2001-02 Authors and Titles

Christopher Watson, age 13. John Askew, age 13. These are two of the names engraved on the memorial in the old coal-mining town of Stoneygate - only two of the children who perished in the dark depths of the coal pit. Stoneygate is full of dark history and ancient ghosts. Many families have lived in the same town for over a century.

Now, two children bearing their ancestors' names have come to live in Stoneygate. Christopher "Kit" Watson, age 13. John Askew, age 13. When Kit Watson moves to Stoneygate to live with his grandfather, the other children immediately perceive that he is different. Kit walks half in this world and half in another; he listens to the elders' stories and sees young ghosts playing along the riverbank.  In Stoneygate he meets the one other person who understands what Kit sees-John Askew, the no-good son of the town drunkard.  However, while Kit sees the ghosts of the past as stories and teachers, Askew is fascinated with their deaths-he chases death, see it, craves it. Kit is drawn to him as he is no one else in town, and becomes the only person to call Askew his "friend." And when Askew runs away, only Kit has the ability to find him and bring him back-back from the edge of death. 

 This is not Little Women. If you loved Louisa May Alcott's classic book you are in for a shock when you get a glimpse of the life the famous author led as a child. Her father, Bronson Alcott, was the founder of a small religious sect called Fruitlands that was located in the Massachusetts countryside.    

The group decides to wear linen and give up sugar until the slaves on the Southern cotton fields are freed. They also give up milk, honey and meat. They want to live peaceful, honest, faith filled lives. The name of the group and the principles they embrace sound ideal, but in reality life at Fruitlands was anything but perfect for Louisa May and her three sisters. In fact, today we would call them abused and neglected children. Life on the farm did not supply them with the means for a happy lifestyle. The Alcotts went hungry, worked hard; endured freezing cold winters and blistering hot fieldwork in summer. The Alcott girls were crowded in an attic room and only found an escape through reading and schoolwork. Louisa loved her parents but the book portrays her father as cold and her mother as very naïve. Jeannine Atkins' look at Louisa May's childhood makes the reader feel very sorry for Louisa. It shows why Louisa would seek solace in writing. The childhood suffering she endured might have helped her to develop sensitivity and excellence as a children's author. This is an insightful book for Little Women fans fourth grade and up.

                       --Mary M. O'Meara, 10th grade, Vero Beach High School, Vero Beach Fl

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In 160 pages of short vignettes, Young Ju transforms from a 4-year-old Korean girl to an American high school graduate. The story of her family’s struggles with their new life in California is mirrored by Young Ju’s personal struggles to understand the things grownups mean, which is rarely what they say. She fights against the gender constraints she and her mother face as women in a Korean family, and the tension her American behavior creates in her immigrant family, which both wants and doesn’t want her to be an American.   

In quiet, forceful prose, An Na creates a deeply effecting story. However, less confident readers will have trouble in the beginning, when 4-year-old Young Ju, who understands so little about her family’s move to America, tells her story using Korean words for America, mother, father, mixed with her family’s names and/or titles, which readers have to figure out for themselves from the context: Goma, Halmoni, Uhn-nee, ahjimma.  The same readers will struggle along with Young Ju when she first attends elementary school in America and hears the teacher saying things like, “Ho ha do, Yung” (which I think means, “How do you do, Young”).  Let us hope readers will stay with the book; those who do will be richly rewarded as they come to know Young Ju and her increasingly difficult family. Her father, disappointed by his failure to realize his dreams, turns to alcohol and violence, which her mother receives passively. An Na illuminates the tensions created by language difficulties, by cultural differences, and by poverty in an immigrant family. These tensions underlie her story, but the real story is Young Ju’s maturation.    

We do not see Young Ju at school once her first few years are over, and this is too bad. She says her best friend, Amanda, is the only person who doesn’t see her as simply “a good Korean daughter.” Na offers tantalizing tidbits about social relations in high school, as when Young Ju goes to her first boy-girl party. Although we see Young Ju arriving and departing, we never hear a word about the party itself: was she afraid? Did she talk to her schoolmates? Was she ostracized? Readers never find out, because the focus remains firmly on Young Ju’s family, her hard-working, self-sacrificing mother, her disaffected younger brother, and her once-gentle, now violent father. Yet this part of Young Ju’s story is so compelling and lyrically told that readers will forgive the omissions. The best novels leave readers wishing for more, and An Na’s first novel, A Step from Heaven, does just that.

