A book reveiw from your local child literary expert.

The Boy Who Dared  Who Was Cliche.

Thirteen year old child. Nazi Germany. The urge to do what is right.

And the same old plot.

The Boy Who Dared has all of these things. While the book is well written, with a interesting presentation (told in a flashback style) the plot is lacking. I know that writing anything about World War Two or the Holocaust is a touchy subject for writers. If they mess up just a little, they could be deemed as pro Holocaust, or pro Nazi Germany. Unfortunately this yields boring, stock, books. The good guy is always good, always moved to do what is right. I grow sickened reading about the inner turmoil the protagonist feels, "why is this happening, why?" While the Nazi's should never be shone in a positive light, the literary would for young adults needs to tell the story like it was. Most people, sadly, were for the Nazi regime. I want to read a book where the protagonist isn't perfect, where the protagonist is caught up in the the wave of hysteria.

A book to look aspire to is Comedy in a minor key a dark, sometimes funny, realistic look at life in Germany. and of course, the book is geared towards adults. Maybe authors don't think young adult's can handle the truth. And until; they realize we can, there are going to be a lot more "Boy Who Dared To Be A Cliche."

Motherless Brooklyn

Recently I read Motherless Brooklyn, which is by Jonathan Lethem.  It is set maybe 10 years ago (although to me, it feels like it was set 40 years ago). The main character Lionel has Tourette syndrome.  He is part of a small, shady detective company. His father-like figure dies and he goes to solve the mystery.

Tourette syndrome comes in the form of “Tics” or involuntary movements or noises. In many cases the noises are curse words or just plain yowling.  These ‘tics’ strike at odd times. Holding one back is very difficult “Like holding back a sneeze” (one man with Tourettes said). Because of this Lionel is set apart from the group. He is known as “the human freak show” (although he’s fine with that).

While many hard things happen in this book (Mobsters, murder, affairs, lies etc) the one I want to focus on is the discrimination Lionel gets because of his illness. At the heart of racism is a lack of communication. People who don’t communicate, don’t know or understand each other. And what people don’t understand, they fear.  It is especially difficult to communicate with someone who has Tourette syndrome because of their bizarre outbursts. Lionel has to go on his mission with virtually no help. People who he contacts usually fear or laugh at him.

The biggest problem though, is that this is an issue in real life, not just in Motherless Brooklyn. Can you imagine if you were walking in the supermarket and you heard someone scream the f-word? It’s scary, and odd. There is no known cure for Tourette syndrome. But we can do something. If we educated the public on this problem, it will become a lot easier for the shunned people to be accepted, then welcomed. For if people knew what cuased these seemingly sick outbursts it wouldn’t be as bad. And the men and women with Tourette syndrome could begin to interact with more and more people, without fear of being mocked or ridiculed. 

Independent Reading Entry; Le Social Issue.

Well, I have choosen a book that is kind of THE book to read if you want to see some social justice. Persepolis is an entry writer's dream, and the authors nightmare. It tells the story of a young girl living in Iran throughout a tumultuous time period.  It goes from tyranny to revolution to tyrany.

I think one of the main problem is people misinterpreting justice. They have some twisted way of thinking, mainly because of religion. They beat women because they are not wearing a viel. They throw people in jail becauase the they oppose the tyrannical rule. Ans the worst part is they think they are right!

Religion has a history of hindering social justice. In the past (and present) they are everything but just. Centuries ago the church was the big boss in town. In spain, they tortured people because they were not christian. There were many crusades to get rid of other religions, mainly islam, which were costly and unfounded. The worst incident was a crusade in spain. The Catholics were besieging a city. When asked who to spare a preist responded "Kill them all. God will know his own." And in the modern day, extremists are using the Koran as an excuse to attack innocent people.

I don't know how social justice can survive with religions. Each religion has its own set of sick justices that are out dated. But how can we convince people that the bible is wrong? That if we were still fooloowing it word for word, society would be back in the dark ages!

We can't really. Preists molest children without retrubution. In islamic countries they still sonte people to death. All the advances in social justice that we've made (civil rights, voting rights, free speech) are being destroyed. Now I am jewish. I go to sinoguoge and what not. I don'tthink that religion is always a bad thing. Yet when people take it to extreme meausures, bad things happen. We have to teach people to believe in modern social justice, AND religion./ This will be a difficult task indeed.

Social Issue

Recently I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime  by Mark Haddon.  It was about a kid named Christopher who has autism. He struggles to understand things as life gets more complicated, starting with him being accused to killing a dog in the nighttime. What follows is a sometimes funny, sometimes, tragic book that is centered on a social issue.

Most of the main issues are because no one quite understands Christopher. His mother leaves the family after she realizes she just can’t deal with him. The father has a difficult time being a single parent of an autistic child. Christopher screams when he’s touched and often huddles in a ball. He can be violent at times too, and hurts people without realizing. The biggest problem is that he can’t understand human emotions.

