'Forever...' by Judy Blume

Blume, Judy. Forever.  New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1975.

Photo by: L. Propes

“Sybil Davison has a genius I.Q. and has been laid by at least six different guys” (Blume 1).  As I read the first sentence, I felt my jaw drop slightly, and I furtively glanced at the lady sitting next to me on the flight from Calgary to Vancouver.  I joined legions of young adults engrossed by Blume’s “direct, straightforward fashion about the fears and frustrations associated with teenage sex” (Kaplan 26).  From the very first sentence, Judy Blume sets a decidedly frank and honest tone about teenagers and sex in her groundbreaking and controversial novel Forever.

Katherine Danzinger and Michael Wagner are both upper middle-class, college-bound, responsible teenagers, who meet at a New Year’s Eve party and feel an immediate attraction to one another.  They begin dating and embark on a thorough exploration of each other, which leads to sex in all its awkward teenage glory.  Katherine and Michael are in love with all the heightened passion of teenagers.  They swear their love for each other and vow it’s forever, even to the point of Katherine's desire to apply to the same colleges as Michael so they won’t be separated.  Katherine’s parents eventually demand she take a summer job as a tennis instructor at the arts camp that her younger sister Jamie attends.  This job becomes the catalyst that forces Katherine to examine just what the word “forever” really means and how she honestly feels about Michael.  Will forever last through the summer, or will it fade like the leaves when autumn comes and drift away?

Somehow, Forever never entered my teenaged reading orbit.  This was my first exposure to it beyond seeing it on the ALA’s most challenged book lists.  I had to double-check the copyright date, just to make remind myself it was, in fact, nearly forty years old.  Blume wrote the book in response to her daughter’s wish to see a book where a teenaged girl chooses to have sex and, in a revolutionary twist for the time, nothing bad happens to her (Sutton 26).  Elissa Gershowitz calls Forever “divisive, with some people seeing it as pornographic trash, and others… viewing it as worthy, groundbreaking young adult fiction” (87).  Divisive puts it mildly.  Forever has been on the ALA’s 100 Most Challenged Books list for more than twenty years. 

Historically, novels where a teenaged female character chooses to have sex typically depicted the girl experiencing some sort of “punishment”, usually getting pregnant and being forced to marry the young man in question.  Forever was considered a radical shift from the usual fare for teenaged readers (Kurtz and Schuelke 229; Sullivan 461).   Katherine and Michael are not only shown enjoying sex with each other; there are no moral repercussions (Sullivan 461).  In Forever, “Blume’s… realism and matter-of-fact tone is a complete departure from disguising sexual activity in abstract prose or keeping it behind the scenes” (Sullivan 461).  Blume calls a spade a spade, so to speak, and doesn’t hide body parts behind cute euphemisms.  Blume doesn’t just deal with sex in an even-handed, unsentimental manner.  She treats many other topics, such as abortion and contraception with equal aplomb.  Blume writes Katherine’s visit to Planned Parenthood for a prescription for birth control pills with its subsequent pelvic exam in the same frank, matter-of-fact tone she uses for Katherine and Michael’s sexual activities, but still allows Katherine’s nervousness about the exam to come through the dialog.  The aforementioned Sybil even deliberately gets pregnant, but is able to conceal it due to her penchant for baggy, loose clothing, just for the experience, planning the entire time to put the baby up for adoption.  Sybil’s choice to have the baby is presented by Blume as just that: Sybil’s choice, with no sermonizing or blatant moralizing.  To present Forever as a “just-the-facts-ma’am” novel would be to do it a disservice and reduce it to a “how-to” novel.  Sex and birth control are presented factually, but Blume allows Katherine to examine her feelings about sex and love as the novel comes to its conclusion.

Katherine has a remarkable amount of agency.  In several instances, she refuses to have sex with Michael until she feels she’s mentally ready, not just physically.  When they do finally have sex, Katherine not only insists on condoms, but she also resolves to obtain an additional method of birth control.  Katherine’s family plays a large role in this.  Her mother is honest with Katherine about sex, and even reveals a little of her own sexual history.  She warns Katherine “sex is a commitment… once you’re there you can’t go back to holding hands” (Blume 84).  The conversations with Katherine and her mother allow Blume to briefly address the societal double standards regarding boys, girls, and sex: “good” girls wait until marriage, “bad” girls don’t, and boys are supposed to gain all the experience they can (37; 83).  Katherine’s mother dismisses the idea that a girl who chooses to have sex is inherently a bad person.  While she doesn’t give Katherine tacit permission to have sex, she doesn’t forbid it either (Blume 84).  She merely says, “I expect you to handle it with a sense of responsibility though… either way” (Blume 84).  Her grandmother sends Katherine Planned Parenthood pamphlets in the mail and initiates discussions about preventing unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.  Katherine’s mother and grandmother exemplify the running theme of the novel: safe sex is a part of a healthy, committed relationship.

Overall, adults are largely absent in the novel, only playing a relatively minor role.  This is also probably one of the more idealized facets of the novel.  Michael’s own parents don’t even make an appearance until his graduation.  Rather than have Katherine “park”, Katherine’s parents encourage her to bring her “friends home than sit in a car somewhere” (Blume 19).  On trips and vacations with family or friends, the adults basically house the teenagers in separate areas of the house, seemingly with no rules or guidelines.  Katherine’s parents only voice their concerns about her relationship with Michael by wishing she wouldn’t confine herself to dating one boy. 

The title Forever embodies so many things: the heightened and halcyon emotions teenagers attach to the idea of love, the exaggerated concept of a set period of time lasting much longer than it does, and the idea that forever is attainable.  Katherine and Michael both experience this over the course of the novel, beginning when they declare to love one another forever.  While Katherine argues with her father about the summer job and he tells her it will only last seven weeks, Katherine retorts, “Seven weeks may not be a lot to you but to me it’s forever!” (Blume 152). 

The plot of the novel is somewhat thin, revolving around Michael and Katherine’s sexual exploits.  A subplot involving Katherine and Michael’s friends, Erica and Artie, and the questions of Artie’s sexuality is underdeveloped.  (Although an attentive reader will be able to guess by reading between the lines.)  Even the ramifications of Sybil’s pregnancy are largely unaddressed.  Blume herself has admitted that this isn’t her best work.  In an interview with School Library Journal, she said her comment to the Margaret A. Edwards Award committee when hearing that she was being presented the award based on Forever was, “Really? That’s not my best book” (Sutton 26). 

Stylistically, Blume writes the way she perceives people speak, full of ellipses, pauses, and interruptions (Sutton 27).  The book contains a lot of dialog, which makes the book read quickly, but at the same time, it can be a little difficult to keep track of which character is talking, especially without any kind of qualifier to identify the speaker.  One example is the following exchange between Katherine and a former classmate Tommy Aronson:

I picked up the extension in my parents’ bedroom and cleared my throat before I said, “Hello…”

“Katherine?”

