is a genuine friend—she certainly feels sorry for him, but she is able to look past that pity and treat him like another, ordinary kid. They have genuine, fulfilling conversations that kids might have—and they get into some arguments and fights. August confides in Summer about Halloween, explaining why he isn’t friends with Jack anymore. He makes Summer swear—no crossed fingers or toes!—not to tell anyone, but she gives Jack a hint.
From there, Jack becomes the narrator. Palacio gives him an opportunity to explain his actions, so that we can see him as more a more sympathetic character. He genuinely has no inkling that August overheard his comments on Halloween, and it takes him a while to figure it out. This coincides with another kid making some incendiary comments about August, and he reacts emotionally, punching the kid in the face. The resulting disciplinary action touches off a chain of events that reverberates throughout the rest of the novel: Jack and August make up, over text message of course; the punched kid, Julian, starts a “boy war�, pitting his cohort against Jack; and Julian’s mother begins complaining to the principal about August’s presence.
The book does eventually return to August as the narrator, stopping along the way at a few others, including Via’s boyfriend Justin. I enjoyed the device of switching narrators far more than I suspected I would. Although much of the first part of each new narrator’s section is devoted to analysis and exposition, each new part does advance the plot a little. I like how Palacio exposes us to the diverse reactions and opinions about August and his condition. It creates a more holistic experience and reminds us that there is no such thing as a clear-cut way to think about issues like this. Jack’s weakness in the face of peer pressure is a great example, as is Amos, Miles, and Henry’s opposite heel face turn near the end of the book.
Palacio also keeps a lot of the book’s conflict tightly contained. That is, most of what August experiences is within the realm of what any boy might experience at school as a result of unpopularity. It’s simply that the reason for August’s status is something that he can’t possibly change. This allows readers, regardless of their ability or disability, to empathize with August’s plight—many of us have bullied or been bullied. Wonder is a reminder, particularly for those of us who happen to be able-bodied, that people with disabilities have to endure the same problems able-bodied people do as children, and then some.
I wish there had been more overt conflict among August/his parents, the principal, and the group of parents represented by Julian’s mother. Indeed, if any character could be singled out for Mary Sue levels of syrupy sweetness, it might be the principal. He is just so understanding, so nice � and I couldn’t stop thinking that, as a private school, Beecher Prep also needs to be concerned about its bottom line. Perhaps Palacio 徱’t care to include the vagaries of school-board politics, beyond the hints she does give. I can understand that, considering the level of the book’s audience.
Then again, this is also in keeping with Palacio’s tendency to downplay August’s defenders. Their existence and actions are important and notable: Jack’s punching of Julian is a turning point for him and his relationship with August; Amos, Miles, and Henry’s defence of August against the bullies from another school marks the end of Julian’s boy war and the point where the rest of Beecher Prep’s fifth grade accepts August as “one of them�. Time and again, however, Palacio reminds us that no matter how important allies are, August still has his own voice and his own agency. He can solve a lot of problems on his own—or, if he needs help, ask for it.
The constant question echoing through my mind as I read, of course, was whether Palacio ever takes her portrayal of August—or any characters, really—over the top. Does Wonder ever approach the syrupy sweet tone of an after-school special? I honestly lost any cynicism I started with as I kept reading. Yes, there’s a happy and somewhat groan-worthy ending � but I think the book earns that with all the other legwork it does. Palacio creates three-dimensional characters who grow and change, and she is able to show that development at a realistic but engaging pace.
All in all, Wonder is a novel that carefully steps around stereotype traps and works hard to create a strong story with believable characters. It impressed me far more than I thought it would. I’ve only read two Carnegie nominees so far, but one of the remaining four will have to be absolutely stunning if it hopes to beat Wonder in my eyes.
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