Coraline

Coraline

by Neil Gaiman

Coraline is the story of a young, adventurous girl, whose curiosity leads her to find another family that she is a part of in another world. Just when she starts to feel so comfortable in this other world with the other family that she considers staying permanently, she realizes its flaws and traps and horrible aspects. I thought the book was pretty eerie from the start, almost with a The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe feel in that she's a child who's bored and trapped in her house with nothing to do but explore. But I'm wondering if I would have still felt this eeriness from the beginning had I not known anything about the plot or the movie going into it? I'm not sure.

This book is definitely a fantasy in that it focuses on the concept of an alternate reality. This reminded me very much of the times that I have dreams that seems so real that I wake up feeling like they really did happen, especially the part when she first discovers the brick behind the door has turned into a hallway and she wanders down it and sees that it very much resembles her real house.

Obviously this is children's literature, but I wonder if there was a specific age for which the author intended? I thought it was very interesting that what is immediately creepy to me seemed to appeal to a young girl of this age, hungry for adventure. For example, when the author described Coraline's first adventure into the other world, the button eyes and white skin, the fingers that were too long, the rats to play with, and the shocking color scheme for her room, I was immediately repulsed, but it seemed that Coraline seemed to enjoy these things due to her naïveté and yearn for adventure.

I think this book sends several great messages to children, the first about bravery and doing what's right to protect those you love. Second, this book teaches children to be careful what they wish for and to be grateful for what they have, and also to not judge people too early or dismiss them for petty reasons before you get to know them. Coraline's experience also shows children that they can conquer their fears, or at least that circumstances could be a lot worse, so there's not point in wasting time worrying about the small things.

Neil Gaiman website: http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Books/Coraline/

The BFG

The BFG

by Roald Dahl

I was so excited when my group chose this book for our book club discussion because I distinctly remember reading it in Mrs. Froeschle's 3rd grade class and loving it. I love how the author jumps straight to the action from the start, not even allowing any time for a reader to get bored waiting for the plot to pick up. Plus, the quick action at the start of the book gets us excited knowing that there'll be a bigger climax to come.

Roald Dahl's language is indescribable and so many things at once: impeccable, breathtaking, intricate, and creative yet sloppy. I think it is one of the aspects that sets this book in a league of its own when it comes to children's literature. Some of my favorite words that he invented and used were "scotch-hopper," "humplecrump," "wraprascal," and "crumpscoddle," and of course, the infamous "snozzcumber." Just when you think there cannot possibly be any more strange words for him to come up with, he introduces more. He can't stop! And every new word stretches children's imaginations further.

The BFG himself is such a unique character too. Different and scrawnier than the other giants, and always trying to do the right thing, I've realized that he reminds me so much of one of my close friends, and I love having that personal connection to refer to whenever I please. The BFG is so lovable: as the book goes on, I think any young child would love to get abducted by him. One of my favorite quotes that he says, when he's distressed over his sloppy language, just makes me love him more: "But please understand that I cannot be helping it if I sometimes is saying things a little squiggly. I is trying my very best all the time" (50).

The BFG also sends such wonderful messages to children, as I referenced above, about choosing what's right over what's popular and showing character. He also makes a wonderful point about not having to see something to believe it: "Just because we happen not to have actually seen something with our own two little winkles, we think it is not existing" (48). I think this is such an important point for a child to learn early on and carry into their adulthood. Hooray for our favorite gangly, giant hero!

Roald Dahl's official website: http://www.roalddahl.com/

"Number the Stars" by Lois Lowry

Number the Stars

a novel by Lois Lowry

John Newbery Medal

For my second historical fiction book, I chose Number the Stars for several reasons. First, I remember reading it as a child and wanted to revisit a book that has already had some impact on my life, just as I did with Out of the Dust. Second, my class at Matoaka used this book as one of our first guided reading group books. And lastly, I thought it would fit in nicely with the other books I'm working with right now: Out of the Dust features a young girl about the same age who is forced to show courage during difficult times in her country, and The Devil's Arithmetic, my one-on-one lesson book, is also about World War II, the Holocaust, and its associated Resistance movements.

This novel is unique in that, instead of focusing on a Jewish child who attempts to survive the Holocaust, the main character is a nine year-old blonde Danish girl named Annemarie Johansen, who proves incredible courage in helping her friends and other Danish Jews resist capture by Nazis. What also makes this book special is its emphasis on loyalty. Previous to German Occupation in 1940, Denmark was ruled by King Christian X, who stepped down from his throne to let the Germans occupy rather than let his people get killed in a senseless battle of Resistance. Similarly, when the Germans were coming to take over the Danish fleet in their harbor, the Danish sailors blew up all of their own boats out of pride and loyalty so that the Germans could not control them. Throughout the Occupation, King Christian still continued his daily horseback rides through the city of Copenhagen, greeting his people, without bodyguards. One time, a German soldier saw him and asked a nearby teenager, "Who is that man who rides past here every morning on his horse?" (13). The boy told him cheekily that it was the King of Denmark; when the soldier probed as to where was his bodyguard, the boy responded, "All of Denmark is his bodyguard" (14). This story has been documented, and that record still exists today. This extreme sense of loyalty to King and country resonated throughout Denmark at this time, and as Number the Stars explains, this loyalty was immediately transferred to Danish Jews after their New Year in 1943 when Nazis began to capture them.