“Yes?”

“This is Tommy Aronson… remember me?”

“I remember.”

“I’m home for the weekend.”

“The weekend’s just about over.”

“I’m not going back until tomorrow morning.”

“Have a nice trip.”

“I see you haven’t changed.”

“Have you?”

“Why don’t you come out with me tonight and decide for yourself?”

“Sorry… I can’t make it.”

“Oh, come on… I’ll behave.”

“It’s not that…”

“Then what?”

“I’m going with someone.”

“Oh… anyone I know?”

“No.”

“Well… in that case… what’s your girlfriend’s number?”

“I have a lot of girlfriends.”

“The little one… you know…”

“Erica?”

“That’s the one” (Blume 109-110).

Blume even uses Michael and Katherine’s letters during the summer to demonstrate the ebb and flow of their feelings for one another.  Their letters are long and detailed in the beginning of the summer, and gradually Katherine’s grow shorter and the gaps between them such that Michael feels the need to surprise her at the summer camp with a visit.  When Katherine’s words and actions say otherwise, the letters reveal a part of her that has begun to question whether or not her love for Michael is forever.  Katherine is the only character who undergoes any sort of character development, just by the act of examining her feelings and how they affect her relationship with Michael or anyone else.  Michael behaves as a typical seventeen year-old boy whose modus operandi is to have sex with his girlfriend.  Let me be clear -- in no way can Michael’s behavior be construed as taking advantage of Katherine, nor did he at any moment force her to do something against her will.  When Katherine asked or told him to stop, he did.  However, Michael employs a subtle manipulation, pushing the envelope just a little more each time (hands under her sweater one time, up her skirt the next, kissing minus several articles of clothing) until Katherine agrees to have sex.

Forever holds up remarkably well, despite its age.  With the exception of a few terms here and there (calling condoms “rubbers” and VD), there is very little that makes the novel sound dated.  The one scene that really dates the novel as a pre-AIDS era work is the scene in Planned Parenthood where the main concern is preventing pregnancy, not sexually transmitted diseases.  Blume mentions that people have felt the book ought to be banned because it doesn’t address this, but adds, “Forever is about people.  It is about feelings.  It is not a sex manual.  Does it mean we shouldn’t read… [it] because… [it] doesn’t address AIDS?  Just because the rules have changed?  You can’t do that” (Sutton 27).  Blume has since added an author’s note in later editions to address those concerns, emphasizing condom use and encouraging teenagers to contact Planned Parenthood for more detailed information. 

Jason Kurtz and Nicholle Schuelke theorize novels like Forever are an important part of teenage emotional development.  For them Forever “serve[s] as [a representation] of reality and provide opportunities for vicarious explorations of an emerging sexuality identity without necessarily participating in these ‘firsts’ in the real world… These vicarious experiences through realistic young adult fiction can empower them to consider the choices one must make” (229).  For this reason, I would suggest that Forever could be read as part of a class in human sexuality or a comprehensive sexual education class.  Students will be able to use Katherine and Michael as proxies in their discussions. 

Blume maintains a website where she addresses issues like censorship and writing. 

Judy Blume is the recipient of the 1996 Margaret A. Edwards Award.

Other books with a similar theme as Forever are: Doing It by Melvin Burgess, Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky, A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl by Tonya Lee Stone, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, Good Girls by Laura Ruby, and Story of a Girl by Sarah Zarr (Kurtz and Schuelke 230). 

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Works Cited

Blume, Judy. Forever. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1975. Print.

Gershowitz, Elissa. "What Makes a Good "Bad" Book?" Horn Book Magazine 89.4 (2013): 84-90. Web. Academic Search Complete. 9 June 2014.

Kaplan, Jeffrey S. "Ted Hipple was Right! How I Broke the Rules and Lived Happily FOREVER and Ever!" The English Journal 83.5 (1994): 25-7. Web. JSTOR. 9 June 2014.

Kurtz, Jason, and Nicholle Schuelke. "Blume, Burgess, and Beyond." Voice of Youth Advocates 34.3 (2011): 228-30. Library & Information Science Source. Web. 9 June 2014.

Sullivan, Ed. "Going all the Way: First-Time Sexual Experiences of Teens in Fiction." Voice of Youth Advocates 26.6 (2004): 461-3. Web. Library & Information Science Source. 9 June 2014.

Sutton, Roger. "Forever . . . Yours: An Interview with Judy Blume." School Library Journal 42 (1996): 24-7. Web. Academic Search Complete. 9 June 2014.

'Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry' by Mildred Taylor

Taylor, Mildred.  Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. New York: Puffin Books, 1976.

Photo by: L. Propes

The first African slaves arrived on American shores in 1619 at Jamestown in the Virginia colony.  The consequences of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and the Civil Rights era still reverberate to this day.  Mildred Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry stands at the crossroads of the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.  Set in 1933-1934, the 1977 Newberry Award winning novel details the life of the Logan family, as seen through the eyes of nine-year-old Cassie.

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry begins as the four Logan children -- Stacey, Cassie, Christopher-John, and Little Man (Clayton Chester) -- are walking to school on the first day of the term.  From the beginning, Taylor uses her young protagonists to show the effects of segregation and the repressive laws and policies on African-American families in this community near Vicksburg.  Each new injustice slowly unfolds until the book climaxes with the arrest and attempted hanging of Stacey's friend T.J. for the murder of a store owner in the nearby town of Strawberry.  Taylor pulls no punches in showing the reader the rigidly segregated social structure.  The Logan children are forced to scramble out of the way of the school bus that takes the white children to their school while the driver barrels down the dirt road in a sadistic daily game of chicken.  The children in the school are given cast-off textbooks from the white school, which are not only tattered and out-of-date, but the condition of each book is noted in the front cover, along with the race of the recipient.  Little Man and Cassie object to the condition of the books and the fact they have received the books only because they're no longer useful to the white school.  The community is also on high alert because so-called "night riders" (most likely the KKK) recently dragged three men from their homes and set them on fire in retaliation for one of them purportedly flirting with a white woman.

The Great Depression has the Logan family and many of the other families of their community, both white and African-America, firmly in its grip.  Most of the other African-American families subsist by sharecropping cotton on the farms owned by white farmers, many of whom harbor not-so-secret desires to return to the social structure of the antebellum South.  The Logan family, however, owns two hundred acres of land, and are in the process of paying the mortgage on an additional two hundred acres.  Unlike most of their neighbors, the Logans are not beholden to a landowner for seed, tools, or land, and consequently are somewhat better off financially.  This also affords them the ability to find small ways to resist the deeply ingrained institutional racism of the community.  In spite of their slight economic advantages, the Logan family must still exercise great caution when it comes to their acts of rebellion, lest they pay for it by the loss of their land.