—Rebecca Barnhouse, Youngstown State University

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Three Days is set in the beautiful Italian countryside.  It is a story of a young girl, Jackie, who is accompanying her father on one of his frequent business trips.  After a day of sightseeing, Jackie and her father head back towards their hotel.  

On the way her father pulls over and blacks out, obviously dying.  Eleven-year-old Jackie is panicky.  She doesn't know what to do. As she desperately tries to flag down help, a spark of hope is ignited, as a car with two men pulls over and motions for her to get in.  Expecting to be going for help, Jackie is surprised when the men continue driving for hours on end.  She is both frightened and confused, unable to comprehend what's going on, due to the barrier in language.

It is the perfect plot, filled with the perfect opportunity for both drama and suspense, and perhaps some terror.  Instead the novel tends to be long and uneventful.  Instead of excitement at every turn, there is plenty of time to take a nap.  The ending leaves many questions and the story leaves a thrill to be desired.  On the contrary, if you are into historical, sensual descriptions of the Italian countryside, as well as feelings of triumph over the language barrier, this story is for you.  The novel seems to be written with middle to younger high school students in mind.  Although it's filled with realistic descriptions, the storyline and the characters' reactions tend to be quite believable.

--Kimberly Robison, 12th grade, Vero Beach High School, Vero Beach, FL

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"Arachis Hypogaea." "Poultry Husbandry." "Ruellia Noctiflora." "Prayer of the Ivory-Handled Knife." Scan the contents of Marilyn Nelson's Carver: A Life in Poems, and you'll get some sense of the breadth of George Washington Carver's works and interests. In this collection of twenty-nine poems, we follow Carver from his birth as a slave, to his drifting in search of an education, to his founding of the Tuskegee Institute and making "visible the secret code inks of the enemy" near the end of his life. 

Carver never reads like a textbook. We are constantly reminded by Nelson's lush use of sound that this is carefully crafted poetry. In "Watkins Laundry and Apothecary," the young Carver "Showed the boys/a seed he said held a worm/cupped hands warmed so it wriggled and set/the seed to twitching." In "Cafeteria Food," Carver considers the strength shoddy leftovers give him to sustain the "gauntlet/of whispered assault/as you wait in line." "Odalisque" describes the "peach-luscious/unashamed curves" of Carver's students' ambitions.

The perspectives in these poems vary, weaving a life out of diverse voices. The speaker in the collection's first piece, "Out of 'Slave's Ransom'" is John Bentley, the "wild one" hired by Moses Carver to "Track{ed} the bushwhackers," who have stolen his slaves and return them. In "Watkins Laundry and Apothecary," Mariah Watkins speaks of the young Carver at her door asking "to weed your kitchen garden/or paint you a bunch of flowers/in exchange for a meal." We find one of the most poignant speakers in "From an Alabama Farmer," a letter in dialect where a farmer thanks Carver for his advice about planting: "I give my cow more corn, less cottonseed/and my creme chirms mo better butter." 

Add to this myriad of sounds the occasional historical footnote and the striking photographs. We see Carver with one of his paintings, Carver in his laboratory, Carver as a white-haired man. We see the lace doily Carter crocheted. One particularly memorable image—Carver's simple school slate—is as powerful as any of the poems.

Carver had something to do with peanuts—that's all I knew before reading this fine collection. Now I realize he lived a life of tremendous faith, influence and ambition. In Carver, Marilyn Nelson, like our best teachers, has managed to educate and inspire at once. This book belongs in classrooms across the curriculum as essential reading for learners of every age.

—Kelly Bancroft, SMARTS Coordinator (Students Motivated Through the Arts), Youngstown, OH

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I read the book "Some Kind of Pride," about a young girl named Ruth who was going through a lot of family and baseball-related problems. Her mother died when she was too young to remember, and her dad is scared to talk about it. 

