The Classics: A Wrinkle In Time

Today I finished reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. I’ve read it countless times since my first reading when I was around ten years old. Like any great book worth rereading until your childhood copy falls apart and you have to buy a new one, I learn something different with each reading.

This time I really noticed Meg having to grow up in the truest sense. It’s when she realizes that her parents don’t have all the answers and can’t make everything right again. In her quest to find her father, Meg is certain that in finding him, he will be able to solve her problems both on Camazotz and on Earth.

“Despair settled like a stone in the pit of Meg’s stomach. She had been so certain that the moment she found her father everything would be alright. Everything would be settled. All the problems would be taken out of her hands. She would no longer be responsible for anything.”

When faced with life-changing decisions, I think we all have some small part of us that longs for the day when the big decisions were handled by someone else. If we don’t have to make our own decisions, we won’t have to be responsible for those decisions. And if things don’t work out, it’s always easier to have someone besides yourself to blame.

But the tragedy of Camazotz is that no one makes their own decisions. Which makes everyone exactly like everyone else. And as Meg shouted while resisting IT, like and equal are not the same thing.

And the Newbery Goes To...

I've had a goal that I've slowly been working toward for years--read all of the Newbery Award winning books. I have a handful of older ones that look dreadfully boring to me left to read. The best part about the goal is reading the newest winner each year.

This year I actually read the book before it won the Newbery, so I'm ahead in that respect. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead was a very touching book and I'd recommend it even if it hadn't won the Newbery.

Read more about this year's winners here.

Review: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“I draw because words are too unpredictable. I draw because words are too limited. If you speak and write in English, or Spanish, or Chinese, or any other language, then only a certain percentage of human beings will get your meaning. But when you draw a picture, everybody can understand it. If I draw a cartoon of a flower, then every man, woman, and child in the world can look at it and say, ‘That’s a flower.’” -Arnold "Junior" Spirit

I’ve been trying to read new authors lately. I started two books and was so disappointed in them, that I stopped reading partway through. And then my wonderful neighbor recommended a book that I’d been meaning to read.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is the story of an awkward teenage Indian boy who defies convention to attend a high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Junior is an aspiring cartoonist and tells his story with honesty and humor.

I loved both the story and the writing. I could have chosen any page at random and found at least a few quotable lines. Here’s a sample of one of Junior’s descriptions:

“It seemed like he was seven feet tall and three hundred pounds. He was a farm boy who carried squealing pigs around like they were already thin slices of bacon.”

I could write pages and pages about how much I enjoyed this book. But for the sake of brevity, I’ll just paraphrase my neighbor’s thoughts on the book: I’d recommend it to anyone and everyone. It’s a quick read—so go out and read it.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
By Sherman Alexie
Little, Brown 2009 Paperback Edition
$8.99

Book Review: Goose Girl and Shannon Hale

“If we don’t tell strange stories, when something strange happens we won’t believe it.” from The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

After hearing about how much some of my friends loved Shannon Hale, I finally checked out some of her books. While browsing what she had to offer, I was first drawn to Book of a Thousand Days because of the title and the cover:

I loved it. It was a bit grittier than most fairy tales, but it still had the fairy tale ending. I loved the heroine, Dashti. She kept surprising me with her courage and her growth throughout her story. As soon as I finished the book, I wanted to pick it up and read it again.

Riding on this high note, I checked out Princess Academy. I had never read it despite its Newbery Honor sticker because of the title. I grew up reading fairy tales, but the recent wave of everything pink and princessy has really turned me off to the word “princess.” (I shudder to think of the princess presents my daughter might ask for one day.) I’m sorry to say, I only got about a third of the way through Princess Academy before other books interested me more.

But I wanted to give Shannon Hale one more chance, so I checked out the book that seemed synonymous with her name: The Goose Girl.

I definitely enjoyed The Goose Girl enough to finish it. I only had a couple of criticisms: Even though it was based on a fairy tale I didn’t know, it was a bit predictable at times. But then, aren’t all fairy tales a bit predictable? And I felt that the ending was a little too neatly tied up with a bow. You always know that the heroine will triumph in the end, but Shannon Hale often finds a solution that’s a little too convenient for my taste.

In retrospect I realized that Book of a Thousand Days also had a convenient solution that resolved all the heroine’s problems, but maybe it was easier accept that with a heroine I admired a bit more—I was willing to suspend my disbelief more for Dashti because I wanted so much for her to find happiness (having had more hardship).

When looking to read The Goose Girl, can you guess which cover I sought out?

I know the newer covers of Shannon Hale's books are meant to go together as a set and to attract a certain readership. But I also think that it could potentially deter readers like me.

In the end, I do recommend Shannon Hale as an author. She reminded me a bit of Robin McKinley, whose books I adored as an adolescent and still return to again and again as an adult (incidentally, she won a Newbery Honor for The Blue Sword and a Newbery Award for The Hero and the Crown). Shannon Hale is the master of fairy tale retelling for a new generation. I love that she has introduced me to fairy tales I never knew, but I am still wary of the spin offs from The Goose Girl. I think I will return to read more of her books eventually (I must have missed something with Princess Academy because it got so many great reviews and a pat on the back from the Newbery people), but I need a book or two with a little more literary meat on its bones first.

Book of a Thousand Days
by Shannon Hale
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2007
$8.99

Princess Academy
by Shannon Hale
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2007
$7.95

The Goose Girl
by Shannon Hale
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2003
$8.95