With these significant factors laid out, Lowry paints a phenomenal picture of suffering, bravery, emotion, and quick thinking, and relates these complex themes to young readers, both in and out of the context of the Occupation. Lowry's nuances are very in-depth and multi-faceted: she expresses the anger and blunt cruelty of the German soldiers, Annemarie's frustration with her five year-old blabber-mouth sister Kirsti, instances of the secret code used among Denmark resistance over the telephone, and the tactic of pretending to be a "silly little girl" or "playing dumb" as a child towards German soldiers so as not to reveal secret information entrusted to a child (114). One detail of the book that really stuck out to me was Lowry's multiple mentions of the food and materials rations in Copenhagen. She did a very good job making it clear that the absence of butter, coffee, cigarettes, rubber, and meat was now a way of life that the children understood, but she did so in a way that makes readers stop and think about how different and awful their lives would be without these things.

I liked how Annemarie's family never considered fending only for themselves an option: "it's what friends do" (128). The content and events in this novel definitely make readers grateful for the freedom from persecution that they hopefully experience today and achieve the vision of a "world of human decency" that Lowry hoped to create (137).

Out of the Dust

Out of the Dust

Karen Hesse

Karen Hesse's novel Out of the Dust, comprised entirely of poems, is probably the most depressing book I've ever read; it brought tears to my eyes on several occasions. And yet, I remember reading it at the beach one summer after 4th or 5th grade, but don't quite remember it having the same effect then. The novel tells the story of Billie Jo Kelby, a gangly, young, redheaded girl with a knack for piano-playing, who undergoes more suffering and loss than any child ever should. Hesse paints a picture of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl so sharply and accurately that readers are enthralled from the very first page.

Her poetry is absolutely fantastic; I honestly haven't read any other like it. She uses phenomenal sensory images: I can taste the dust on my tongue and feel it on my skin as I read the poems that make up her novel, which are all from young (but incredibly mature) Billie Jo's perspective. The first poem that really stuck out to me when I began the book was called "State Tests" on page 30. Billie Jo describes to her mother how their school scored the highest in the state on achievement tests and she scored the highest in the 8th grade class, but her Ma merely says "I knew you could." She knows her mother is proud, but she won't praise, thus Billie Jo feels like her Ma "makes me feel like she's just/taking me in like I was/so much flannel dry on the line" (30). This was the first personal connection I made with the story because I had such a polar opposite experience growing up: my parents made sure to praise me at every appropriate opportunity, and I couldn't imagine how discouraged she was feeling. However, the sentiment hit me as a reader even harder later in the book, with the poem introducing Winter 1935 called "State Tests Again." At this point, her mother has died a painful death, and Billie Jo says she "Wish I could run home and tell Ma/and see her nod/and hear her say,/ 'I knew you could.'/It would be enough" (99). When I read that poem, in light of the first one, my heart broke.

After the first state tests poem, the next page's poem is called "Fields of Flashing Lights," in which we have our first experience with dust, and the events of the book seem to all go downhill from there.

The tragic turning point was the poem "The Accident," on page 60, in which Billie Jo's father leaves a pail of kerosene near the stove that Ma thinks is water, then when a small fire starts and she runs outside, Billie Jo grabs the pail and throws it out the door to prevent the house from burning down; but instead, it splashes Ma completely, and she gets badly burned. A few pages later, "Devoured" describes her death while giving birth to a son, who also dies a few days later. As if these events weren't horrible already, the author reminds the reader throughout the rest of the book that Billie Jo's hands were also maimed by burns when she tried to save her mother from the flames, so her piano talents are crippled forever. This recurring detail is just crushing to anyone who reads this book.

The rest of the novel continues in a similar manner: at times, Billie Jo seems hopeful because rain will come, but then the reader is trapped on an emotional roller coaster once more as a dust storm worse than the last occurs. People and animals die, crops suffer, technology fails, the economy plummets; but dust prevails. After trying to run away to the West, only to come back because she felt even lonelier without her Daddy, and after her father begins to court his night class teacher Louise, Billie Jo finally starts to feel the sense of a family again; and with that comes hope. But in the end, this novel is much more a reflection on the worst economic times of our country and forces children readers to connect to a world of misery they could not even imagine existed. It made me thankful for what I have.