Michelle Reviews: The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman

Delia Sherman’s The Freedom Maze is a high middle grade speculative fiction novel that is simply fantastic. Basically, this novel tells the story of a privileged young white girl in 1960 Louisiana who is transported to 1860 where her ancestors mistake her for a slave. I sometimes make blanket statements about my reading habits, such as “I don’t really like sci-fi.” And then a totally awesome book comes along and welcomes me into the genre. Apparently, I need more speculative fiction in my life. I haven’t read very far into this subgenre, but when you have books like this one as well as Octavia Butler’s Kindred or Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go leading you in it is hard to resist. I so value works that pull me out of my typical reading zone. 

Sophie is thirteen years old in 1960 when she is pulled away from her home in New Orleans after the divorce of her parents. With her father in New York City with his new wife and her mother in school, Sophie is brought to spend the summer with her maiden aunt and bedridden grandmother on their sprawling estate. Sophie is not the idea of the genteel southern lady that her mother and grandmother believe she should be. She is almost constantly chastised for spending too much time in the sun. Being outdoors, climbing trees, and reading fairy tales are not proper activities for a young lady, but Sophie cannot resist the lure of the maze that runs through her grandmother’s back yard. Once she reaches the center of the maze a mysterious creature greets her, she makes a hasty wish for adventure, and finds herself in the year 1860 back when her family’s estate was a thriving plantation. Upon seeing her deeply tanned skin, curly hair, and disorderly clothing her ancestors assume she is a slave sent from a neighboring plantation.

Sophie’s reaction to being labelled “colored” is immediately met with more question than fear. “In 1960 white people were white people and colored people were colored and nobody had any trouble telling them apart.” The beauty of Sherman’s novel lies in this sentiment. The Freedom Maze is a novel about the complexity of heritage and race. And it is written on a middle grade level. What Sherman has done here is amazing. Writing about Sophie and her family in 1960 she creates an atmosphere of subtle and even casual racism (that will be familiar to today’s readers because it still very much exists). Then she has that juxtaposed brilliantly against the utter cruelty of Sophie’s family in 1860 and the new family that creates itself around her.

Growing up in a racist white household in the 1960s was rather idyllic. One could revel in the Old South while drinking sweet tea and reading Gone with the Wind. Sophie didn’t worry about the plight of “colored” people. She never had to; she never had to confront her assumptions about the lives of those different from her or her own privilege. Spending six months in 1860 exposes Sophie not only to the realities of racism in the slavery era south but to those that have lingered on 100 years later into her own time. Living among the slaves, seeing the truth of their lives, the depths of their feeling, and all the ways in which she absolutely related to them exposed her for the first time to just how similar she was not just to these individuals of a different race but even of a different time. The revelations about the truth of her heritage (not to divulge too many plots points, but Sophie’s dark skin and curly hair stem from somewhere) and her modern family’s willful blindness awaken in Sophie both a coming of age and a coming to compassion.

The Freedom Maze is a deeply layered and complex story, and it reads so easily and hits perfectly at the level for its intended audience. I am frankly amazed by Sherman’s abilities and cannot wait to read more of her work. I strongly urge you to read this important and wonderful book and share it with your kids/students/friends/the neighbors’ kids. Kids notice race, they notice difference, and they notice what is ‘other.’ It is so important for them to see stories that unite us in a common history that admits we are flawed but we are human and we are equal. We are the same in our difference.

Michelle Reviews: The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson

When I received a copy of Laurie Halse Anderson’s newest novel, The Impossible Knife of Memory, I also received a letter from her about just how personal this novel was. A new novel by Anderson will always be cause for excitement but reading this letter raised my anticipation of TIKOM to eleven. The novel is about a young girl dealing with the fallout of her father’s sufferings with PTSD, and, as Anderson explains, she suffered in the same way. The horrors her father witnessed at Dachua have haunted him and the rest of their family since 1945. In her letter Anderson writes “while this book is in many ways more personal for me, I believe it is universal in that it is for anyone who had to grow up too fast, or who found the adult world utterly baffling.”

Our narrator, Hayley Kincaid, opens the novel by showing us exactly how disconnected she is from her world. She is in detention (reading Slaughterhouse-Five, probably the most famous book about PTSD) and railing against everything. Life, authority, all of it. She has created for herself a black and white world of freaks and zombies; freaks are the dangerous ones who feel life and thus sadness. Zombies turn off feeling to fit in…to be happy. Here’s the thing about Laurie Halse Anderson…this part of the novel that doesn’t really seem integral to the plot explains so much about Hayley and teenagers as a whole and turns out to be the major message of the novel. Hayley, like all the sad, lonely kids, has created a dichotomy that she can understand. She can’t be happy because she won’t be plastic (to appropriate a term from Mean Girls); she won’t be zombiefied. It takes the bulk of the novel for the real lesson to sink in; we all have problems and it takes sticking together to work through them. There are no freaks and there are no zombies; we’re all just pitiful, pitiable humans.

