The editor's choices for the most memorable books reviewed in Notes from the Windowsill in 1995. Also check out our Current Picks.
November 1995, Volume 3, No. 11
The Boggart by Susan Cooper. 1993 (0-689-50576-0); Aladdin, 1995 (0-689-80173-4) $3.95 pb
When Emily and Jessup Volnik bring home souvenirs from the ancient Scottish castle their father inherited, they get more than they expected: sleeping inside Emily's rolltop desk is the Boggart, one of the Old Things, an invisible, immortal creature who has "haunted" Castle Keep for centuries. Now stuck in a modern home in Canada, the Boggart tries to do what it's always done: play tricks on the human inhabitants. By the time-honored rules, they'll learn to enjoy his pranks--sort of--and he'll become part of the family, "like a quirky but valued relative." But the modern world doesn't know how to deal with boggart practical jokes; although Emily and Jessup learn to appreciate him, their parents are much less thrilled by supernatural flying objects. When a psychiatrist--reacting to boggart games with "a fierce self-satisfaction"--insists that Emily is using psychokinesis to express rage, the problem becomes serious. For everyone's sake, the homesick Boggart included, they must get him back to Castle Keep--and when the Boggart retreats inside Jessup's computer, they just might have found a way.
Engaging, exhilarating, and deeply satisfying, this book will surely take its place among the classic children's fantasies. In the Boggart, Susan Cooper has created one of the great fantasy creatures of childrenŐs literature: "outside the rules" of normal life, inhuman but capable of affection, mischievous but not really evil, he is a superb personification of an egocentric free spirit, a single-minded child that never grows up.
What makes the Boggart marvelous instead of maddening is the sense of wonder he conveys for those who are willing to believe in him. That sense of wonder pervades The Boggart, especially when the Boggart begins to work his magic through modern technology, creating effects more spectacular than either force could accomplish alone. One of the charming things about the story is that it doesn't make enemies out of magic and technology; indeed, both are needed to send the Boggart safely home. The real enemy is a closed mind: the idea of rage-induced psychokinesis--"an explanation for boggart behavior invented by someone who didn't believe in boggarts," Emily realizes--threatens the Boggart's place in the world just as Emily is threatened with being sent to a mental institution.
Written with a mind open to the wonderful possibilities of old and new magic, The Boggart is an utterly joyous read. * (8 & up)
October 1995, Volume 3, No. 10
Remember Me by Margaret Wild. Illustrated by Dee Huxley. Margaret Hamilton Books, 1990; Albert Whitman, 1995 (0-8075-6934-8) $14.95
Ellie wants to take her grandmother out to the park and the shops and to watch the ships come in--but Grandma is afraid to go. If she leaves the house, will she remember where she lives? Where are her keys and her handbag? Where is the bus stop? Grandma is afraid she's beginning to forget everything--but when Ellie throws her arms around her and cries, "Oh, Grandma, please remember. Please, please, please remember me," she realizes that she still has many wonderful memories left, even if she does forget to bring in the milk and pay the bills. And one day soon, she'll tie "the biggest knot ever" in her hanky, and go with Ellie to watch the ships come in.
Narrated, unusually, from the grandmother's point of view, this touching story gives young readers a sense of how disorienting and frightening it is to lose one's memory, yet also offers the reassurance that their loved ones will always do their best to remember them. Although the book leaves out some of the probable hard consequences of Grandma's memory loss, the ending seems valiant and life-affirming rather than dishonestly cheerful. Huxley's sweet and funny watercolor illustrations beautifully express the two characters and the strength of their affection, portraying an exuberant but caring Ellie and a large, comfortable Grandma whose disability has not vanquished her underlying strength and courage. * (4 & up)
September 1995, Volume 3, No. 9
Teller of Tales by William J. Brooke. HarperCollins, 1994 (0-06-023399-0); HarperTrophy, 1995 (0-06-440511-7) $5.95 trade pb
"Valorian scratched his head. `It's not much of a fairy tale, is it? I mean, there's no magic in it. And it's a little like some stories I've heard before, but not enough to make it amusing.'"
It isn't hard to fracture a fairy tale; far harder is usefully mending it again. In this enchanting interweaving of stories and a story, the classic fairy tales take on new life for an old purpose--to express things that can't be said, to show things people try not to see.