Over the course of the novel, the reader follows Cassie as she is exposed to more and more social and institutionalized racism.  Cassie and her brothers are quite isolated and "have been unusually sheltered from [racism's] stings" (Barker  124).  Taylor uses Cassie as a surrogate for children who may not have experienced the struggles that the Logans have, and under the guise of Cassie's naiveté, is able to illustrate some of the harsher aspects of pre-Civil Rights era Mississippi (Barker 124).  Cassie is understandably outraged by the effects of racism, and several family members attempt to persuade her to go along with it in an effort to protect her, "adding a sting of betrayal to her cruel experience" (Barker 124).  As the novel reaches its conclusion, Cassie is now painfully aware of why she and other members of the community must behave just so, and "although she does not understand racism, it is presently and will be in the future a significant part of her life" (Brooks and Hampton 88).

Taylor uses other characters, most notably David Logan (Cassie's father, and based on Taylor's paternal grandfather) and T.J. as archetypes from African and African-American folk tales to deepen Cassie's understanding of the world in which she resides (Brooks and Hampton 88).  Wanda Brooks and Gregory Hampton compare T.J. to "a trickster character... similar to Brer' Rabbit.  His primary function... is to act as the catalyst for trouble" (88).  T.J.'s myriad escapades -- from failing the previous school year to becoming involved with two much older boys from a neighboring white sharecropping family -- serve to provide the reader with a character who makes terrible and costly mistakes that demonstrate to Cassie the full force of the racism that envelops her family.  David represents the hero as depicted in African folklore (Barker 128).  The hero is "smaller and certainly less powerful, eventually triumph over their stronger and more powerful foes through sheer cunning and wit... they ponder, plan, and act -- sometimes quickly, sometimes deliberately -- and most often succeed in their endeavor" (Harper as qtd. in Barker 128).  During the climax of the novel, David chooses to act covertly to halt the lynching of a neighbor, rather than directly confront the men.

David and his brother Hammer also foreshadow the two factions of the future Civil Rights era: nonviolent civil disobedience and those who felt equality should come by any means necessary.  There are several instances in the novel where David feels compelled to physically strike back against the perpetrators of violence and/or humiliation against his family, he knows the result will likely be his death.  Conversely, Hammer, who fought and was injured in World War I and now lives in Chicago where he has "a man's job and they pay [him] a man's wage for it", only reluctantly acquiesces to his brother's methods instead of meeting violence with violence (Taylor 166).  The women in the novel, specifically Mary Logan, Cassie's mother and a teacher at their school, also engage in numerous acts of targeted civil disobedience, at great personal and professional risk, to confront the segregated policies that govern their lives.  Jani L. Barker states, "Black readers who engage in identification with the Logans and their resistance to racism gain the benefits of seeing their culture featured positively and realistically.  They see people who look like them living life authentically, with strength, love, and dignity" (128).

The overarching theme of the book centers on "experiencing, confronting, and overcoming racism" (Brooks and Hampton 89).  Taylor "refuses a simple binary of black as good and white as evil.  Racism itself is presented as evil, but black and white characters within the evil system demonstrate that no race has a monopoly on virtue or vice" (Barker 129).  Taylor offers this perspective through T.J., whose actions often hurt members of the African-American community, and Jeremy Simms, the son of a white sharecropper who rejects his family's racist views and makes unsuccessful overtures of friendship to Stacey and the other Logan children.  Taylor places this ambivalence regarding race and good and evil in a conversation between Mary and Cassie, after Cassie experiences a painfully humiliating event in Strawberry.  Mary baldly states her views by telling Cassie, "White is something just like black is something.  Everybody born on this earth is something and nobody, no matter what color, is better than anybody else" (Taylor 127).  However, while David does not explicitly instruct his children to avoid becoming friends with Jeremy, his admonishment to Stacey to tread lightly where friendship with Jeremy is concerned also demonstrates Taylor's refusal to reduce racism to a simple black or white issue.  David tells Stacey

Right now you and Jeremy might get along fine, but in a few years he'll think himself a man but you'll probably still be a boy to him. And if he feels that way, he'll turn on you in a minute... We Logans don't have much to do with white folks.  You know why? 'Cause  white folks mean trouble.  You see black folks hanging 'round with whites, they're headed for trouble.  Maybe one day whites and blacks can be real friends, but right now the country ain't built that way.  Now you could be right 'bout Jeremy making a much finer friend than T.J. ever will be.  The trouble is, down here in Mississippi, it costs too much to find out... So I think you'd better not try (Taylor 158).  

David leaves the final decision up to Stacey, but his feelings about the matter are quite clear, and in many ways, diametrically opposite of Mary's.

Personally, I found Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry to be profound and deeply thought-provoking.  I had to stop reading it from time to time in order to absorb the developments of the plot.  Taylor writes Cassie with equal measures of sass, wit, and wounded innocence.  The rhythm of the language rolls and shifts off the characters' tongues, and subtle, but noticeable, differences in speech patterns are given to each character.  Most of the character development is given to Cassie and Stacey, as they learn to navigate the world around them.  The characters are clearly delineated in their personalities to help keep them separate in a reader's mind.  There is a vast cast of characters that populate this novel.  Keeping track of them can be a bit challenging from the sheer amount of them if a reader isn't paying attention.  I also rather liked that Taylor ended the novel on an unsettled note, rather than neatly tying everything up with a bow.  It would have been unrealistic otherwise.

Halfway through Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, I thought it could make for a good comparative literature unit in high school English classes to compare this novel with Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.  They are both set in the 1930s in the South (Mississippi and Alabama respectively), with young narrators attempting to understand the racist policies and philosophies that permeate and dictate how they live.  They also each have an African-American character accused of a crime he did not commit, with devastating consequences.  I also think it would make a fine entry into a unit of African-American history through literature, with A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry; or Fences, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, or The Piano Lesson by August Wilson for older students.  Middle grades could read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry in English classes while they study the Great Depression in history classes.

In addition to Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Taylor wrote several other books about the Logan family, all drawn from her own family's experiences in Mississippi: Let the Circle Be Unbroken, The Land, The Road to Memphis, The Friendship,  Song of the Trees, The Well, and Mississippi Bridge.  She also wrote The Gold Cadillac.

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Works Cited

Barker, Jani L. "Racial Identification and Audience in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and the Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963." Children's Literature in Education 41.2 (2010): 118-45. Web.

Brooks, Wanda, and Gregory Hampton. "Safe Discussions rather than First Hand Encounters: Adolescents Examine Racism through One Historical Fiction Text." Children's Literature in Education 36.1 (2005): 83-98. Web.

Taylor, Mildred. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. New York: Puffin Books, 1976. Print.