Ruth plays baseball so well that a reporter from a magazine comes to interview her to see what she is all about. Ruth gets so flustered by her baseball activities, the reporter, and the death of her mother that she almost decides to quit baseball. After a long talk with her dad, her best friend, and the reporter, she realizes how much she really enjoys baseball. Ruth ends up sticking with baseball, her dad begins to talk more about her mom, and the reporter gets his story.

This books has lots of quality. It is believable because it has a typical average girl with a typical average family play a typical average sport. Why wouldn't it be believable? In this story the characters are very likeable and very interesting. I am a girl and I like sports, so obviously I liked this book. But I can also relate to Ruth's best friend because I am all into being popular and pretty just like Ellie is. I think that this story is so well-explained that it made me feel that I was in the book, maybe like one of Ruth's friends.

On top of being very interesting and likeable, the books was very good. In fact, it was great! Why? Well, just the fact that it related to me was one reason, but it was also very descriptive and flowing, which are two things I love about books.

I think the books is for 7th to 10th graders. It would probably be hard for anyone under 7th grade to understand it, and too easy for someone above 10th grade.

--Jennifer Wynn, 10th grade, Vero Beach High School

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This entertaining and informative novel is the first in a series of historical fiction pieces Weiss has written from the point-of-view of a doll, based on Rachel Field's Newberry Medal-winning 1929 novel, Hitty, Her First Hundred Years

In Weiss's version, the doll Hitty is owned by Nell, a young white girl from North Carolina whose family owns slaves. Her family inherits Sarina and Joseph, two young slaves, who were separated from their parents and are now very scared. The story details the cruelties of slavery from the children's perspectives. Sarina is eight years old and is set to do much of the difficult housework. Joseph is only a few years older and must work long hours in the field.

Nell befriends Sarina and even shares ownership of the doll with her. Nell teaches her new friend to read, write, count, and tell time, which is prohibited by law for the slaves. The novel teaches many more issues regarding slavery, including an explanation how slaves are "handed down" from generation to generation, or inherited. Hitty compares this to how children pass on dolls to others. She also explains the causes of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln's beliefs, the Underground Railroad, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the patrollers who returned slaves who tried to escape their rightful owners.

This novel, part of Aladdin's Ready-for-Chapters books aimed at children ages 6-9, would more likely appeal to females than males. The approachable language and short chapters make it ideal for younger readers eager to read a novel independently. The issues regarding slavery are also discussed in great detail, but the theme of friendship being stronger than race is also important. Weiss also adds a touch of humor to lighten the tone of this book dealing with difficult issues. The novel's strengths include the creative approach taken to interest children, and the characterization of both the slaves and masters in the story.  

—Traci O' Brian, Boardman Glenwood Middle School, Boardman, OH

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After the sudden death of their father, twelve year old twins Nick and Brendon, their mother, and sister Ami move to a farm in Pennsylvania that their mother inherited from their uncle. You see the story from Brendon's eyes, as he sees it happening.

The book starts out in a very realistic scene on the way to their new home. The children are fighting and the dog is drooling all over everyone and everything in the car. The story goes on to tell how Ami finds an animal track in the dirt that she believes to be a unicorn. That leads them on a search for one of the unicorns. At first they have help from their new friends Jonny and his sister, Sandy. But then Ami starts to get pushy about things and they don't want to play anymore. they start a game that everyone thinks is pretend except for Ami. She thinks it all to be very real. They make unicorn traps to try and catch the unicorn. I won't spoil the end of the book, but I will tell you that everything turns out for the best. And it also helps them cope with the death of their father.

I think the book is very well written and has a good plot. It is also very feeling and believable. Sheila Kelly Welch makes you feel like you are right there in the story, maybe that you are even one of the children. I think that more then likely this is a book for the younger crowd. It is an easy read for the middle school student so they would more than likely enjoy it more than high school students. It would also help children who have lost a parent or someone close to them because it shows that it is okay to be upset or scared. The different characters show that everyone feels different after the loss of a loved one. I enjoyed this book very much and I would recommend it to others. 

—Selena Marie Wright, 10th Grade, Indian River Charter High School, Vero Beach, Fl

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