The first story, "The Emperor's Clothes are News," a wryly comical tale even more ironical than the original, introduces Teller, a scribe dedicated to reporting what he hears, and the little girl, a defiantly independent homeless urchin. When Teller's reports about the emperor's clothes--or lack of them--cause havoc in the empire, the emperor orders him to "stay away from politics and current events. Perhaps something harmless like the old fairy tales would be best for you." And since Teller never learned fairy tales, the little girl is ordered to stay with him and tell them.
Still reporting what he hears, but now also listening to the voices inside his head, Teller reinterprets the stories--Rumpelstiltskin, Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks--to answer his own questions: "`Why would anyone make such a foolish boast?. . . And why would the little man want a human child? And why would he admit that she had guessed his name? She had no proof, so why not just deny it?'" But the stories are far more than answers to questions: they are his only way to talk to the little girl, so scarred and angry at life that she won't allow anyone to care about her. Only through his stories can Teller share with her his vision of who she is and who she might become, if she can break out of her shell of rage and mistrust and learn to listen to her own inner voices.
Reminiscent of Eleanor Farjeon's classic fairy tale-about-fairy tales, Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard, Teller of Tales is similarly satisfying in its use of echoes and allusions to enrich a very poignant story. Teller of Tales is lighter, funnier and takes a far more enlightened view of romance, but it is also a truly magical book. * (8 & up)
Shadow of a Hero by Peter Dickinson. Delacorte, 1994 (0-385-32110-4) $15.95
What price can you put on a history, a culture, a shared past? What do you do if its cost is measured in human lives? Those are some of the questions asked in this fascinating book, in which legends of the past cast their shadow on the present to tell a powerful, poignant story about the intangible but tenacious bonds of nationality.
"Anastrondaitu," ends a beloved Varinian poem about a bloody feud--meaning, "if only it had not been remembered." And yet, Letta's grandad tells her, "if there is nobody left in the world whom the single word `anastrondaitu' can pierce to the heart, than a great treasure will have become buried beyond human reach." The tiny country of Varina may be technically gone, divided between three neighboring countries, but in the safety of England, the descendent and namesake of the greatest Varianian hero keeps the land alive for his granddaughter through its languages, its songs and its legends about the great freedom fighter Restuar Vax. Especially the Legends, for as he tells her, "We Varinians are great storytellers, you know, but for us the story is far more important than the truth."
Then comes the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the Varinian people begin to dream about having their own country back again. And Letta is left with a terrible uncertainty, knowing that Varina is real and important, yet fearing the violence and destruction that fighting for a cause always seems to bring:
`Just now you said it wasn't worth it. Now you're sort of saying it is.'
`I don't know. I really don't know!'"
When her own family becomes part of the deadly struggle, Letta must decide how much should be sacrificed for the sake of Varina, and whether she herself is willing to become a part of the legends of her country.
Varina, of course, is an imaginary country. But through a superb narrative structure, Shadow of a Hero draws the reader into the resonances of its world, making us feel the force of the question for which the book can offer no simple answer. The narrative form is an alternating between the story of modern day Varina and retellings of the Varinian Legends as Letta read them, complete with historical footnotes; as the book progresses, both readings of these legends--ours and Letta's--become integral to the story. Through them we realize the importance of names: as Letta's grandfather tells her, "In the Legends all bishops are Bishop Pango, all heroes are Restuar or Lash the Golden, all enemies are Turks. . . The world is a simple place, in legends." He has reason to know, for his own name, Restuar Vax, carries a legacy of heroism in the minds of Varinians he has never been able to escape. Ultimately, Varina itself is nothing more than a name--and nothing less than one.
Through the Legends we also learn, with Letta, of both the beauty and horror in Varina's past, the "marvelous, bitter, deceitful past." We see how the heroes of the past used people for their own ends, how stories which seem glorious have ugliness lurking underneath--for "one of the functions of legend is to make the disgusting tolerable."