'When You Reach Me' by Rebecca Stead

Stead, Rebecca. (2009). When You Reach Me. New York: Yearling.  ISBN: 9780375850868 (pbk)

Photo by: L. Propes

They say a single butterfly flapping its wings in China can set off events thousands of miles away on the other side of the globe.  In science fiction, there is often a single moment in time -- the flapping of a butterfly's wings, so to speak -- that can change the future, and not always for the better.  Time travel is an oft-used trope in science fiction.  Whether it's the slingshot around the sun employed by Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, Dr. Sam Beckett and his Project Quantum Leap, a British telephone box inhabited by a Time Lord, or a tiny, magical hourglass in Harry Potter, time travel is often used as a way to re-set history or find that tiny moment in time where a single action can send a person's future down one road or another.

Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me is a novel that involves a character who eventually figures out how to manipulate time and space, written in a low fantasy style.  While the concept of time travel forms the underlying plot of the novel, it is primarily a coming-of-age story about Miranda, who lives in New York City with her mother in the late 1970s.  Miranda lives a relatively normal life.  She has her best and oldest friend, Sal.  Things have an order and logic that Miranda finds comforting.  Everything changes the day Marcus punches her friend Sal in the stomach for no particular reason.

As the novel progresses, Miranda makes some new friends in Annemarie and Colin, discovers why Sal has been avoiding her since the incident with Marcus, helps her mother prepare to appear on the television show The $20,000 Pyramid, uncovers the identity of the crazy man that lives on the street corner near her apartment, and learns that things -- and people -- are not always the what they seem.  She even discovers common ground with the girl she dislikes.  Miranda also begins to understand that  that material possessions do not necessarily translate into parental love and affection.

The novel's structure revolves around a letter Miranda is supposed to write to an unnamed person, describing the events of the past several months.  She starts forming the letter in her head, reexamining what has happened to her in the light of a recent revelation, but insists she isn't going to write the letter, until she realizes who asked her to write the letter and why.  The action shifts smoothly from Miranda's present, while she drafts the letter, to the previous months.  Stead's writing effectively mimics the way a person's mind can switch to a new topic at the mention of a specific person or event.  The entire book becomes the process by which Miranda writes the letter and comes to the decision to give it to the right person, as she connects seemingly unrelated events to one another that pinpoint the recipient of the letter.  Stead gives the reader a delayed climax.  What you think might be the climax is only the beginning of the actual climax, which occurs near the end of the novel.

Stead's novel is populated by a cast of characters from the sullen and misunderstood Marcus to the privileged Annemarie and Julia to the patient and tolerant Richard.  The audience sees them through Miranda's eyes, so we see them from the perspective of a twelve year-old girl, discovering who the characters are, beyond their first impression, as Miranda does.  The characters are appropriate for their age and time period.  The children are just reaching an age where they want to test their boundaries, and Stead perfectly captures Miranda's voice as she explores her new-found maturity.  The characters are complex, often tossing off flippant remarks without a thought for the consequences.  Their actions come back to haunt them, and Stead shows them dealing with the ramifications in a realistic manner.  This allows the characters to grow and adapt as their situations change.  The children behave like typical young adolescents.  In one particularly poignant moment,  as Miranda prepares for her new friend Annemarie to come for a sleepover, Miranda's new-found shame at the bedraggled state of the apartment she shares with her mother in relation to the luxurious environment of Annemaries' radiates painfully from the page.

The setting is late 1970s New York, and Stead gives it the tiny details that evoke the era.  The deli where Miranda, Annemarie, and Colin spend their lunch hours, streakers, the odd crazy person on the street corner, and the expressions the children and adults use in their day-to-day lives, capture the image of the 1970s.  The descriptions of Miranda's mother's clothing and hair, and the pervasive presence of shag carpeting also help complete the mental picture of the era.  Younger readers might find themselves amazed at the amount of freedom Miranda and her classmates have to leave campus for lunch and wander unsupervised about the city without so much as a mobile phone on their pocket.

Stead's theory of time travel, as presented in the book, isn't terribly difficult to understand.  Some might have to re-read the theory, as presented by Marcus and Julia a few times, but the visuals Stead uses to illustrate the theory explain it well.  Stead keeps the time-travel element to a minimum, making the book more about  Miranda and how she wrestles with the decision whether or not to write the letter to the mystery person.

Overall, the book begins a bit slowly, but the pace soon picks up and the book races to its conclusion.

The Junior Library Guild has a study guide teachers can use with their classes while reading  When You Reach Me.  It includes cross-curricular lessons, like why the Miranda warning is so important that Miranda's mother named her for it.  Random House also provides a study guide, with several cross-curricular ideas teachers can use.  Teachers can use When You Reach Me as a way to discuss social activism, city planning, the theory of relativity, or as an introduction to Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time.

Students might also want to read Stead's other novels: Liar and Spy and First Light.  When You Reach Me won the 2010 Newberry Award, in an interesting parallel with A Wrinkle in Time, which also won the Newberry Award in 1963.  So much of this novel was influenced by A Wrinkle in Time, that students might also want to read it, and the other novels of the Time Quintet: A Wind in the Door, Many Waters, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and An Acceptable Time.

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"Rebecca Stead brilliantly weaves details of setting from memories of her own teen years on the Upper West Side, including a strange individual and her mom's appearance with Dick Clark on The $20,000 Pyramid.  The story's science fiction aspect will not become readily apparent until almost the very end, but it is crucial to the plot.  Reading A Wrinkle in Time is not necessary in order to enjoy the book, but it does make it more fun." -- James Blasingame, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 2011

"The first indication that this book is going to get deeply, seductively weird is when broody classmate Marcus engages the heroine, Miranda, in a discussion about a flaw in the logic of A Wrinkle in Time...  Miranda's life is an ordinary round of family and school...  But when her best friend is bizarrely punched by another boy on the street, and when she starts receiving anonymous notes that seem to foretell the future, it's clear that all is not as it seems...  Closing revelations are startling and satisfying but quietly made, their reverberations giving plenty of impetus for the reader to back to the beginning and catch what was missed." -- Roger Sutton, Horn Book Magazine, 2009

"Miranda experiences a lot in sixth grade.  She loses her best friend, her mom goes on a game show, she learns there is a dentist's office inside her school, and she enjoys her first job.  Stead has written a story about a typical 12-year-old girl; although... there is some compelling mystery the reader is hard-pressed to discover.  The best parts of the story are the characters.  There is Miranda herself who is thoughtful and smart, but she doesn't think much of it.  Marcus is a troubled boy but no one really seems to know him.  There are best friends Julia and Annemarie, but their friendship is put to a serious test when Julia acts snobby once too often.  And, there is the mysterious writer of the notes Miranda keep finding... The topics are interesting, and the short chapters keep the pace flowing quickly." -- Shelly Glantz, Library Media Connection, 2009

"Stead's novel is as much about character as story. Miranda's voice rings true with its faltering attempts at maturity and observation. The story builds slowly, emerging naturally from a sturdy premise. As Miranda reminisces, the time sequencing is somewhat challenging, but in an intriguing way. The setting is consistently strong. The stores and even the streets-in Miranda's neighborhood act as physical entities and impact the plot in tangible ways." -- Caitlin Augusta, School Library Journal, 2009

