Review: Everything is Fine

Actually, everything is anything but fine in Mazzy's world as she struggles single-handedly to take care of her mother who is in deep depression. I love the style and organization of this book. It is written in short, terse segments that are more like staccato rat-a-tat-tats than paragraphs. In each one of these titled segments, Mazzy's story unfurls in bursts of understanding and we are gradually enlightened to the details of her story.

Mazzy creates a series of coping strategies that manage, for most of the book, to keep the world at bay, including her father and well intentioned neighbors. It's clear from the beginning that Mazzy's mother is practically catatonic in her depression as Mazzy talks to her, cares for her, and pretends that Mom is just a little tired. Considering that Mazzy is a young teen and obviously coping alone with issues beyond her age to understand and control is probably more understandable than at first glance. She does an excellent job of keeping people at bay, out of her house, and away from her mom.

Everything is Fine by Ann Dee Ellis is a page-turning, heart-breaking story about a family tragedy, how the family processes and copes with that tragedy, and tries to find their way back to each other and a shared future. You can't help but love and root for Mazzy. This is a girl with determination and grit. Mazzy is revealed to us in the short riffs of prose as she becomes revealed to herself. It's a marvelous story and I highly recommend it.

Review: Piper Reed Navy Brat

Like the author of Piper Reed Navy Brat, Kimberly Willis Holt, I too was born into a Navy family in Pensacola Florida, or Pepsi-Cola as Piper's younger sister Sam calls it. My dad was a Navy pilot for 20 years, so I experienced what Piper experiences in the book. The Navy tries to move families at the end of the school year. But sometimes, it doesn't work out that way and you move in the middle of a school year. That is the hardest.

Piper loves being in a Navy family. She calls her dad "Chief" which is his official rank and she has a wonderful sense of adventure that serves her well as she leaves good friends behind in California to move to Florida. Piper endures days and days in the car with her family as they drive across the country. The stories of who gets to sit where, for how long, and how they entertain themselves in the car is very familiar territory to me. One thing about moving a lot is that you grow very dependent on your family for company and entertainment. Piper's family is very much like my family was - so the story is true to life. The way the author portrays Piper's anxiety about making friends in a new place will be familiar to anyone who has moved to a new city.

Piper discovers that one of the best things about moving to Pensacola is that it is the home of the Blue Angels, the highly-trained acrobatic flying team who are goodwill ambassadors for the Navy. I often saw the Blue Angels perform on special occasions at air shows on Navy bases across the country as I was growing up. They are thrilling to watch. When Piper's class goes on a field trip to see the Blue Angels, she gets to meet the pilots - one of whom is a woman. Now that's a lot different than when I grew up. There were women who flew planes, but not in the Navy.

I completely understand Piper's desire to become a Blue Angel. Thank heavens, times have changed so that a nine-year-old girl has just as good a chance to become a Blue Angel as a nine-year-old boy. Christine Davenier's pen and ink illustrations perfectly capture Piper's personality in this chapter book.

This story was a great trip down memory lane for me as it would be for anyone who lives in a Navy, Army, Air Force or Marine family. It's a different kind of life than most people have, but it is an interesting life.

Fancy Nancy and Tiara Day

You know, sometimes you just have to call it a tiara day. There is something about wearing a tiara that lifts your spirits and sends you out into life with an entirely new attitude. I have several tiaras in my collection, but the silver one with the pink boa trim is my favorite.

Nancy, in Fancy Nancy written by Jane O'Connor and illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser, is just the sort of girl who internalizes the tiara philosophy of life. From the tip of her tiara to the toes of her pink high heels she is the epitome of "fancy" and makes it her mission to transform her family from plain to fancy. Obviously good sports and full of playful indulgence to their fancy daughter, they dress up to the nines and descend upon the local diner in full regalia. Glasser's illustrations are fabulous and carry the story well, but the one that will make you laugh out loud is turning the page to see Nancy and her family burst through the door of "The King's Crown" with sunglasses, feathers, tiaras, canes, ruffles, bows, fans and attitude firmly in place. Of course they are greeted with gasps from the assembled diners "who probably think we're movie stars". It is a terrific moment with a priceless illustration.

The ensuing adventure is a bit predictable for adults, but still very fun because of our heroine and her wonderful family. This family has such a great sense of play, you really want to be IN her family.Dress up girls of all ages will love this book. ISBN 978-0-06-054209, Harper Collins.

Salute a banned book: The Higher Power of Lucky

It seems such a silly thing to me to ban books for children. Any one who knows kids will tell you that to forbid something makes it that much more enticing. Even if they weren't initially interested, telling them not to do something almost always ensures that they will. Which is okay with me because kids are supposed to test their limits and boundaries. That's how they learn to be adults who understand action and consequence.

When The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron won the 2007 Newberry Medal this year, it set off an amazing brouhaha that did not put school librarians in a very good light. Schools are fighting for resources, fighting for relevance, fighting for change - and the last thing they want to do is fight with parents who are up in arms about "bad" language. So, some school librarians preemptively struck the title from their lists. Now the fact that most public and school libraries make it a point to have multiple copies of the entire list of Newberry and Caldecott award titles made this news. What makes it sad is that the wonderful story of a plucky girl who takes charge of her history, her pain, and her future took a backseat to ONE vocabulary word which happens to be the last word of the second paragraph on page one. I'm sure that many people never read beyond the second paragraph. That the name of a body part (which we do teach in school, by the way) could be the catalyst for such nonsense - particularly in light of what kids can see on network TV any day of the week - was surprising.

After months of media attention, the controversy settled down and many school libraries quietly added the title to their collections. Like many other wonderful titles on the banned books list (check out the American Library Association), the issue will be resurrected annually at the beginning of the school year.

Some things to consider:

• Author Susan Patron has spent her career as a children's librarian in the Los Angeles County Public Library so one would expect that she spends a lot of time with kids.
• Could the author have chosen a different word? Probably, but word choice is clearly in the realm of the author's creative imagination and process. And we have to assume that she crafted her story with care and chose her words intentionally.
• In a culture where "family" is continually being redefined, isn't it our responsibility to create mirrors for our children that illustrate and illuminate these various iterations of family so that more children can see themselves?
• Isn't that one of the primary roles of fiction?
• How revealing is it that knee-jerk reactions to a single word in a children's book tell us so much more about where our attention is as opposed to where it could be - like poverty and lack of basic healthcare for America's children.

In the end, like most of the banned books list, The Higher Power of Lucky is a terrific story, well-written and engaging for kids. It's a contemporary treatment of an age-old yearning to belong. And why people find that objectionable in any way is beyond me. So what was the "word" that provoked all the controversy? Well, you'll just need to read the book to find out. ISBN 978-1-4169-0194-5

For another perspective of this title check out this posting at the Miss Rumphius Effect.