This book raises questions on how to raise, or just understand autistic children. Autism was relatively unknown 70 years ago, and the amount of children diagnosed with it has skyrocketed. Why it happens is still a relative mystery.  In the The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime  the father and mother get very frustrated with Christopher. But it’s easy to see why.  So what should they do? What should society as whole do?

The truth is I don’t know.  The cold, logical person might say that we should put them away, that they are not functioning members of society. Indeed if we were a species of birds they would die off because of natural selection.  But we’re not a species of birds. We’re humans, and emotions like sympathy, kindness, and patience set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. They are one of us. But raising these children is just so taxing. And usually the child cannot return the love. It just seems so unfair.  And as the children with extreme conditions grow into adults, they need just as much help as when they were 4 or 5.  

It’s one of the most complicated social issues, because there’s not a definite answer. For racism it is easy to identify what is right. People who judge others by the color of their skin or where they come from are awful, stupid people (The problem is convincing them of that).  And autism is growing. There are no definitive numbers but many of them said about 5 out 10,000 children are diagnosed with autism. (1 out of 2000). The best thing I can offer is that we found out why it happens and how to prevent it.  But for now, I am conflicted on how to deal with the issue. 

ReReading

Rereading the Phantom Tollbooth has opened my eyes to many things. The subtleties, the humor and the general genius of the book were lost on me as a child. Norton Juster himself said he wrote things that an 8 or nine year old wouldn’t understand.   And the question of  how he interweave so many morals into the book yet still keep it light hearted and funny was answered in my rereading.  Indeed I think the phantom toll booth is one of the best books to reread.  My favorite line in the whole book was only discovered in the rereading, “How are you going to make it move? It doesn’t have a- “                                                                                                 “Be very quiet” advised the duke “For it goes without saying” (p79)   the humor in this sentence is lost upon younger audiences.              

However the most important discovery (as mentioned previously) was how Juster did it.   I noticed first when tock appeared and yelled at Milo for killing time. “KILLING TIME?! It’s bad enough wasting time, without killing it.”  I noticed that A. He made Tock a literal watchdog, and B. He made time seem like something killable. I started noticing this trend everywhere. What Juster was doing was making concepts and sayings tangible, therefore making all kinds of plays on words (such as my favorite line). He put a literal value on money and time. And importantly he made Human traits objects.  Things like malice and hate became monsters and vile creatures.

This absolutely proves Juter’s genius. For it is easy to teach a child not to make wild claims by making  it disgusting to eat your own words. (“I didn’t know I was going to have to eat my words!” …. “Then you should have made a tastier speech. “ p.88) In concepts such as Time and Words does Juster’s style work best. He makes time something real, something what is terrible to kill and squander. He makes doing something as “giving ones time” seem to be a sin. For words Juster created a “word market” where you have to buy words.  Words become of great value and therefore should not be wasted. (“I never knew words could be so confusing” Only if you use a lot to say a little p44)

Then there are things that are icing on the cake. Like how sound becomes tangible, or the “weather” man and the ‘Whether” man. All these play on words add to the books humor, but they also make conveying morals easy. That is why the writing style is so brilliant and Phantom Tollbooth is such a literary achievement.  

Archetypes

I noticed something very interesting, while looking at the archetypes in Charlotte’s Web. Each of the different character archetypes has a different journey archetype.

The Hero: I choose Wilbur. He is obviously the main character, and the plot center’s around him. He also show’s some the traits of a hero. I also interrupted ‘hero’ to mean ‘hero of the story’ which would mean protagonist. And Wilbur is the protagonist.  Wilbur’s journey is that of the loss of innocence. He goes from being an extremely naive young pig to an experienced adult. On his journey, he learns that there is a plan to kill him, his mother grows apart from him, he wins medals, learns vocabulary, and strikes deals. In the end he loses his innocence the most, one he has to cope with the death of his best friend.

The Mentor:  This was an easy one. Charlotte is obviously the mentor.  She helps Wilbur in SO many ways. She devotes her entire life to him, from teaching him new words, to saving his life. She even travels with him to the fair, even though she has to lay her eggs, and it would be better to lay them in the barn. She asks nothing in return, and she dies alone.  Her journey is The Task. An enormous task for sure. She has to save Wilbur by writing in her web. She spends her entire life on this task.

The Shapeshifter: This one was a difficult one. There wasn’t anyone who actually changed ‘sides.’ Indeed there wasn’t even an evil character. The most controversial character however, was Templeton. He easily COULD have been an evil character if not for his love of food which motivates him to save the day.  Templeton’s journey is the Quest. He is in search of a meal, and will do anything (or do nothing)  to procure one.

This proves the point if my previous essay, which states that the Theme was do what’s important to you. Each of the characters are doing what’s important to them. 

Templeton and other things.