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References:

 Augusta, Caitlin. 2009. When you reach me. School Library Journal 55 (7) (07): 93-, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=43415849&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Blasingame, James. 2011. When you reach me. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 54 (6) (03): 461-4, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=59423911&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Glantz, Shelley. 2009. When you reach me. Library Media Connection 28 (2) (10): 74-, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=44773789&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Sutton, Roger. 2009. When you reach me. Horn Book Magazine 85 (4) (Jul): 432-, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=42427896&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

'American Born Chinese' by Gene Luen Yang

Yang, Gene Luen. (2006). American Born Chinese. New York: Square Fish.  ISBN 9780312384487

Photo by: L. Propes

Identity is a touchy subject.  The world around us sees a version of ourselves that can be the opposite of the version we think we project.  Identity is at the heart of Gene Luen Yang's brilliant graphic novel American Born Chinese.  The book wrestles with the questions of what it means to straddle two cultures -- American and Chinese -- without sublimating one for the other.

The back-of-the-book summary makes the graphic novel sound as if it contains three separate stories.  It does.  From the beginning of the book, it's clear that each story shares the same theme of trying to fit into a culture that cannot see past the superficial façade.  But the three stories are ultimately tied together in a mix of high and low fantasy to bring the story to its resolution.

The Monkey King, after being rejected by the gods, embarks on a quest to make his subjects more like people and himself more god-like in an effort to force the gods to accept him as one of them.  He even challenges Tze-Yo-Tzuh, the creator of all existence, to a duel.

Jin Wang was born in San Francisco to immigrant parents from Taiwan, who came to the United States to attend graduate school.  When Jin is nine, his parents move to a suburb, and Jin goes from being just another Chinese-American kid in Chinatown to one of only two Asian-American students in his school. (The other Asian-American student is Suzy Nakamura.)  In his new school, Jin must confront a litany of humiliating stereotypes from his classmates and even his teachers.  The arrival of Wei-Chin Sun reveals the depth to which Jin identifies as an American, even as he embraces his Chinese heritage.

Photo by: L. Propes
Jin and Wei-Chin, wearing
Yao Ming jerseys

Danny is an All-American teenager.  Tall, blonde, good-looking.  He plays a mean game of basketball and girls admire him.  The blot on his existence is his cousin Chin-Kee's annual visit from China.  Chin-Kee's extraordinarily disruptive visits damage Danny's reputation to the point where he must transfer to a new school for the next year.

While it might seem as if each storyline is a separate story, bound by a common theme, the plot lines intersect in a way that seem believable in the low fantasy world Yang has created.  Jin's story is central to the overall novel, illustrating the maze that he must navigate in American culture with his Chinese background.  Jin's cultural traditions are often at odds with the image he desires to project in school.  His struggles to fit into his desired social scene are echoed in the stories of the Monkey King and Danny.  Jin travels from pride and a common identity in Chinatown to outside status in his suburban schools and back to an understanding of what his heritage means to him.

The main characters -- Jin, Wei-Chin, the Monkey King, and Danny -- are all distinctive, intricate characters, which is quite a feat, given the short time we spend with each of them.  Yang lets them evolve with skill and complexity.  Chin-Kee is a grotesque caricature, reminiscent of the stereotype of a  Chinese immigrant from the late nineteenth century, and Yang uses this for a clear purpose, forcing Danny to confront why he represses his Chinese identity and to fight back against every indignity Danny has been subjected to from people who cannot see Danny beyond the color of his skin, name, or facial features.  Danny, it turns out, isn't the blonde All-American high school student as portrayed in the novel.  Years ago, Danny gave up his soul to become what he thinks he wants to be.  Who he really is neatly ties the three stories together into a satisfying conclusion.

Yang also remembers to infuse just enough comedy to balance the achingly poignant search for identity.  There are a few moments that bring a smile to the reader's lips.  Most are brief, almost throwaway moments, but they provide just enough of a break in the tension to prevent the story from becoming a study in abject misery.  Even Jin's struggles with his identity are subject to a humorous poke from Yang: when waiting for Wei-Chin at a Chinese bakery, Jin, who can speak Mandarin, but not read it, tries to order from a menu written in Chinese, only to have to waitress scoff at his lack of Chinese literacy when Jin points to the words, "cash only".

Photo by: L. Propes
From left: Jin Wang,
Suzy Nakamura, and Wei-Chin Sun

The text is just as much part of the artwork as the actual drawings.  Yang uses Chinese characters when the Monkey King invokes one of the kung-fu disciplines.  Text rendered in English, but it is intended to be spoken Mandarin is bracketed to give the reader a visual cue that the characters are no longer speaking English.  Each character, from the Monkey King and all the Chinese deities to Jin and his childhood friends from Chinatown and all the students in the suburban school are drawn as diverse and separate people.  None of them look alike and Yang takes pains to give each character distinct clothes and hairstyles.  It's an eye for the detail that helps the reader sort out the many characters that populate this novel.  The characters' body language often speaks for the characters when words fail.  The older Jin and Wei-Chin at the end of the novel are still recognizably their younger counterparts, and Yang ages them well.

American Born Chinese could be used in conjunction with many of Laurence Yep's books about growing up as a Chinese-American to study one facet of the immigrant experience.  The book can also provide the impetus to begin a discussion of racial stereotypes, and why Yang chose to appropriate one of the more monstrous stereotypes in an act of satire to make his point.

American Born Chinese won the 2007 Printz Award and was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.  It also won the Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album -- New.

Other graphic novels by Yang include: Level Up, and the acclaimed series Boxers & Saints, a graphic novel set during the Boxer Rebellion, telling both sides of the story, which was also a National Book Award finalist in 2013.

Students may also want to read one of Laurence Yep's novels about the Chinese-American experience, particularly Dragonwings.

You can view more about Yang and American Born Chinese here.  You can also find Yang's remarks at the 2013 National Book Awards, a book trailer for Boxers & Saints, and an interview with Yang.

