The Glory Field

Myers, Walter Dean. 1994. The Glory Field.

Recently released in a new paperback edition, The Glory Field is a true must-read. Why? It's practically perfect in every way. It is a novel that traces a family from its Sierra Leone roots to what was at the time of its publishing modern-day, urban America. The Glory Field loosely weaves together the story of one family through multiple generations. Our story begins with a brief vignette (1753) focusing on Muhammad Bilal, a young boy who is captured and sold into slavery in the South. Many settings, many narrators, many individual stories and legacies that collectively capture the African-American experience. (1753, 1864, 1900, 1930, 1964, 1994). It is an emotional, well-written, almost poetic journey. Very heartfelt. Very real. Very moving. The characterization is wonderful. I really came to love, came to care for all the characters across the generations. I've read a few other novels through the years that have sought to tell a multi-generational story...but none have been so effective, so masterfully done.

If you love historical fiction, then you MUST read this one. It's a truly great novel.

"We come a long way and we got a long way to go. You can't make much progress if you don't leave home, but you can sure mess yourself up if you don't remember where home is." (232)

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Dangerous Angels

Block, Francesca Lia. 1998. Dangerous Angels: The Weezie Bat Books.

Dangerous Angels is an all-in-one edition of the five Weetzie Bats books: Weetzie Bat, Witch Baby, Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys, Missing Angel Juan, and Baby Be Bop. Not all books are narrated by Weetzie Bat. In fact, most of them aren't--three of them are narrated by Weetzie Bat's children. What can I say about this series of books? Well, they're all bizarre. But bizarre in a strange-and-surreal-but-beautiful kind of way. They're very original, very unique, very postmodern. The first book, Weetzie Bat, was published in 1989. The remaining four books were published between 1991 and 1995. I would say that the books--especially the first one--were groundbreaking. These books were "edgy" before edgy became so common, so expected, so normal.

I don't believe that everyone will love this book. I would imagine that this is something that you will either love or hate. Block's characters break all the rules of society--broke all the rules of society I should say. And the vision of the world she creates is both harsh and hopeful. There is an ugliness, a painful awareness of hate, of fear, of anger, of "evil" if you will. But there is love and beauty there as well. It's just very bizarre. Weetzie is a character that creates her own family when she meets her best friend, Dirk. Dirk's grandmother, Fifi, gives her a lamp with a genie. "I wish for a Duck for Dirk, and My Secret Agent Lover Man for me, and a beautiful little house for us to live in happily ever after." And sure enough, Dirk gets a guy named Duck and Weetzie gets a boyfriend named My Secret Agent Lover Man. They also get Fifi's house after her sudden death. These four live as a family and bring in nontraditional ways two children into the world, Cherokee and Witch Baby. Family and friendship and love and life seen through various nontraditional perspectives. It's all surreal. Definitely layers of urban fantasy colliding with the real world.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

A Year Down Yonder

Peck, Richard. 2000. A Year Down Yonder.
Review by Becky Laney.

A Year Down Yonder is the sequel to A Long Way From Chicago. However, this is not a novel in stories. Nor is it narrated by Joey Dowdel. No, A Year Down Yonder is the story of Mary Alice, the little sister that is almost-but-not-quite all grown up. The year is 1937. The Depression is making life difficult both in urban and rural areas. It is economic necessity which prompts Mary Alice's parents to send their daughter away. (Joey is sent away also, but not with Mary Alice.) Mary Alice is being sent to live with the vivacious, one-of-a-kind, sometimes embarrassing Grandma Dowdel. How will this "city" girl fit in with these country bumpkins? Will they accept her? welcome her? Not if the Burdicks have their way!

A Year Down Yonder is a treat. It's rich in detail, rich in humor, rich in heart and humanity. The characters, the place all come alive. Richard Peck is a pro when it comes to capturing the good, the bad, the ugly, and the laughable. Mary Alice does have a few adjustments to make, but this book captures her unforgettable journey, her coming-of-age in small town America.

If you haven't read A Long Way From Chicago, this book does stand alone. In case you're wondering. But I would recommend reading both books. Both books are such a joy, a treat, a delight.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

A Long Way From Chicago

Peck, Richard. 1998. A Long Way From Chicago. Review by Becky Laney.

Prologue
It was always August when we spent a week with our grandma. I was Joey then, not Joe: Joey Dowdel, and my sister was Mary Alice. In our first visits we were still just kids, so we could hardly see her town because of Grandma. She was so big, and the town was so small. She was old too, or so we thought--old as the hills. And tough? She was tough as an old boot, or so we thought. As the years went by, though, Mary Alice and I grew up, and though Grandma never changed, we'd seem to see a different woman every summer.
Now I'm older than Grandma was then, quite a bit older. But as the time gets past me, I seem to remember more and more about those hot summer days and nights, and the last house in town, where Grandma lived. And Grandma. Are all my memories true? Every word, and growing truer with the years.

A Long Way From Chicago is a book that is practically perfect in every way. (It did win a Newbery Honor.) It's historical fiction. The book is set during the Depression. The title page calls it a "novel in stories" and that's a fair assessment. The book does consist of loosely connected stories or memories told within a framework of an old man recalling his youth fondly. There are eight 'memories' shared within the book that are the heart and soul of the book. Seven are the consecutive stories of his summer vacations. Each August (starting in 1929 and ending in 1935), Joey and his younger sister Mary Alice leave Chicago to visit their grandmother who lives in a small town in Illinois.

