The Unreliable Narrator

Elizabeth Wein

If you and your teen, like me, enjoy an unreliable narrator--one who sees things that he or she does not share with us as readers, or maybe does not see things that we do as readers--then you will not be able to put down Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein.

Right away, we know that Verity is smart, savvy and resourceful. And brave, despite the fact that she begins by telling us, “I am a coward.” We also have the distinct feeling that she has the upper hand, at least intellectually, even though she’s being held prisoner by the Nazis and forced to write a confession of her knowledge of Allied codes, landing strips and the like.

This is a hard book to talk about with someone who has not read it because the greatest pleasures of the book come with its many surprises. So let me just say that the joys of the book come through in the details of Verity’s friendship with her closest comrade, Maddie, who served as the pilot when their plane was shot down over France. Recollections of their friendship serve as the framework for Verity’s written confession. As I read about them, I felt as if I were taking refuge in an air raid shelter, where Verity and Maddie first formed their friendship, biking with them as Maddie attempted to teach Verity how to gain a sense of direction, and visiting Verity’s home in a castle with its Lost Boys (orphaned by the war).

It is an all-consuming book. One that makes you simultaneously want to start it over from the beginning so you can see how Wein paved the way for her many revelations, and also to hand it to a friend and tell him or her to read it quickly, so you can talk about it. It’s a great book for you and your teen to be reading at the same time.

But make sure you check in with each other to see what page you’re on, so you don’t give anything away too soon.

Armchair Travel

Ambassador Walter Dean Myers (l.) and Justin Tuck

New York Giants defensive end Justin Tuck received the annual Impact Award for his foundation, Tuck's R.U.S.H. for Literacy, last Monday. The occasion was the Children’s Book Council Gala to kick off Children’s Book Week. Tuck said that growing up in Kellyton, Ala., as one of seven children, he and his family didn't go many places. "If you want to go somewhere, pick up a book," his mother told him. Tua and the Elephant is just the kind of book Mrs. Tuck was talking about.

The book transports you to Chiang Mai, Thailand. Without ever leaving their chairs, readers enter the world of Tua and the Elephant by R.P. Harris , illus. by Taeeun Yoo, and experience a night market, smell its foods, witness its customs, meet its people, and speak its language. The artwork accentuates both the exotic and the universal elements of growing up in a village where everyone looks out for their “little peanut” (the translation of “Tua”).

Tua’s world grows larger as she searches for a safe haven for the elephant she rescues, and our world expands, too. Taeeun Yoo’s artwork help us picture Tua’s world even more clearly, and the honest emotion Tua expresses is something all children can relate to, no matter how close they stay to or how far they wander from home.

The Art of Reinvention

Laura Vaccaro Seeger

Let us meditate for a moment on the art of Laura Vaccaro Seeger.  She reinvents the picture book genre, the beginning reader, the alphabet book. She uses die-cut holes to reveal hidden details. In The Hidden Alphabet, in First the Egg, in Green. She makes us take a second look at the things we thought we knew—leaves and trees, sun and moon, snowman and stars. That tree we take for granted was not always there. It took generations to grow. Let us take note of it, she seems to say. Let us stand under its majesty, drink in its shade, rest among its roots.

So let us meditate on the leaves, on the egg, on all the things we miss while going about our daily business. Let us pause and take in the green we take for granted.

Strong Mothers

The mother in Little Bear’s Little Boat by Eve Bunting, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter serves as a model of how to instill confidence in her cub. We see Little Bear out in his boat for hours at a time. His mother “calls him in for bed” and he ties up his boat for the night. We see that he’s responsible, and that his mother knows he’s responsible. So she gives him a lot of freedoms. Yet we also sense that she’s always near.

A few pages later, when she sees that Little Bear has outgrown his boat, she affirms his perceptions and offers her knowledge at just the right time: “It is a little bear’s destiny to grow and grow till he is a big bear. It is a little boat’s destiny to stay the same size.” We see the sadness in the cub’s eyes and the comforting hug of his mother. We know that Little Bear listens because he repeats the same words a bit later, when he carries out his course of action.

With Mother’s Day approaching, I’ve been thinking a good deal about the mothers I admire in children’s literature. This book is a small gem. Unlike Peter’s Chair (a book I adore, don't get me wrong), in which Peter is (understandably) upset that his little sister gets his crib and beloved chair, and is still coming to terms with the fact that he must part with the things that no longer serve him, Little Bear sees for himself that he’s outgrown his beloved boat, and he decides what to do about it. His mother validates his feelings and gives him words to describe this rite of passage. But she also gives Little Bear room to take in his new place in the world and decide what he wants to do about it.

The Price of Admission

The central paradox of Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers, is that the thing that gets Ismae Rienne banished from her fellow Bretons (the scar left by the herbwitch’s poison and the “proof” that she was sired by the god of death) is the very thing that gains her admission to her proper tribe.