Yang has a website with more information about his graphic novels and a blog.  He also includes the online version of his M.Ed. final project proposal about using comics in education.
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"This fable stars the mythological Monkey King, realistic youngster Jin Wang of Taiwanese parentage, and TV sitcom teen Danny.  All three are dogged by an unwanted identity and humiliated by others' prejudice... all three stories suddenly merge to centre on Jin coming to terms with his minority experience and moving beyond his own fear and hostility.  Coalescence comes almost too quickly, but the... approach and treatment are unique and moving.  The art is simple, colorful, and both attractive and effective." -- Martha Cornog, Library Journal, 2007

"With vibrant colors and visual panache, indie writer-illustrator Yang focuses on three characters in tales that touch on facets of Chinese American life... Each of the the characters is flawed but familiar, and, in a clever postmodern twist, all share a deep, unforeseen connection... The stories have a simple, engaging sweep to them, but their weighty subjects -- shame, racism, and friendship -- receive thoughtful, powerful examination." -- Jesse Karp, Booklist, 2006

"Graphic novels that focus on nonwhite characters are exceedingly rare in American comics.  Enter American Born Chinese, a well-crafted work that aptly explores issues of self-image, cultural identity, transformation, and self-acceptance... Yang's crisp line drawings, linear panel arrangement, and muted colours provide a strong visual complement to the textual narrative.  Like Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Laurence Yep's Dragonwings, this novel explores the impact of the American dream on those outside the dominant culture in a finely wrought story that is an effective combination of humor and drama." -- Philip Charles Crawford, School Library Journal, 2006

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Works Cited:

Cornog, Martha. 2007. American born chinese. Library Journal 132 (5) (03/15): 54-, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=24382067&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Crawford, Philip Charles. 2006. American born chinese. School Library Journal 52 (9) (09): 240-, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=22324532&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Karp, Jesse. 2006. American born chinese. Booklist 103 (1) (9): 114, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=22370790&site=ehost-live&scope=site. 

'Speak' by Laurie Halse Anderson

Anderson, Laurie Halse. (2000). Speak. Narrated by Mandy Siegfried. New York: Random House Audio Publishing Group.  ISBN 9780739336724

Photo by: L. Propes

Being a teenager is difficult.  Cliques.  An unspoken demand for conformity.  Attempts to live up to a nearly impossible standard of femininity and masculinity.  Countless rules and regulations regarding behavior.  The seemingly inevitable and subtle bullying that occurs when one doesn't fit in.  And that's just within the halls of high school.  Even though Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak is set in the age just before social media exploded into students' lives, rumors still manage to rapidly burn through the ranks of students, leaving Anderson's main character, Melinda Sordino, in an isolated bubble.

Speak begins on Melinda's first day of high school.  It doesn't begin well.  Someone throws a Ho-Ho wrapper at her head on the bus.  No one wants to sit with her.  Melinda's best friends have suddenly diverged into new cliques now that they're in high school.  Melinda informs the reader, "I am clanless.  I wasted the last weeks of August watching bad cartoons.  I didn't go to the mall, the lake, or the pool or answer the phone.  I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude.  And I don't have anyone to sit with" (Anderson 2000, 4).  Melinda goes on to compare herself to a wounded animal, seeking succour anywhere she can find it.  Her former best friend, Rachel, openly detests her, and this is only the beginning of the book.

Things only go from bad to worse for Melinda.  Her grades drop.  Her parents constantly hound her about her grades and attitude.  Her new friend Heather can't decide whether to be friends with Melinda or drop her for one of the "cool" groups.  Melinda avoids speaking as much as possible.  Her social studies teacher, who already doesn't like Melinda, is unyielding and dictatorial.

Plus, Melinda's assigned subject for her year-long art class is a tree.  Trees remind Melinda far too much of what happened to her.  Not to mention the winter in Syracuse seems to last forever to Melinda.

The reason for Melinda's silence, depression, and isolation slowly reveals itself, and Anderson sprinkles hints throughout the book until Melinda tells the audience exactly what happened to her in August.  After Melinda refuses to attend a pizza party with her lab partner, David, and some of his friends, she forces herself to examine what happened to her.  Even though the word "rape" doesn't form part of Melinda's vocabulary until much later, it is very obvious that she was raped at a party a few weeks before school began.  Slowly, Melinda begins to emerge from her self-imposed shell, eventually reconnecting with Ivy, her other junior high friend, and Rachel.  Inspired by the anonymous, yet highly effective message board format of the girls' restroom walls, Melinda scrawls a message to stay away from her rapist.  The responses overwhelmingly affirm Melinda's statement, and she realizes she's not alone.  More importantly, she concludes the rape was not her fault.

Anderson allows Melinda the opportunity to find her voice, just as the school year draws to a close, and she decides to tell Mr. Freeman, the art teacher, about the events of the past several months.  Anderson does tie up some plot threads here, but there are others that she leaves as open-ended questions.  Speak arguably falls into the category of a problem novel, but Anderson never sends the narrative into moralizing territory.

Much of the narrative of Speak occurs as Melinda's internal monologue.  It contains Melinda's often wry, pointed observations of high school as well as displaying a dry, sardonic sense of humor.  Those flashes of humor prevent the book from becoming bogged down in desolation.  Melinda has a perfect foil in Heather, the new girl from Ohio.  In contrast to Melinda's retreating silence, Heather talks too much, is far too eager to please, and somewhat disingenuous.  The adults in the room often come off as one dimensional -- clueless father, waspish mother, befuddled principal, etc. -- but given that the story is narrated by Melinda, it's to be expected.  There comes a point where you want to shake Melinda's parents and make them really look at their daughter and see the roiling waters below the surface.  They do know something is wrong with Melinda, but there's little effort beyond making token statements about doing anything about it.

Melinda is a believable character, as is her narration.  The language off all the teenage characters is exactly what one would expect to hear in the mouth and head of a teenager, especially ones who are still on the cusp of childhood and adolescence.  The other teenaged characters are also realistically portrayed, confident in their place in the school's social fabric or driven to insecurity by the lack of it. Anderson shines in her descriptions of high school, especially when she writes Melinda's running commentary on cheerleaders.

So much of high school involves attempting to fit in to a facet of its society.  Anderson illustrates this perfectly through several methods.  The high school changes mascots no fewer than three times during the school year.  Heather's overeager attempts to find the right extracurricular club.  Rachel's integration with the foreign exchange students as she tries on a variety of different identities under their influence.  Finally, there's Melinda -- standing on the edges of the social scene, belonging to none of the cliques, but surprising tendrils of what she could become poke through her psyche, offering glimpses of where she might fit.

Speak is rife with symbolism.  It's found in the theme of Melinda's English class. (The teacher loves teaching symbolism.)  It's found in the stuffed bunnies Melinda collects and the trees she doggedly attempts to draw.  The silent bunnies are Melinda's lost voice.  The endless pile of failed and more successful trees represent Melinda's struggle to come to grips with the rape.

Even the word rape itself comes laden with portent.  Melinda' can't even bring herself to admit it out loud, and the the first time she tells someone she was raped, she has to write it out.  Rape in of itself is a difficult topic.  It's a psychological and physical violation, and in Melinda's case has caused far more psychological damage than physical.  Until the moment Melinda sees the restroom walls covered with confirmations from other girls about the boy who raped her, she feels nobody will believe her.  Even more so, Melinda feels the less she speaks about the rape, the more she will forget what happened.

