Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

On the one hand, this is the LAST TIME I’ll have to potty train.  On the other hand, I washed out this week’s fourth pair of stinky panties today.

We’ve come to the last published Baby-Sitters Club graphic novel, which means there would shortly be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth from my older girls–except that I just saw on Amazon that a sixth book is due out this August.  (Insert chorus of relieved 8- and 11-year-old sighs.)  Dawn and the Impossible Three was written by Gale Galligan, by the way; from what I’ve read, she’s been an associate of Raina Telgemeier’s, and she did an excellent job picking up where she left off.  (True, I prefer Telgemeier’s art, but it didn’t take me long to get used to Galligan’s, and I didn’t feel any lack in the story.)  We see Dawn grappling with a babysitting dilemma that culminates in a missing child; it turns out to have been a non-custodial parent angry because of the custodial parent’s failure to keep to the agreed-on schedule, which makes it serious but not more traumatic than the target audience’s parents might want them handling in fiction.  Other changes are affecting some of the club members; overall, it’s a nice little story about growing up and learning to compromise and communicate concerns clearly.  If you were or are a fan, be assured that the change in authors is no reason to drop the series–it remains worthwhile fare for elementary and middle schoolers, as well as nostalgic fun for people like me.

Now to hand the one library copy off to both of my girls without generating conflict… 

I finished Jason Reynolds’ Long Way Down on the last day of February, just in time to count it for the Goodreads challenge my library system does; February’s challenge was to read a book by an African-American author, and since the Newberys were announced at the beginning of February, Long Way Down seemed like a perfect fit.  (I just had to finish my other book first.)  I was honestly impressed by it, especially the ending; I was expecting something a little more–fable-y?  Instead, well–let’s just say it packed a powerful punch, but in an unexpected way.

Still, I was conflicted (which is why I’ve been putting off this review).  The Newberys are awarded to the authors of the most distinguished contributions to American literature for children.  Not only is Long Way Down designated as YF at our library, it has a derivative of the f-word not 25 pages in.  (A lesser expletive shows up on page 65.)  And then there’s the plot–Will’s brother is shot, Will takes his brother’s gun to follow the neighborhood ‘rules’ and avenge his death, and then Will gets into his building’s elevator to head down towards his mission.  Only for each floor he passes, someone connected to him shows up.  Someone dead.

Someone killed by a gun.

It’s an impressive idea to begin with, and Reynolds executes it just about perfectly.  Will’s voice, his anguish, his turmoil–they all feel desperately real.  I was sucked in from the get-go and (metaphorically) holding my breath for the ending.  When I actually GOT there, I was in shock for a minute or two, but–how perfect!  The idealist in me wanted more resolution, but the writer in me recognized that Reynolds’ ending was better than anything I could have imagined.  All in all, it’s a pretty amazing book; it certainly deserves awards.

Those awards, however, are–again–why I’m conflicted.  Can a book truly be both a Printz Honor book AND a Newbery Honor book?  Or, since it appears that it can be, should it be?  I recognize that we live in a world where children have to deal with the realities of gun violence, where Long Way Down may feel more relevant than most of the books my own children read, but is that enough of a reason to consider it literature for children?  At least three different organizations honored it specifically as a YA title, and Amazon lists it as a book for teens.  Ultimately, I fail to see how anyone can argue that it was written for children, that children are its actual target audience.  Jason Reynolds wrote an amazing book, and I’m seriously glad it won most of the awards it did.  As for this past year’s Newbery Committee–really, folks?

Really?

If you were designing a 2,000 piece map-of-the-world jigsaw puzzle–complete with, you know, ALL THE OCEANS–wouldn’t you go with the ever-popular brownish-gray color for the back of the pieces, instead of an impressively watery shade of blue?

Just sayin’.

I just finished reading Zita the Spacegirl in order to see if my girls would like it; they both love graphic novels, but it remains to be seen whether it will be too easy for my oldest and too sci-fi for my 8-year-old.  It’s certainly simpler than anything by Raina Telgemeier or Victoria Jamieson, but it’s still a nice story;  Zita accidentally gets her friend kidnapped by aliens and follows him in order to find him and bring him home, attracting a motley group of friends on the way.  There are some very traditional plot points here–the con man who comes through at the end comes to mind most immediately–but it’s short, sweet, and solid in the ways that count the most.  (I would have preferred it to be longer with more character development, but then, I’m 38, not 8.)  If your elementary school-er likes sci-fi and/or graphic novels, give this one a try.