Here is how the first chapter begins, "You wouldn't think we'd have to leave Chicago to see a dead body. We were growing up there back in the bad old days of Al Capone and Bugs Moran. Just the winter before, they'd had the St. Valentine's Day Massacre over on North Clark Street. The city had such an evil reputation that the Thompson submachine gun was better known as the Chicago typewriter. But I'd grown to the age of nine, and my sister Mary Alice was sever, and we'd yet to see a stiff. We guessed that most of them were where you douldn't see them, at the bottom of Lake Michigan, wearing concrete overshoes. No, we had to travel all the way down to our Grandma Dowdel's before we ever set eyes on a corpse."

Joey's voice is of immediate interest to me. He's a great little narrator. The story is rich in detail, rich in character. Every person--man, woman, child--has depth. Peck is just a genius when it comes to writing, to capturing human personalities with wit and humor and heart. The reader becomes intimately acquainted with Joey, Mary Alice, and most importantly Grandma Dowdel. A woman that is one-of-a-kind. A woman that has spirit, gumption, personality, heart, and a mind of her own. A very strong woman who sees the world in her own unique way.

I definitely recommend A Long Way From Chicago!!! It was a fantastic book.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Gifts

Le Guin, Ursula. 2004. Gifts.

Gifts had me practically at hello. "He was lost when he came to us, and I fear the silver spoons he stole from us didn't save him when he ran away and went up into the high domains. Yet in the end the lost man, the runaway man was our guide." (1) If the first chapter didn't hook me (which it did) then the second would have certainly, "To see that your life is a story while you're in the middle of living it may be a help to living it well. It's unwise, though, to think you know how it's going to go, or how it's going to end. That's to be known only when it's over." (15) I hope that gives you a small glimpse of just how magical this fantasy can be.

Here is how the jacket describes it, "Scattered among poor, desolate farms, the families of the Uplands possess gifts. Wondrous gifts: the ability--with a glance, a gesture, a word--to summon animals, bring forth fire, move the land. Fearsome gifts: They can twist a limb, chain a mind, inflict a wasting illness. The Uplanders live in constant fear that one family might unleash its gift against another. Two young people, friends since childhood, decide not to use their gifts. One, a girl, refuses to bring animals to their death in the hunt. The other, a boy, wears a blindfold lest his eyes and his anger kill. In this beautifully crafted story, Ursula K. Le Guin writes of the cruelty of power, of how hard it is to grow up, and how much harder still it is to find, in the world's darkness, gifts of light."

Gifts is the story of Orrec and Gry and the outsider, Emmon, that unknowingly showed them the way out. I loved the story; I loved the characters. Highly recommended. It is a story beautifully and powerfully told. It's not quite your typical framework of storytelling. But it works. It really works.

"Grieving, like being blind, is a strange business; you have to learn how to do it. We seek company in mourning, but after the early bursts of tears, after the praises have been spoken, and the good days remembered, and the lament cried, and the grave closed, there is no company in grief. It is a burden borne alone. How you bear it is up to you. Or so it seems to me." (202)

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Margaret A. Edwards Reading Challenge

The Margaret A. Edwards award is awarded each year to an author who makes a lasting contribution in the field of young adult literature. Instead of honoring one book, the award seeks to acknowledge a lifetime's worth of work.

For this challenge, I'm asking people to read 3-5 books by any of the award-winning authors.

2008, Orson Scott Card
2007, Lois Lowry
2006, Jacqueline Woodson
2005, Francesca Lia Block
2004, Ursula K. Le Guin
2003, Nancy Garden
2002, Paul Zindel
2001, Robert Lipsyte
2000, Chris Crutcher
1999, Anne McCaffrey
1998, Madeleine L'Engle
1997, Gary Paulsen
1996, Judy Blume
1995, Cynthia Voigt
1994, Walter Dean Myers
1993, M.E. Kerr
1992, Lois Duncan
1991, Robert Cormier
1990, Richard Peck
1988, S.E. Hinton

The time frame for this mini-challenge? February 1, 2008 - June 1, 2008.
Lists? Well, you can make a list of 'official' and 'alternate' books IF you want. Or you can just decide as you go. I know *many* people (myself included) have a hard time following lists even if we enjoy making them at the time. I also know many people rely on the library for their selections. And I *know* it is hard to predict just what will be on the shelves at your local library. So keep it simple.

I would encourage everyone to read The Giver by Lois Lowry if you haven't already done so. And of course, I'll be pushing folks to read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. (But it is by NO means a requirement for signing up.)
There are so many great authors on this list, and so many books. If you're like me, you've probably heard of quite a few of them, but never quite found the time to read some of these.

Edited to add: As far as authors go, I don't care if you want to read three (or five) different authors to add variety. Or three (or five) books by the same author. Split up your reading list however you want. (2 by Lowry, 1 by Peck, 1 by Card for example) In other words if you wanted to make this the "read 5 Judy Blume books" challenge, you have my okay.

Edited to also add: Overlapping with other challenges is fine. I don't have a problem with it. And for the record, you could also LISTEN to audio books if you would like.

To sign up, leave a comment. I'll add you to this post as a participant. (A blog is NOT required.)