Anderson is careful to present Melinda's rape as an act of dominance.  There is nothing titillating about it.  It's about the rapist's ability to take advantage of a vulnerable situation, regardless of Melinda's repeated refusals.  Anderson treats Melinda's recovery from her assault in a mostly realistic fashion, showing the audience the depths of her PTSD following the rape.

Mandy Siegfried does an admirable job providing Melinda's voice in this audiobook.  Her voice perfectly captures the sardonic tones of Anderson's written narrative and credibly sounds like an average fourteen year-old girl.  The performance falters just a little at the end when Melinda begins to sound more hopeful in Anderson's narrative, but Siegfried's voice still carries the acerbic tones.  It doesn't quite suit the shift in the tone of Melinda's narration.

The unabridged audiobook is five hours long on four CDs.

Photo by: L. Propes

Speak offers schools a tool to begin discussions about sexual assault and rape.  It also allows them to discuss bullying in the context of the way Melinda is treated at the beginning of the novel.  Speak can also be used to open a dialogue about depression in teenagers and learning to handle the immense stress they often feel.  Anderson has stated in interviews that she's heard from hundreds of readers -- both male and female -- who have shared their experiences as a victim of sexual assault.  A poem at the beginning of the current print publication contains lines from letters and e-mails Anderson has received.  The last pages of the print publication also contains some chilling statistics regarding rape and sexual assault of girls, boys, men, and women.  Anderson includes several sources for help for rape victims as well.  Some websites offer alternative texts to use with anti-bullying here and here.  Readers might also want to read Leverage by Joshua C. Cohen, which also deals with bullying and rape, but from a far different perspective.

Speak turns fifteen this year.  You can read an interview with Anderson about it here.  RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network) and Anderson have teamed up to raise money for RAINN in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness & Prevention Month and Speak's fifteenth anniversary.

The websites Anderson lists at the back of the book are:

www.rainn.org (RAINN -- Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network)
www.soar99.org (Speaking Out Against Rape)
www.nsvrc.org (National Sexual Violence Resource Center)
www.911rape.org (Rape Treatment Center)

Anderson also includes the number of the National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE.

Anderson is the author of Wintergirls, The Impossible Knife of Memory, Fever 1793, Forge, Chains, Twisted, and Catalyst (which features a cameo of Melinda several months after the events of Speak).  Speak was a Printz Honor book and Chains won the 2009 Scott O'Dell award.  Speak and Chains were both National Book Award Finalists.  Anderson has also won the 2009 Margaret A. Edwards Award.

Students and teachers might want to have  a look at Anderson's blog Mad Woman in the Forest. The page for teachers includes information about how Anderson approaches writing and research.  She also has information about arranging a visit to the school via Skype.
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"Anderson's powerful debut YA novel... makes for a gripping, enlightening audiobook.  Ninth-grader Melinda Sordino begins her first year of high school as a veritable pariah.  Her friends have dropped her 'like a hot Pop-tart on a cold kitchen floor' as payback for her actions just days before... and Melinda is so traumatized, she cannot muster the voice to tell anyone; she pretty much stops speaking altogether.  Youthful actress Siegfried makes a believable teenage protagonist, effectively expressing Melinda's humorous sarcasm, wit, and pain." -- Publishers Weekly, 2000

"[Melinda's] early silence about an unspeakable act turns her toward harmful isolation and self-hatred... Her silence is almost palpable.  It stands between the adolescent girl and any useful, caring contact with those who inhabit her world of school and family... Anderson contrasts Melinda's awareness of and resistance to pressures to learn the correct, feminine, sanctioned ways of speaking with the behavior of her one friend, Heather, whose pathetic attempts to please and be attractive come at great personal cost." -- Sally Smith, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 2000 

"Speak is the powerful story of the aftermath of rape, brought to life by narrator Siegfried, whose youthful-sounding voice is 'right on' in terms of inflection, pacing, and portrayal of teenage character Melinda's thoughts." -- Jean Hatfield, Booklist, 2001

"Melinda's voice is distinct, unusual, and very real as she recounts her past and present experiences in bitterly ironic, occasionally even amusing vignettes.  In her YA fiction debut, Anderson perfectly captures the harsh conformity of high-school cliques and one teen's struggle to find acceptance from her peers.  Melinda's sarcastic wit, honesty, and courage make her a memorable character." -- Debbie Carton, Booklist, 1999

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References

Anderson, Laurie Halse. 1999. Speak. New York: Square Fish. 

Carton, Debbie. 1999. Speak. 09/15; 2014/4, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2216/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA56063651&v=2.1&u=txshracd2583&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w&asid=69fcd4e212c077b9295fa3b54c424cc7.

Hatfield, Jean. 2001. Speak. 03/15; 2014/4, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2216/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA73891032&v=2.1&u=txshracd2583&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w&asid=950ff0b68eb36e9ae2f80fd256bfb85c.

Reviews: Spoken word. 2000. Publishers Weekly 247 (32) (08/07): 31, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=3441349&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Smith, Sally. 2000. Speak (book review). Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 43 (6) (03): 585, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=2864940&site=ehost-live&scope=site. 

'Elijah of Buxton' by Christopher Paul Curtis

Curtis, Christopher Paul. (2007). Elijah of Buxton. New York, Scholastic, Inc. ISBN: 9780439023450

Photo by: L. Propes

Most American schoolchildren are taught about the effect of the Fugitive Slave Act, passed in 1850 as part of the Compromise of 1850 that admitted California as a free state; gave Texas 10 million dollars in exchange for relinquishing claims on disputed territory and set its present-day boundaries; and abolished the slave trade in Washington, D.C., but kept slavery legal.  The Fugitive Slave Act meant that former slaves who had successfully escaped into the North now risked recapture back into slavery.  Free African-Americans were also targets for slave catchers to be sold into slavery.  The Underground Railroad was at its most active in this period, ferrying escaped slaves into Canada (PBS, 2014).

But what happened to the freed slaves once they were in Canada?

Elijah of Buxton tells the story of Elijah, the first (fictional) child born in the settlement of Buxton, in what is now western Ontario.  Buxton was founded by an abolitionist white Presbyterian minister to be a town for freed slaves.  Buxton was not the only town whose initial residents were mostly former slaves, but it was the most successful (Curtis, 2007).  Elijah's status as the first child born in Buxton means he receives just a bit more attention than the other children born there after him.  Over the course of the story, Elijah learns to appreciate the very freedom he has because of his birthplace.  Between overhearing stories from the adults in Buxton and his own involvement in an attempt to aid a fellow resident purchase his family's freedom, Elijah sees his freedom for the precious gift that it is.

