magical realism

Review: Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan

| Tasha

echo

Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Released February 24, 2015.

A stellar intertwined story that swirls around a magical harmonica, this book is one-of-a-kind in the best possible way.  When Otto meets the three girls in the forest, he sent on a quest that includes a harmonica that sings in different tones from normal ones.  Later, three young people encounter that harmonic and it changes their lives at critical points, bringing both peace and music into the darkness they are living in.  There is Friedrich, a boy in Nazi Germany, who is struggling to hold his family together.  There is Mike in Pennsylvania, placed in an orphanage when his grandmother can no longer care for him and his younger brother, desperate to find a place they can be together.  Finally, there is Ivy in California, excluded from the normal public school because she is Mexican-American and hoping that this last move is one that gets her family a permanent home.  The stories speak to the heart, each child facing the difficulties with immense courage and love for others. 

This book is a delight to read.  It marries the magic of the harmonica with more realistic historical fiction components very successfully.  Ryan explores some of the darkest times for families, put under excruciating pressure by the society they are living in.  She always offers hope though, allowing the harmonica and the power of music to pierce through and give light to the circumstances.  Beautifully, each story ends in a crescendo, leaving the reader breathless and worried about what will happen before starting the next story.  In the end, the stories weave together musical and luminous.

Ryan successfully creates four unique stories in this book and then brings them all together in a way that is part magic and entirely satisfying.  She writes of the cares of each child with such empathy, allowing readers to feel the pressure they are under.  Here is how she describes Mike’s responsibility for his younger brother on page 204:

That responsibility had become another layer of skin.  Just when he thought he might shed a little, or breathe easy, or even laugh out loud, it tightened over him.

She successfully does this with each of the stories, allowing readers to feel that tightening and the threat of well-being for all of the characters.  There is no shrinking from the racism and bigotry that these characters experience.  It is presented powerfully and appropriately for the younger audience.

A powerful book, this novel is pitch perfect and simply exceptional.  Appropriate for ages 10-13.

Reviewed from ARC received from Scholastic Press.

Review: Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer

| Tasha

belzhar

Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer

Jam has been taken by her family to The Wood Barn, a boarding school in Vermont for fragile teens.  After losing her British boyfriend, Reeve, Jam has been unable to function at all.  She just wants to be left alone with her grief and loss.  Jam spends her days sleeping and thinking about Reeve and how in only a few weeks their relationship grew into love only to have him die suddenly.  At her new school, Jam finds herself selected for a small and exclusive English class where they will read one author for the entire semester.  They are also given journals to record their feelings and ideas, old books that look ancient and valuable.  As Jam starts to write in hers for the first time, she is transported to a world where Reeve is still alive, where they can spend a brief time together, and where they can relive their experiences with one another.  All of the students in the class are having this experience and together they decide to only write in the journals twice a week to make them last, because no one knows what happens to this strange world of the journal when the pages run out.  By the end of their experiences in the place they call Belzhar, Jam must face the truths of her loss and her grief.

Wolitzer has earned acclaim as the author of adult literary novels and her short works of fiction.  Those skills really show here as she turns what could have been a novel about teenage love and loss into a beautiful and compelling work of magical realism.  When I started the novel, I had not expected the journals to be anything more than paper, so that inclusion of a fantasy element thoroughly changed the novel for me.  It made it richer, more of an allegory, and lifted it to another level. 

Jam, the protagonist, is a girl who does not open up readily.  The book is told in her voice and yet readers will not know her thoroughly until the end of the book.  It is because of Wolitzer’s skill as a writer that readers may not even realize until the twist comes that the book has even more to reveal.  Jam is also not particularly likeable, and I appreciate that.  Instead she is lonely, prickly, eager to please and complex.  That is what makes the novel work.

This is a particularly deep and unique novel for teens that reveals itself slowly and wondrously on the page.  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from copy received from Dutton.