The power of Shadow of a Hero lies in the force it reveals in these contradictions. Is a country--a name--worth killing or dying for? Can truth be found in fiction? Are there some beautiful and worthwhile things that would be better forgotten? There are no answers to these questions that do not somehow contain a tragedy--and so, by the end of the book, the single word "anastrondaitu" will pierce us, too, to the heart. * (12 & up)
3 NBs of Julian Drew by James M. Deem. Houghton Mifflin, 1994 (0-395-69453-1) $14.95; Avon Fkare, 1996 (0-380-72587-8) $4.50 pb
"ABBREVs + NOs: 170V3them. THEY don't sound like words. THEY don't look like words. THEY sound + look like secret code. THEY don't scare me or my pen."
Four years ago, under great stress, Julian Drew chose to have "a mouth that could not produce many words," a mouth kept tightly closed to "stop words from falling out." Sometimes, though, the urge to communicate is stronger even than the urge for self-preservation, and so Julian turns to a notebook, struggling to let out the secrets he has learned to keep inside, using his own form of code to step around the words that hurt too much.
Writing to someone from his past he calls U, whom he desperately misses, Julian describes how the adults in his life, "43" and "543," abuse him--barely feeding him, constantly accusing him of wrongdoing, and keeping him locked away in a garage with no bathroom. Only his love for his little sister Emma keeps him from running away. Then he realizes that Emma is happy as she is, with no memories of the past that haunts him--and there is no longer anything to stop him from getting away, from trying to get back, so he can find U once more.
This fascinating, compelling novel well repays the initial effort of deciphering it. Julian's strange writing--not that difficult once you've gotten the hang of it--gives us the story in tantalizing bites, becoming more and more revealing as he slowly conquers his need to distort his own words. But the code is more than a gimmick to obfuscate the plot: it is doorway into a very troubled mind. From the start, there is an element of uncertainty as to whether Julian is genuinely being abused or is just psychotic; his mental measuring of cereal bowls every morning--"mine always has less. Sometimes a lot less, sometimes only a little"--sounds more like paranoia than child abuse. He himself recognizes the difficulty of making his problems seem important: "How can I do this? How can I write a (true) sentence that explains what it is like to be cheated and tortured with a small bowl of cereal and a glass of water?" I'm not sure that Julian--or the author--does quite succeed in explaining it; although the picture of neglect, indifference and active malice against Julian does becomes clear, he seems more disturbed than events alone really justify. Nonetheless, this is a brilliant portrait of a troubled person, and of the ways even a troubled person can find to help himself--perhaps the strongest part of the portrait is that despite everything, Julian is far from helpless. The ending is especially insightful, offering hope for Julian's survival without denying the damage that may never be healed. * (12 & up)
Owl in Love by Patrice Kindl. Houghton Mifflin, 1993; Puffin, 1994 (0-14-037129-X) $3.99 pb
Teenage alienation and infatuation have become such common themes in young adult novels that it's rare to find a treatment that can take them beyond cliche. This extraordinary novel sets the cliches on their ear, with a premise so bizarre and unexpected, it gives the same old problems a new freshness and immediacy.
Falling in love with a teacher is generally a hopeless passion, but for fourteen-year-old Owl, it is even more hopeless than usual. "Not only are we of different generations, but we do not even belong to the same species. . . The most that can be said for our common ground is that we are more like one another than we are like amoebas, sponges, snails, or earthworms. What odds, I wonder, would the ladies of Seventeen and Sassy give on a romance like that?" For Owl is an owl by nature as well as by name: she is a shape-shifter, a "wereowl," who attends high school by day and hunts mice by night. Nothing could be less likely for her than marriage to her science teacher, Mr. Lindstrom--but since it is in an owl's nature "to give my love once and only once in a lifetime," somehow a way must be found.
What Owl does not expect is that her quest will lead her to form relationships with other people for the first time. She has always been the weird one at school, the perpetual outsider. Can a girl like her actually become someone's friend?
By turns haunting and hilarious, Owl in Love is a sheer delight. The premise, firmly established at the start, rarely falters: we accept not only that Owl is a wereowl, but that it is right and appropriate for her to be one--the only concern is that she gets what she needs to be happy, both in human form and in owl form. This is a rare and satisfying message in a book about someone so very different from her peers; unlike most outsiders, Owl does not need to change her essential self to win friendship and love.