Hayley has established herself as a hardened individual, but we quickly see just how afraid she is. The consequences of Hayley’s father’s PTSD (everything from substance abuse, impulsive anger, deep depression, and on) have been affecting her since the death of her grandmother (Hayley’s mother died when she was young. Her life is a tumult of loses). As Hayley nears her high school graduation the disruptive manner of their life together comes to a head.

The novel focuses on Hayley and her father, but it is a novel about letting people in and Anderson has peopled with characters capable of giving love to Hayley and those who need her love as well. She watches as the perfect life of Gracie, her only friend, falls apart. She sees the effects of substance abuse on the family of Finn and new friend and possible love interest. She witnesses the return of her stepmother. At first Hayley refuses to acknowledge the pain of the people in her life. Not through any selfish means but by lack of understanding. Their pain is their own fault, or something they can control or ignore. The pain Hayley’s father (and in turn Hayley) carries around cannot be ignored. He carries the pain of everyone who died in combat. When Hayley opens herself up to the depth of the pain in the lives of others she can finally let them in.

At the end of the novel after Hayley and her father have danced with death, she is able to look at Finn and see the possibilities of life. Of creating something new instead of living in constant fear of the past. The novel ends with Finn telling Hayley, “when we get scared or lonely or confused, we’ll pull out these memories and wrap them around us and they’ll make us feel safe … and strong.” Finally, Hayley is able to create new memories that allow her to grow.

The Impossible Knife of Memory is a sad novel but it is full of the hope that we can place in each other. Like Anderson’s groundbreaking Speak, TIKOM tells a story that we don’t really want to hear. It tells a story that we need to hear. And Anderson tells it wonderfully.  

Year in Review

Another year has passed and what a crazy year it was. Things at the store are great. I just bought a house. Everything is going well; though it does seem that the busier I am and the better life is the number of books finished slides downward. This year I read seventy-one books and managed to write about forty-one of them. Not too bad!

I just wanted to share a few of my “greatest hits” in a couple different categories.

Best All Around:

The Interestings - Meg Wolitzer

The Secret History - Donna Tartt

The Black Count - Tom Reiss

The General in His Labyrinth - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Best New Release (I did not read many new books this year):

The Interestings - Meg Wolitzer

The True Blue Scouts of the Sugar Man Swamp by Kathi Appelt

Mouse Bird Snake Wolf by David Almond

The Twistrose Key by Tone Almhjell

Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan

Best Middle Grade/YA:

The True Blue Scouts of the Sugar Man Swamp by Kathi Appelt

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

The Twistrose Key by Tone Almhjell

Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan

Mistakes Were Made (Timmy Failure Book 1) by Stephan Pastis

 Best World Book Night:

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

City of Thieves by David Benioff

My Antonia by Willa Cather

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

Omar: Why I Want to Give Same Difference

This is my first time participating in World Book Night. As an avid proponent of comic books and graphic novels, Derek Kirk Kim’s Same Difference was an obvious choice for me. Graphic novels are largely still fighting to be considered as a valid story-telling medium. I truly believe in the importance of graphic novels, and how they can help people learn to love to read.

When I was a child, I didn’t care much for reading.  It wasn’t until a friend introduced me to the X-Men comic books that I realized reading could be fun. At that point, I started reading every X-Men comic I could get my hands on (which, at the time, wasn’t many). My mother worked right next to a library, so I ventured in one day and found some X-Men novels. By the end of the first book, I was hooked. Not just on X-Men, but on reading. It was like watching an entire movie, but in your head!

As I grew up, I read comics less and less. But my love of reading never changed. I spent most of my middle school and high school years reading. It wasn’t until after high school that I returned to comic books and rediscovered my love for the medium. There were some amazing characters fighting against all odds to save the people they cared about. But there were also non-superhero books. There were books like Sandman, a magical journey through the realms of dreams. And Y the Last Man, a book about the last male in a female-dominated world.  There were so many wonderful, awe-inspiring stories being told in the comic book/graphic novel medium.

Graphic novels are still fighting to earn the respect they deserve. Many people view graphic novels as less than traditional novels. Many refuse to accept them as a valid medium, claiming they’re just for kids (a false generalization). I’ve even heard people say that children who read comic books and graphic novels never learn how to use their imagination, and therefore never enjoy reading books. To all the naysayers, I say: try reading a few, truly outstanding graphic novels before you judge them. I came to love reading via comic books, and I doubt anyone who knows me would claim my imagination doesn’t work.