Review: Coral Reefs by Jason Chin

| Tasha

coral reefs

Coral Reefs by Jason Chin

Chin follows up the success of Redwoods with this equally fine read.  The nonfiction magical realism continues, this time exploring coral reefs.  A girl enters the New York Public Library and selects this same book from the shelves.  As she turns the pages, coral begins to grow around her on the tables and floor.  She learns new facts about coral reefs when suddenly the room is flooded.  She continues to read, happily floating with the fish and sea turtle of the reef.  The food chain is explored and sharks appear in the water.  Soon she is floating in the city, entirely flooded with the reef growing upon it, almost unrecognizable through the coral, blue water and the creatures.  The book ends with another group of children seeing the girl dripping outside the library, taking the book and reading it with her.  They all swim together into the coral reefs.

As a librarian, I always love books that are set in libraries and that speak, as this one does so clearly, to the power of shared reading and libraries in children’s lives.  Chin mixes nonfiction facts with his magical settings in ways that astonish and engage. 

The facts on each page work with the illustrations, which demonstrate the facts in picture form.  Chin’s art is lovely from the floating delight of the girl to the menacing sharks to the light that plays in the water. 

This is a book that invites you in and teaches you facts and information while you too are happily floating along.  Appropriate for ages 5-8.

Reviewed from copy received from Roaring Brook Press.

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Review: Lark by Tracey Porter

| Tasha

lark

Lark by Tracey Porter

Sixteen-year-old Lark is kidnapped, raped and left to die in a snowy woods.  The story is told in alternating chapters by Lark and two of her friends.  There is Eve, a girl who used to be Lark’s best friend until one argument destroyed their friendship.  Finally, there is Nyetta, who struggles with being able to see and hear the ghost of Lark.  She is tasked by Lark to save her from being bound into a tree.  Nyetta is put into therapy because of this.  While the book is certainly centered around the tragedy of Lark’s murder, it is also about the two living girls and their need to be believed, cherished and understood. 

Porter’s writing is art.  She has created a book that has only 192 pages, but is a book that also requires careful reading and has depth and darkness as well.  Her writing verges on verse at times, thanks to it being spare but also filled with images.  She plays with magical realism here, speaking definitely to the real-life issues but imbuing them also with a certain symbolism that reaches beyond the actual.  This lends a real depth to the story, creating a book that is worthy of discussion and thought.

The three lead characters are differentiated well, each a solid character with her own personality and problems.  One issue that is woven into the story is sexuality and molestation with two of the girls having experienced molestation or rape.  The book teases readers with reading too much into what the girls were wearing or what they looked like, but then firmly says that that is not why girls are molested or raped.  It is well written, clear and reassuring. 

This is a short book that is a deep read.   The darkness will appeal to some teen readers and the magical realism to others.  Appropriate for ages 15-17.

Reviewed from library copy.

Tall Story: A Magical Giant of a Book

| Tasha

tallstory

Tall Story by Candy Gourlay

Andi is a very petite 13 year old and has just found out that she won’t be able to play point guard on her school basketball team, because her family is moving.  The move from their small apartment to a larger home will hopefully allow her older brother, Bernardo, to join their family at last.   But there is no basketball team for girls at Andi’s new school and when her brother does arrive, he is a giant!  Bernado feels very guilty leaving the Philippines and his small village behind.  Over the years, he has become an almost folk hero for his village, where he is credited with stopping the daily earthquakes.  Now he and Andi have to figure out how to be siblings to one another, what family means, and how basketball plays into it all.  This is a funny, touching and heartwarming story that has a great depth to it as well.

The novel is written from both Bernardo’s and Andi’s points of view, allowing readers to relate to both protagonists.  This also underscores their different attitudes about family and their relationship with one another.  The book weaves magic into a realistic story in a way that will have readers convinced that there is magic at work, yet able to also think it may simply be coincidence.  It is very subtly crafted.

