The Worst Game

"Think of this as a game, Jack.  Above all else, do not take personally what is happening to you.  Play the game right and you might outlast the Nazi's."

This is the absolute worst game ever conceived.  Many of us are familiar with the horrors of the Holocaust.  I know I can't even hear or read the word Holocaust without getting a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. But it is a general reaction, I think of the group not the individual.  Andrea Warren shows us the individual in her book Surviving Hitler: A Boy in the Nazi Death Camps.  

This is the true story of Jack, a young boy just 12 years old growing up in Poland.  His parents were Jews but they really only practiced on the high holidays.  In day to day life Jack identified more with his Catholic friends-even singing Christmas Carols with them every year.  But none of that mattered when the Nazi's came.

Warren spent extensive time working with Jack Mandelbaum so the story portrayed here is as true as it can be (Warren's interviews took place nearly 60 years after the fact).  Jack was forced to grow up too fast, becoming the man of his family after they evacuated to the countryside.  He spent the next two years doing labor for the Nazi's.  This time spent working may have saved him-it's the only reason he was sent to a work camp and not a death camp.  But he was sent there alone, his mom and younger brother were sent elsewhere.

Can you even imagine the fear that would permeate every second of your day?  I know when I think of the Holocaust I often think of adult men who were liberated only after they had been worked and starved almost to the point of death.  Or I think of the mass graves and the gas chambers.  I rarely think of the children who had to endure. Not anymore.  Now I will think of the children.

This book is heavy and it is devastating and it makes you weep to think that human beings treated each other in this way.  But it's the kind of book that should be required reading.  Because we must never forget.

Winning the game...that's kids stuff

Stretch it

Stretch-it is a strategy I use sometimes with my students. If their answer isn't developed enough instead of saying their answer is wrong I will say, "stretch it."  This means they have to elaborate on their answer.  In this case I'm using stretch it to stretch out my 'break.'  I was such a big fan of The Thickety, I had to stretch out the story and continue with the next book in the series right away.  

***If you haven't read the Thickety A Path Begins this post will contain spoilers...obviously****

The Thickety The Whispering Woods continues the tale of Kara and her brother Taff.  Once she finds out her father has been replaced by none other than Timoth Clen she and her brother Taff must flee into the dreaded Thickety.  Since Kara has used up her spellbook she doesn't even have her magic to help them.    

The children's fear of the Thickety seems to be confirmed when almost immediately they are caught in a trap.  Of course they escape (our hero's wouldn't get trapped in the very first chapter) only to be confronted by Mary Kettle.  If that name doesn't send shivers down your spine, it should.  Mary Kettle is an evil witch who took the souls of children.  

But perhaps everything isn't as it seems.  Could Mary Kettle actually be their only chance at survival? Do you really need a spellbook to do magic?    Is the Thickety really dangerous?  Is Sodyr the forest demon really evil?  Well, lets not get carried away.  After all sometimes our perceptions are wrong but sometimes they're right.  

I was not disappointed.  Well, that's not entirely true.  My only disappointment is that the third book just came out in February so it is not yet in our library.  

Finding your strength...that's kids stuff.  

Lets Take a Break

I don't know about you, but I definitely feel like my last few posts (and books) have been pretty  heavy, metaphorically speaking of course.  I think it's time for a break.  For me, this means going back to a favorite genre: fantasy.  J.A. White's The Thickety: A Path Begins was the perfect break book.

I could tell as soon as I picked it up that this book was going to be exactly what I wanted.  The cover screams 'fantasy' and 'fairy tale' and I couldn't wait, add to that thick rough cut pages (hey, it's the little things) and
a solid heft to the book (at 500 pages it's long enough for you to get completely lost in but not soo long that it becomes a project) made it practically perfect.

The Thickety feels like a step back in time but also a step into another universe.  Kara lives in a community where people are devoted to following the teachings of Thomas Chen, "work hard, want nothing, stay vigilant."  And above all they want to eradicate magic from the world . Cue witch hunts.  When Kara was just a young girl her mother was convicted of witchcraft and hung, Kara narrowly escaped the same fate.  Nonetheless she has been essentially shunned for her entire life.  Her father was emotionally broken by the experience so it is up to Kara to raise her younger brother Taff.

So what should Kara do when she realizes she also has magical powers.  Though she has tried to deny it her whole life, she is a witch like her mother before her.  Will she be able to make a way for herself without abandoning Taff?