Elijah Freeman is an ordinary eleven year-old boy.  He has school, chores, his friends, and a talent for throwing stones at his intended targets.  Elijah's mother calls him "fra-gile".  Elijah isn't physically fragile.  He's a sensitive and often perceptive young man who often wears his heart on his sleeve.  Elijah also happens to have a healthy fear of snakes. His parents, both escaped slaves, want Elijah to make the most of the opportunity that freedom have given them all.  The novel covers the rhythm of life in Buxton over the course of several months.  New residents arrive in Buxton with origins shrouded in mystery.  One resident finally has acquired enough money to purchase his wife and two children.  Slave catchers are rumored to have made it as far north as Canada.  A carnival comes to the neighboring town.

An underlying tension permeates the novel, introduced in the opening pages.  It often revolves the character of the Preacher, a man Elijah can't bring himself to trust completely, even though he feels a minister ought to be trustworthy.  Elijah's dealings with the Preacher always leave him unsettled, and feeling that something wrong has happened and unsure of how to articulate his feelings.  Plus, the Preacher refuses to live in Buxton and abide by its rules.  His past is a blank page to the Buxton residents.  The stories he spins about how he manages to acquire certain things, like a pair of matched pistols, ring hollow.  But, he is the Preacher.  There's also the tension between the adults, who remember their lives of often harsh servitude, and the children who have only known Buxton.  There is also the tension of the escaped slaves, remembering their family members that were left behind in the South.

The pace of the novel meanders a little.  It feels like a river, flowing placidly along its course, curving and twisting as the landscape changes until it hits a sudden drop and the action comes in a rapid burst until it levels out again.  There are several instances in the book where the action rises and falls, but the actual climax of the novel occurs late in the book.  It does, however, drive the final nail into the coffin for Elijah's "fra-gile" nature.  The pace of the novel complements Elijah's maturation, as it happens with so many children, in fits and starts.

Curtis writes the narrative of the novel from Elijah's point of view, so not only is the dialogue written in dialect, so is the narrative text.  There are a few terms that might be unfamiliar to some readers, but  their meaning is clear from the characters reactions.  Their voices can clearly be heard inside a reader's head, and this novel would lend itself well to a read-aloud.  The language is appropriate for the time period and for the age of the story's narrator.

Curtis is a master in this book of showing the reader events and their effect on the characters, rather than just telling them.  He often shows the readers the effect of slavery on families, particularly when a new family, the Taylors, arrives in Buxton.  The Misses Duncan, sisters, recognize Mrs. Taylor as their baby sister, sold to Arkansas from North Carolina when Mrs. Taylor was just a small child with their brother.  Curtis allows the situation of unfold through the dialogue between the Misses Duncan and Mr. Taylor and Elijah's private observations about the way the adults act in this potentially disruptive situation.   Elijah is, in fact, an ideal observer of the life in Buxton.  As a child, he often fades into the background and overhears conversations that he would otherwise not be privy to had the adults known he was listening.   Elijah's internal commentary also displays his growing maturation and provides a window into the community politics of Buxton.

This is a look at a place that isn't even on the radar of most American history classes.  Of course most students have been taught that many escaped slaves ended up in Canada, but their class narrative ends at the 49th parallel.  Curtis visited the settlement of Buxton (it still exists, but primarily as a museum) and used many of their resources to construct the history of Elijah and his community.  Several events in the book were inspired by actual events, which he notes in an author's note at the end of the novel. He even remarks that Buxton was such a successful town due to the strict rules that governed the appearance of houses and their property in a mid-eighteenth century precursor of a homeowners association.  Small details, like how long it would take for mail to be delivered to Buxton from the United States or the value of a nickel, bring the historical era to vivid life.  Curtis offers a small reference list in a brief history of Buxton (aka the Elgin Settlement at Buxton) as well as a timeline of the history of Buxton, and encourages readers to try to visit the museum.

This would be an excellent resource to use in a history class, especially if they are studying the role of slavery in U.S. history.  This would also be an excellent story to tell during African-American History Month, because it would probably be a brand-new episode of African-American history for many students to experience.  The Buxton National Historic Site and Museum has a website that includes teaching resources for classrooms (see "The Learning Centre" tab).  The Día Family Book Club has a free downloadable lesson plan that can be used in a family literacy program about Elijah of Buxton.

Elijah of Buxton is a Newberry Honor book, the winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, and the winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for historical fiction.  It is also available as an audiobook, read by Mirron Willis.  

Other books suggested by the Buxton museum include: I Came as a Stranger by Bryan Prince, The Last Safe House by Barbara Greenwood, North Star to Freedom by Gena K. Gorrel, and Many Thousand Gone by Virginia Hamilton.  

Christopher Paul Curtis has written many books about the African-American experience throughout history.  His novels include The Watsons Go to Birmingham -- 1963 (Newberry Honor; Coretta Scott King Honor); Bud, Not Buddy (Newberry Medal winner; Coretta Scott King Award); The Mighty Miss Malone, Bucking the Sarge; and the upcoming The Madmen of Piney Woods, a companion book to Elijah of Buxton.

Readers can also visit Curtis' website at www.nobodybutcurtis.com.

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"It's funny, it's sad, and it has characters who do their best to stand up to what's in front of them and do the right thing.  Humor and horror and courage are never far apart in this story, sometimes intertwined in a single scene.  Curtis is a masterful storyteller, and this is his best work yet." -- Dean Schneider, Book Links, 2008

"Elijah is an engaging protagonist, and whether he is completing his chores or lamenting his Latin studies or experiencing his first traveling carnival, his descriptions are full of charm and wonder.  Although his colloquial language may prove challenging for some readers, it brings an authenticity and richness to the story that is well worth the extra effort it might require... His guileless recounting of the people he meets and the horrors he sees will allow readers to understand the dangers of the Underground Railroad without being overwhelmed by them... Curtis's talent for dealing with painful periods of history with grace and sensitivity is as strong as ever." -- Kim Dare, School Library Journal, 2007

"Curtis deals with the difficult topic of slavery from a youthful perspective, allowing Elijah to learn of its sadness and pain first hand.  This is done without overwhelming the reader, by infusing the novel with humor.  Character development and voice are great strengths of this terrific novel." -- Spencer Korson, Library Media Connection, 2008

"Curtis' rare combination of humor, suspense, and emotional depth approaches the subject of slavery obliquely at first but gradually leads Elijah to the human tragedy at its core." -- Booklist, 2008

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References:

Curtis, Christopher Paul. 2007. Elijah of buxton. Boston: Sandpiper.

Dare, Kim. 2007. Elijah of buxton. School Library Journal 53 (10) (10): 146-, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=27080818&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Elijah of buxton. 2008. Booklist 104 (9) (1): 12-, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=28830502&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Glantz, Shelley. 2008. Elijah of buxton. Library Media Connection 26 (4) (01): 71-, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=28106064&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Schneider, Dean. 2008. Holding on to hope. Book Links 18 (2) (11): 11-5, 
       http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2060/login.aspx?           
       direct=true&db=a9h&AN=35265694&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

The compromise of 1850 and the fugitive slave act. [cited March 23 2014]. Available from  
       http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2951.html.