This book deals with deep subjects of culture, family and belonging.  At the same time, it remains upbeat and celebratory of our diversity.  This is a book that would work well as a classroom discussion thanks to its natural depth and its positive attitudes.  There is plenty here to discuss that is timely and relevant to any community.

Highly recommended, this is a book that will put a smile on your face and warm your heart.  Appropriate for ages 10-13.

Reviewed from copy received from Random House.

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Season of Secrets: Poignant, Magical and Lovely

| Tasha

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Season of Secrets by Sally Nicholls

Originally published in the UK in 2009, this is the second book from the award-winning author of Ways to Live Forever.

After Molly’s mother died, she was sent to live with her grandparents along with her sister Hannah.  Her father’s job didn’t allow him to take care of them, so they went there while he figured things out.  So she has a new home to get used to, plus a new school filled with new children.  Her sister Hannah is just plain angry about everything, even at school so the others think she is mean.  Molly though is the one having real problems making friends and while she may not be showing it aloud, she is not coping with the loss of her mother.  That’s why she is out on a stormy dark night and sees the man for the first time, being hunted by others on horseback and dogs.  Molly continues to secretly visit her man, who has the ability to make flowers bloom in his hand and to make trees grow.  Could this magical man be the key to bringing back her mother?

Nicholls uses a lovely light touch with her story that very nicely shows the journey of one girl through grief as contrasted with the way her sister is coping.   At the same time, there is a richness to the writing, especially when nature is being described and the seasons changing.  This beautiful lingering on details makes for a very compelling read.

Molly is a character that young readers will relate to easily.  Her broken heart is evident from the beginning as is her tumultuous relationship with her sister and her confusing situation with her father.  Hannah’s angry response to their situation is vivid and loud, making Molly’s pain that much more silent and stirring.  The girls’ grandparents are equally well written with differing responses to their grandchildren moving into their lives.

This is a book that celebrates nature, life and embraces the turning of the seasons and of lives.  It’s a beautiful read about grief for children with a cover that does the book proud.  Appropriate for ages 8-11.

Reviewed from ARC received from Scholastic.

 

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The Water Seeker

| Tasha

The Water Seeker by Kimberly Willis Holt

I am struggling with the summary of this book.  I could list all of the things that happen, but that doesn’t capture the wonder of this book, the tiny touches that make it so very special and the overlying theme of water and family that tie it all together.  I could talk about the special moments but at its heart this book is the story of a boy who becomes a man before our eyes and builds his own sort of family out of the people he loves.  It is the story of Amos, a boy who loses his mother the moment he is born, is loved by his father who cannot settle down and stay with him but makes sure he is cared for.  It is the story of a mother’s love that continues to guide, embodied in birds and reflections.  It is the story of the Oregon Trail, of homesteading, of hardship and pain.  It is the story of humanity captured in one boy’s life.  And I apologize that that is the best I can do for a summary, because it only grazes the top of this deep book.

I am amazed that Holt was able to put so much love, soul and power into a book that reads like an adventure story.  It is a book that can be enjoyed on different levels, but is wonderful to plunge into and be carried away by like a strong river current.  It is a book that celebrates all sorts of loves, doesn’t turn away from pain and loss, and shows how life continues after devastation meets us.  It is a story filled with strong women and men.  Men who are both physically strong but also emotionally there.  Women who shoulder the burden of entire families, survive horrific abuse, and continue to life and love. 

Holt has created great characters here who are a joy to spend time with.  Amos is a humble protagonist who grows into greatness.  He is complicated, a wonderful amalgam of all who cared for him in his life.  And yet at the same time he is simple and always himself.  Holt manages to do both in this boy.  And through it all runs a current of water.  Water as life.  Water as death. 

Get this book.  I am afraid I can’t capture it any more clearly, because my words don’t seem to be able to match the depth and power of this novel.  It is amazing, wondrous and special.  My Newbery pick so far. 

Appropriate for ages 12-15.

Reviewed from copy received from Henry Holt.