But what really sets Owl in Love apart is neither its premise nor its message. Owl's rich, formal, Victorian narrative is the perfect voice for the story, making its stranger, darker elements believable, yet also finding the great potential for humor in her situation. Occasional departures from Owl's voice are less successful, and the smoothness of the narrative starts to break down towards the end of the story, when Owl is essentially too confused to carry it. But those are minor flaws in an otherwise superb novel. * (12 & up)
February 1995, Volume 3, No. 2
Thwonk by Joan Bauer. Delacorte, 1995 (0-385-32092-2) $14.95
It's always difficult for a writer to follow their first big success: perhaps that's why Joan Bauer's second young adult novel doesn't have quite the effortless magic of her first, the wise and wonderful Squashed. But it suffers mainly in comparison: taken on its own, it is a sparklingly funny, irresistibly narrated story, a far-out fantasy with a believable humanity.
"Thwonk" is the sound a cupid's arrow makes when it hits its target. Not a sound anyone would normally expect to be familiar with, but A.J. McCreary comes to know it well, when she finds herself blessed with what appears to be a tiny guardian cupid right before Valentine's Day. Despite the traditional calling of cupids, this one--named Jonathan--seems more interested in helping A.J. develop her skills as a photographer than in improving her utterly pathetic love life. But when Jonathan reluctantly admits that A.J. gets to choose whether to be helped artistically, academically or romantically, A.J. insists that all she wants is for gorgeous hunk Peter Terris to fall in love with her. And with the one little "Thwonk," A.J. gets the most ardently devoted boyfriend in the world. Is it any real surprise that he is also soon the most utterly maddening?
Just in terms of writing, Thwonk is marvelous, scattered with brilliant juxtapositions of words and throw-away gags that are laugh-out-loud funny. And there is more to it than humor: it is also, like Squashed, a terrific depiction of what it means to care deeply about something, to be utterly committed to a form of self-expression--another wonderful portrait of the artist as a young girl. If Thwonk fails to be completely satisfying, it's in a lack of subtlety: the inevitable outcome of A.J.'s wish and the intended lesson are just too obvious, and there are too many characters doing their best to get the moral across.
Thwonk also suffers from a certain narrowness of vision in its narration--also a flaw in Squashed, yet leavened by the overall warmth of that book. Bauer's narrators seem to rigidly divide people into "us" and "them"; an unspoken part of the lesson A.J. learns is that Peter Terris was really a "them" all along. Bauer's "beautiful people" characters are given no humanity, existing only to be sneered at by the people who feel less beautiful; this is terribly at odds with the generosity of spirit the books otherwise display. Perhaps it wouldn't be believable for a teenage narrator to be tolerant and understanding about the "popular crowd" but I like Bauer's heroines so much, I want them to be nicer people--and I think she's talented enough to pull it off. Maybe in the next book, which I look forward to eagerly. * (12 & up)
Winter Poems selected by Barbara Rogasky. Illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. Scholastic, 1994 (0-590-42872-1) $15.95
Winter has become so much a time of holidays that its character as a season is rather neglected. This exquisite anthology of poems deliberately excludes any mention of holidays to concentrate on what winter feels like: when "winter dark comes early mixing afternoon and night," when "the wind howls, hisses, and but stops to howl more loud," when there is "no cloud above, no earth below--a universe of sky and snow!" Even the less traditional pleasures of the west coast winter are here: "This rain is slow, without thunder or hurry: There is plenty of time--there will be months of rain."
Almost free from doggerel, and from the moth-eaten air so many anthologies for children have (from using the same poems all the other anthologies have already used), Winter Poems is a fresh and exciting collection, filled with evocative imagery and diverse, stirring voices. Hyman's beautifully colored paintings match the poems in evocative power, somehow both crisp and soft. The always difficult design question of how to link poems and illustration is approached here in an unusual and very striking way: each poem and accompanying illustration is "framed" by a background picture of a country landscape--always the same place, yet changing with each open page to show the progression of winter, from that first "something" in the air that tells the wild geese to fly, to the "whiff on the wind" that is the first cry of spring. (A more subtle continuity is explained in Rogasky's introduction: the places and people that reappear throughout the illustrations are Hyman's own home and family--including Rogasky herself, starring as "greasy Joan.") A simply beautiful book for homes or classrooms. (6 & up/8 & up) *
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