I would like to give out copies of Derek Kirk Kim’s Same Difference to show people that comic books and graphic novels are not just superheroes. Graphic novels are as varied as traditional novels; there’s something for everyone. All it takes is one great graphic novel and one person passionate about the medium to change the world’s minds. Same Difference could be that novel for many people. And I would like to be that person. Graphic novels deserve respect.

Victoria: Why I Want to Give The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I want to give out The Perks of Being a Wallflower for World Book Night 2014 because it meant something to me, and I would like the opportunity to give light or non-readers a book that will hopefully mean something to them as well.  Books are usually valued as entertainment, but I think they are often undervalued for the impact they can have on their readers’ lives.  So many people don’t read because they simply don’t enjoy it, and I am of the opinion that those people just haven’t found the right book yet.  I think everyone needs to have at least one book change their life, and I believe that The Perks of Being a Wallflower has the potential to be that book for quite a few people.  I plan to give my books out at LSU to people who either don’t have a love for reading or who have lost it in the slog of classes and homework assignments.  A book like Perks is short, intriguing, and simple, and I think it has an excellent chance of being that spark to get even the busiest students back to reading.  


I want to help encourage people to not only read in general, but to open themselves up to letting books change and influence them in ways they might not even realize are possible.  Reading a book and feeling it affect you is a powerful thing that I think everyone should experience, and I want to help bring this experience to others.  Perks is a powerful book, as anyone who has read it will likely attest.  It holds themes, ideas, and experiences that just about anyone can relate to and understand, which makes it an excellent book to give out to people who don’t really read much or at all.  It is also recognizable, since the movie was released about a year ago.  People might be more inclined to give the book a chance if they have heard of it or enjoyed the film.  The main goal is to get people to read the book we give them, since even one book is better than none.  The larger goal is to get people reading more books in general, through the one book we give them for WBN.  We want to help them realize that reading can be an enjoyable and even moving experience if they’d only give it a chance, and I think The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a book that has a chance of meeting both of those goals.


Victoria previously wrote about Perks here.

Michelle: Why I want to give Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

I spent quite a while trying to decide what book I wanted to distribute on World Book Night next year. Of the three I had read none really worked with the place I wanted to hand out books (I’ll be at Women Outreaching Women, a women's shelter here in Denham). I wasn’t particularly feeling the book I was reading last week so I started flipping through a few of the World Book Night picks…a few pages in I knew I wanted to give out copies of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. Just that reference to the nature of life in the title was enough for me to know that this was the book for the women I will be talking to on April 23^rd.

Jamie Ford has created a deceptively simple story of first loves, family obligations, betrayal, and loyalty. You never feel bombarded with the sadness or sentimentality of the novel. It is a perfect balance of feeling, truth, and history. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is the story of Henry Lee at two distinct times in his life; when he first fell in love just prior to the Japanese internment of the 1940s and forty years later upon the death of his wife. Henry’s story is about what we want and need out of life and each other. It is about the power of relationships.

Then there is the history. Ford did a wonderful job telling the story of the camps, and he does so without soapboxing. This is an important part of American history that is for the most part glossed over. Ford shines a light on it revealing the fear of the time for exactly what it is.

I am so excited to have the opportunity to distribute copies of this book on World Book Night. It is a well told story with characters that the reader can grab on to. I can see it converting quite a few readers and definitely fulfilling the goal of World Book Night.

Reading Group Selections - December 2013

The best books for reading groups are the ones that foster discussions - whether your book club members are boisterous or more subdued, talking about books is what those meetings are all about! Picking just the right book is always a thrill; love it or hate it - book club books are the ones that stand out.
 
Here are a few recent paperback releases that would lead to great discussions in any book club!

Undressing Mr. Darcy by Karen Doornebos

American social media master Vanessa Roberts lives her thoroughly modern life with aplomb. Until she sees Julian Chancellor, a very private man from England who's written a book called My Year as Mr. Darcy, take his tight breeches off for an educational striptease to promote his book.

City of Lost Dreams by Magnus Flyte

Sara and Nicolas search for an alchemical cure for a gravely ill friend threatened by an old enemy and a bloodthirsty horseman, while Prince Max tries to explain the strange reappearance of a saint while outmaneuvering a scheming historian.

Morning Glory by Sarah Jio

Jio's fifth novel, following The Last Camellia, explores the degree to which time and distance give comfort to those who have experienced loss.

Once We Were Brothers by Ronald H. Balson

Two boys —one Jewish and one a budding Nazi —meet 60 years later, launching a story that will not let readers go until the last page, long after they discover what occurred in Poland all those years ago.

In Violet's Wake by Robert Devereaux-Nelson

Violet's four ex-husbands band together to track down her high-school sweetheart to find out what the one who got away has —that they don't.