Coming of Age Fiction – Josh's Froz-T-Freez Internet Drive-Inn

Book Review

Every night, after she’s read a couple of chapters of Nancy Drew, Franny closes her eyes and drafts a letter to Chairman Khrushchev, asking him to come to an understanding of things and not blow up America. But she can never get the wording quite right. In fact, she can’t seem to get anything quite right. She can’t duck and cover correctly during the school air raid drills, she can’t stop her eccentric uncle from digging up the front lawn to make a bomb shelter, she can’t figure out the mystery of her college freshman sister’s weeklong disappearance, and she is escalating a cold war with her former best friend Margie, with implications that will proliferate the entire neighborhood.

In Deborah Wiles’ documentary novel, the first of a planned Sixties Trilogy, the great and small dramas of Franny’s life are interwoven with a text-and-image collage of the pop singles, presidential television addresses, children’s books, and photojournalism of the historic moments of 1962. Underlying everything is the doomsday promise that was the Cuban Missile Crisis; Franny’s whole world is just one blinding flash away from total annihilation.

The mash-ups of primary source photos, historical notes, and pop culture ephemera that serve as interludes to the novel’s narrative are by turns clever, informative, ironic, and portentous, and give great context to the story. However, much like last year’s Newbery winner When You Reach Me won readers over as much with its realistic 6th grade social drama as with its time travel mystery, Franny’s day-to-day school and family concerns are just as engaging as the high concept collage aspect of the text.

And speaking of the Newbery, this book is a worthy contender for that prize in 2011. Giving a vivid picture of childhood in early 1960s, yet describing family and social situations still highly applicable to children today, this book is worth the attention of any young person or teacher of young people.

Countdown (The Sixties Trilogy, Book 1)
Written by Deborah Wiles
Scholastic
377 p.
ISBN: 9780545106054
Release Date: May 1, 2010

Book Review

Long before the meteoric rise of Pablo Neruda, Nobel Prize-winning poet and one of the most important literary figures of the 20^th century, there was a sensitive and shy young boy in a small town in Southern Chile named Neftali Reyes. In The Dreamer, Pam Muñoz Ryan gives us the story of how that young boy grew to become the great Latin American poet, succeeding despite or perhaps because of the repression of a hard-willed father who had no regard for his son’s curiosity, creativity and abilities for self-expression.

“On a continent of many songs, in a country shaped like the arm of a tall guitarist, the rain drummed down on the town of Temuco.” From this opening sentence onward, Ryan gives us a narrative of a boy who sees magic and wonder infused in the everyday things of the world. This is a creative outlook native to so many children, but often squelched by societal, educational, or parental demands of conformity. One clear message from this book to children is that it is acceptable and desirable to be curious about the world and empathetic to others, and it is valuable to express oneself, even if in some circumstances it requires great bravery. To this end, the negative portrayal of Neruda’s “blunt father” seems at times extreme to the point of being cartoonish and unbelievable, and yet may be entirely accurate. Ryan’s writing, while clear and direct, attempts to incorporate a sense of the poetic style of Neruda and other modern Latin American writers, full of pleasant figurative language and surrealistic imagery.

Middle grade readers who possess the curiosity or creative impulse of the young Neftali will find much to enjoy and identify with in this book. This book would also serve as an excellent classroom read-aloud in association with any unit on creative writing or poetry. Curiosity, creativity and inquiry are major themes. Teaching applications are multifarious: potential writing prompts abound, and the text overflows with examples of figures of speech.

The book is beautifully printed in green ink (Neruda drafted his own writings in green ink, calling it “the color of hope”) with many interesting illustrations throughout. Peter Sís’ clever and whimsical drawings occasionally stray a little too close to cloying cuteness, but their comprehendible surrealism and symbolism are well-suited for the enjoyment and intrigue of the middle grade reader, and more often than not add depth and meaningful counterpoint to the text.

Overall, this is another strong contender for the Newbery Award in 2011, and it would be surprising to this reviewer if it did not obtain at least an Honor status.

The Dreamer
Written by Pam Muñoz Ryan, Illustrated by Peter Sís
Scholastic
384 p.
ISBN: 9780439269704
Release Date: April 1, 2010