Templeton. Or Ol’ Templeton as he refers to himself.  He is an interesting character for sure.  Obviously painted as a villain, Templeton does do many good things throughput the book.  E.B White uses certain words to describe him and his mannerisms. ‘Sharp’, ‘beady’, ‘surly’ ‘disgusted’ ‘grumbled’ ‘sneered’ and ‘snarled’. What the other animals, or White says is considerably worse. “The Rat had no morals, no conscience, no scruples, no consideration, no consideration, no decency, no milk of rodent kindness, no higher feeling, ,no friendliness, no anything” (p. 48) There are times when Templeton is frustratingly selfish and greedy, climaxing in the argument between him and Wilbur near the end.  The only thing that seems to makes him a 3d character is that sometimes he does a favor, or a good thing. Some see this as “character change.” I don’t think so, but nor do I view him as a villain. I view him as realistic.

The reason he is viewed as a villain is because people personify him. The fact is he is a rat. He is the most animal like of all the barn creatures in the book. Indeed if a man refused to save a dying woman’s babies even as her best friend pleaded with him, it would be terrible. But Templeton is a rat. A RAT. He honestly is not obligated to care about anyone but himself, not because he is evil, but because he is an animal. It’s even a little unfair to him, that White gives higher ideals to the other animals, while leaving him out. But how does this really relate to anything really?

At the end of the book I discovered an over arching theme. Not ‘an’ actually but I think ‘the’ over arching theme. When charlotte said that the days are precious and shouldn’t be wasted. Then I saw ‘After all what’s a life? We’re born, we live a little while, we die’ what were we to gain from the sentiment? To do what’s important. In a life so short, so fleeting, you have to do what’s important to you. For Charlotte it was helping a friend ( a very human urge). And in the case of Templeton, well, helping people isn’t important for a rat.  What’s important for rats in real life and in the book is eating. It might seem selfish but it’s the truth. Templeton can’t be judged for not having human feelings and for not having the same priorities as humans do.

We can see this theme occur in the authors’ writing. He focused on the things in a book that he thinks are important. Namely lists descriptions and the like. Last essay I realized that a message was for us to slow down (just as he slows the book down).  But why? Because that’s what he views as important.  On the very last page he tells us what’s important to him, or at least to Wilbur. ‘The garrulous geese. the changing seasons, the heat of the sun, the passage of swallows, the nearness of rats, the sameness of sheep, the love f spiders, the smell of manure, the glory of everything’  Templeton’s might read like this “The glory of rotten cheese, the finding of an egg, the closeness of the tunnel, the smell of dead things”

While they sound sounds so different, they have actually carry the same message.

Charlotte's Web essay

The first thing that jumped out at me as I re-read my annotations was how much I annotated on lists.  After our discussion on lists in class, I began seeing them everywhere in the book.  I began to think to myself, ‘well what does it mean? Why would he put them there’? Not many authors (that I have read, at least) use lists.  Then I came across, an annotation that pointed out something Charlotte said on page 60.  She says “But no-with men its rush rush every minute. I’m glad I’m a sedentary spider.” I looked up the meaning of sedentary, and sure enough it means either to be settled, or to do a lot of sitting; not much physical activity. I interpreted it to mean, that one takes their time. There. A morale. I re-looked at the lists and I concluded something.

E.B White’s writing style reflects that sentence. The book takes its time, it meanders through the pages. He doesn’t leave out details just to move the plot along. Instead he adds every detail possible. The world he paints is much more vivid then that of other authors. In the 77 pages the plot only pops up once or twice.. Almost (if not all) of the chapters start with lengthy descriptions that last one or two or maybe even three pages.  And the lists. Oh the lists! On and on about what Wilbur’s is eating, plans to do, or what Charlotte eats, or how many parts are in a her leg.  Every one of them is a delight to read too. They’re so complex and fascinating, and at times, humorous. If another Author had written this book it might have taken up all of 80 pages. The style also enhances the re-read. Everyone remembers the plot, which is pleasant. It holds no surprises though. However with each read one get’s to re experience the brilliant details, the long lists and descriptions. The swing, the dew the barn. Things we take for granted in the book, would not exist if E.B white did not take his time.

The countryside is portrayed with lazy days and peaceful nights, and the characters love it. The book is a not so subtle endorsement of an agricultural life-style. It is an endorsement of a sedentary life style. Not in the terms of being lazy, but taking your time, and noticing details in life, not keeping your head down and walking swiftly, but to go on a long walk with your head up.  Wilbur plans an hour in his schedule where he watches bees and sparrows for an HOUR!  Fern spends whole afternoons on the stool in the barn. Even Charlotte, who is dying, doesn’t spend the days rushing around with a bucket list like I would. She takes it slow and enjoys herself. The book embraces the silences of dawn and late afternoon, not the loudness of the crowds and cars.

The fact that you know everything that charlotte likes to eat, and her leg parts, and how her aunt caught a fish in a web makes, the big finale, her death, all the more tragic.