And if you're wondering what the Thickety is then you're just going to need to read the book yourself.

Finding a way...that's kids stuff.  

Privilege

There's been a lot of talk recently about white privilege.  What it is or if it's even a real thing.  This blog is not meant to be a soap box or a commentary on race relations.  What it is is a blog about books and if this blog touches on issues like race, privilege, and politics it's because they are covered in books.  Yes, even books for kids...especially in books for kids. Literature has great potential to shape our world view.  It sounds cliche but in reading we can live thousands of lives other than our own and that is why it is so important to be well read.  Yes, even in young adult literature...especially books for kids.

J.K. Rowling said that well written books for children often succeed just as much with adults, "because the true dilemmas of childhood are the dilemmas of the whole of life: those of belonging and betrayal, the power of the group and the courage it takes to be an individual, of love and loss, and learning what it is to be a human being, let alone a good, brave, or honest one.”

You probably noticed that the tone of today's post is, shall we say, preachier, than normal.  Here's why.  Rodman Phillbrick's Zane and the Hurricane forced me to confront my white privilege in a way that no Huffington Post editorial, meme, or Facebook rant ever could.

Zane and the Hurricane tells the story of Zane, obviously, as he goes to visit his great grandmother in New Orleans.  Zane's father died when he was young and he now lives with his mother in New Hampshire.  Zane describes himself by saying, "I'm what they sometimes call biracial or multiracial or whatever.  White mother, black father, okay?"

As you can probably guess from the title Hurricane Katrina hits while Zane is visiting his grandmother.  In the process of evacuating Zane's dog Bandit jumps from the van and Zane chases after him.  Which is how he ends up waiting out the hurricane all alone at his grandmothers house.  How he has to depend on the kindness of strangers in a canoe to rescue him.  How he has to be careful of men with guns trying to protect their property because he is clearly some kind of miscreant.  How he turns away from a packed superdome but the police won't let him cross the bridge.  How he keeps trying to survive without any sign of the red cross or any kind of relief.  

Don't get it twisted, my post is preachy, this book is anything but.  This book is simple.  It's just Zane's story, told from Zane's perspective. And it is a wonderfully written, brilliantly executed story.   It's not a fable with the moral clearly printed at the end.  It's not trying to hit you over the head with a message; but, for me, the message came through strong and clear.

Reading this book I found myself pitying Zane, I was confused as to why no cars were stopping to pick him up.  Why would nobody let him into their house?  They would have let me in....and that's privilege. I didn't ask for it and I don't think that it's right or fair, but to deny that it exists is selfish and counterproductive.

 Zane and the Hurricane forced me to confront topics that are uncomfortable, and I am so glad that it did.  Because of this book I can become a better person.  Because of this book I have a better understanding of privilege and what it means and how it impacts day to day life. Because of this book I can be a better friend and ally to those who are a different race.  Not by eliminating white privilege, but by making what is now white privilege simply the human experience.  So that all humans have the privilege of being trusted, of not being judged on first sight.  The privilege of not being stereotyped. The privilege of knowing that their life matters and is important and is worth helping when disaster strikes. More than that it is the privilege of knowing beyond any doubt that your life is worth protecting at all times regardless of the weather or the town you live in.

Learning to be a better human being...that's kids stuff.  

Heartbreaking

Oh hey everyone this is me in a puddle on the floor feeling like a hot mess all because of Dan Gemeinhart's The Honest Truth.  

The featured review on the front cover says, "A heartbreaking, moving novel that makes you want to embrace the boy at its center and hold him close."  To be honest when I read that I thought, "whatever, sounds sappy, not gonna be me."  Well...you saw the picture...it was definitely me.

The Honest Truth is the story of Mark and his dog Beau.  And it is a beautiful example of the relationship between a boy and his dog (which you all know I love), but that's not the only reason it left me in a puddle on the floor.

You see Mark isn't an ordinary boy, he manages to have a deep friendship, just friendship, with a girl, he likes to write Haiku's and he has cancer.  Mark decides he isn't just going to sit back and let time run out-he's going to do that thing he's always dreamed of doing. Climb Mount Rainier.

So that's what he does.  And that's what the book is about.  But it is so much more than a boy climbing a mountain.  It is (warning here comes the sappy) friendship and pain, trust and hope, failure and redemption.  It is everything packed into 229 easy to read pages.