Ismae discovers, upon reaching the convent of Saint Mortain, that there are many others like her, who have survived death-defying events, and this creates a bond and closeness between her and the others that she has never experienced before. But it also creates within her a tension that’s new to her: the sisters have trained her in poisons and weaponry and “the womanly arts,” but when Ismae is on assignment—alone—she must search her own conscience. Is Gavriel Duval, whom the abbess and Chancellor Crunard suspect of leaking the secrets of Brittany’s inner court to France, truly a traitor? Or is his loyalty to the duchess as unwavering as it seems to Ismae in the days and weeks that she has shadowed him? And what of the others with the “mark” of Saint Mortain? Are they irredeemable? Do they deserve to die?

Ismae is torn between the loyalty she feels toward the sisters in the convent, the only true home she’s ever known, and what she believes for herself when it’s just Ismae and her mark. These kinds of choices serve as metaphors for the defining moments of adolescence, which lead the way to adulthood. It’s about taking responsibility for our choices and living with that responsibility, whatever we deem it, right or wrong, in hindsight. Ismae has come far to gain this sisterhood, but she must travel further—alone—to come to herself.

Comedy and Suspense

Lissa Evans

At one time, author Lissa Evans produced comedy shows. Comedy is all about timing. The humor must be paced exactly right or it loses its oomph. You can see Evans’s exquisite timing play out not only with the humor of her novel but also with scenes of suspense, as you read Horten’s Miraculous Mechanisms, illustrated in black and white by Temujin Doran.

Ten-year-old Stuart Horten must move with his family to his father’s childhood hometown for his mother’s new job. He wonders how he’ll ever meet other kids in the heat of summer. Then he discovers a mystery in his family history—the disappearance of his great-uncle, a legendary magician—and at the same time, a neighbor girl appears and follows 10-year-old Stuart everywhere. Just when he’s feeling like she’s stalking him, Stuart realizes that she is actually three—identical triplets named April, May and June. Their appearance provides comic relief as tensions mount for Stuart—just the way humor can diffuse tensions in a great horror movie.

Later, when a grown-up actually does start shadowing Stuart (he’s not the only one trying to track down Teeny-Tiny Tony Horten), he has April on his side, so it’s not so scary. Stuart is unraveling a serious mystery, but there’s plenty of humor to leaven the proceedings.

When I got to interview Evans recently, I asked her if her background in comedy helped her with the pacing of this novel. She said it did: “A joke has to be exactly right,” Evans continued. “Similarly, with the accuracy of description of suspense, you have to get the phrasing exactly right or it doesn’t do what you want it to do. It’s got to be tight pacing and no flabbiness.” The success of Goosebumps proves that a successful mix of scary and funny will grab even those kids who don’t think of themselves as readers, and fans of mysteries will find much to savor with Horten, too.

Dive in Deep

Poetry gives us a way to look closely and contemplate deeply things we take for granted. In the Sea by David Elliott, illustrated by Holly Meade, transports us to the ocean’s depths and the seaside that surrounds it. Reading a good poem is like standing before a Georgia O’Keeffe painting. Her rendering of a flower makes us see it as if for the first time.

With a great poem, we hear the music of language and apply it in a new way. Like the sounds of David Elliott’s poem “The Sea Horse”: “See the sea horse in the sea./ Where else would the sea horse be?/ For though it’s dainty as a wish,/ The sea horse is, you see, a fish.” In one brief poem, Elliott plays with homonyms (“sea” and “see”), our concept of a horse, alluding to its four-legged mainland counterpart, and also informing us of the sea horse’s delicate beauty (“dainty as a wish”). And who can think of a sea turtle, with its 30-year journey to return to its birthplace as anything other than a “[r]are instrument of nature,/ fair compass in a carapace” after reading Elliott’s ode to “The Sea Turtle”? Some children will ask about the word “carapace,” and those old enough will google it. Because they’ve already gleaned that a good poem is all about the mot juste.

Poetry also lets us grasp the unfathomable, as Elliott helps us do with “The Blue Whale.” The animal’s sheer size, length and heft is hard for adults, let alone children, to wrap their minds around. Elliott’s poem pays tribute to this monumental creature’s presence, not only in its majestic appearance (its “nose an island, a mountain”) but also by its impact through the centuries, as with his mention of how the blue whale “sings a chanty deep and slow/ of winds that rage and storms that blow” and “shipwrecked sailors down below.” He suggests the whale’s strength in battling Mother Nature, outlasting many a human confrontation with the turbulent seas.

It’s a humbling poem and, coming at the close of the book, reminds us of how we fit into nature, that we all inhabit this world together, humans and sea creatures alike. By its brevity and element of surprise, poetry issues a unique invitation to pause and reflect on the extraordinary creatures with which we share the planet.