I read this book in one sitting.  I just couldn't put it down.  I strongly suggest you do the same.

Reaching the peak...that's kids stuff.  

To the Victor...

...go the spoils.  Anyone who has studied history knows that the main flaw in many of our historical texts is that they were written by the winners. Now this is changing and many historians make it their mission to seek out those missing voices and try to write history from multiple perspectives.  But the fact remains our mainstream history is entirely dictated by the victors.

Perhaps that's the reason that we all know the name Rosa Parks, but not the name Claudette Colvin.  Now, hopefully, your education on the civil rights movement was better than mine...but if not I strongly encourage you to read Phillip Hoose's Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice.

Claudette Colvin also refused to give up her seat on the bus.  She was also arrested and forcibly dragged off the bus.  Her testimony played a critical role Browder v. Gayle, the court case that ended segregation on public transportation.  But she was just a teenager.  Could she be mature enough to be the face of a movement?

Hoose has created the best kind of non-fiction, you are engrossed in the story of Claudette's life, you are rooting for her every step of the way.  Each page has meaningful pictures from the time and the 'heavy history' (just the facts that aren't all that interesting to read, but you need that knowledge to understand what's going on) is tucked away in text boxes to the side-you can read it at your leisure, it doesn't interrupt the flow.

I have often said I'm not the biggest fan of non-fiction.  But if all non-fiction books are going to be like this I just may have to change my tune...

Standing up (or staying seated)...that's kids stuff 

Just a Little Scary

I hate horror.  I really do.  I don't like to be scared it's not a thrill for me, it's just scary.  So I was not excited when I saw the cover of Jonathan Auxier's The Night Gardener.  It looked scary.  I know, I know, don't judge a book by it's cover-but we all do it.  And often the cover can give you a lot of great information.   A better saying would be, 'don't rule out a book by its cover.'

Luckily The Night Gardener is just a little bit scary.  Better words would be suspenseful, gripping, and magical.  Kip and Molly are Irish immigrants who got separated from their parents on the journey to England.  Desperate to escape the orphanage they take a job working for the Windsor family.

But something isn't right.  The gaunt, sickly family looks nothing like the rosy portrait of themselves hung on the wall.  They are clearly poor yet the mother seems to have a never ending supply of jewels and the boy has all the candy he can eat.  How is this possible?

And why are there muddy footprints on the stairs every morning?  How is this sickly looking tree in the front yard still surviving?  And why won't anything else grow around it?

Molly is known for being a superb storyteller but now she finds real life is stranger than the wildest tale she can imagine.  Will she be able to figure it out?  Will the story of her life, and of Kip's, have a happy ending?

Of course I'm not going to tell you.  But I do highly recommend this book.  At a time when lengthy series are so popular it's nice to have all of the magic and drama of a long fantasy series packed into a single book.  I had forgotten how nice it is to get the whole story from one book.

Being brave...that's kids stuff.  

Worth it?

requiem is the final installment in Lauren Oliver's Delirium Trilogy.  This is the one about the society where love is a disease and everyone gets cured when they turn 18.  If you would like to read it and haven't read the first two books yet you need to stop now because I'm about to drop a pretty substantial spoiler.

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Ok here it is.  Alex isn't dead.  Yup, we last saw him collapsed on the ground bleeding out of the chest-he had to be dead, no way he could survive a gunshot wound like that.  Well, he did.  And now he's walking into the wilds only to see Lena (the person he loved and thought loved him back) kissing someone else.

Lena moved on.  All of book two was Lena moving on.  She grieved, she was heartbroken over losing Alex but she moved on.  She was falling for Julian.  But is she really over Alex?  Or worse, is Alex over her?  Is Alex her great love or just her first love?  Love is wonderful, but it can be hard and complicated and confusing.  Was it worth it?  Running away, living in the wilds.  Is it worth it?

Meanwhile back in zombie land we get to see what happened to Lena's former best friend Hana.  I really liked the Hana character in book one so I was thrilled to see her back and even get several scenes from her perspective.

Hana has been cured and between her beauty and her families history (they're rich) she has secured an elite match.  Perhaps the best match.  She is set to marry the mayor.  It should be perfect.  But is it?  Was the cure worth it?  Sacrificing her best friend, getting rid of extreme emotions, fitting into this 'perfect' world.  Was it worth it?

Fighting for something better...that's kids stuff.