Month: January 2022

Starfish by James Crowley (J Fiction)

Starfish

James Crowley (J Fiction)

Orphaned at a young age, nine-year-old Lionel and his older sister Beatrice have lived at the Chalk Bluff boarding school on the Blackfeet Indian reservation for six years. Beatrice defiantly holds on to the traditions of her people, which causes growing tensions between her, the priests, and the officers who live in the nearby military outpost. When Beatrice is finally pushed to the brink, she steals the captain’s prized horse and escapes with Lionel into the wilderness in search of their grandfather. Grandfather will know how to help them, but first they must survive the harshness of the Montana winter.

James Crowley’s Starfish is packed with action and adventure and provides readers with a powerful female protagonist who is fearless, principled, and wise beyond her twelve years. The writing is detailed and the chapters are short, which add to the tale’s rapid and charged pace. Readers share in Beatrice and Lionel’s struggle to survive the elements and hunger; cheer their ability to outrun and outwit bounty hunters (they are understandably considered horse thieves); and support their loyalty to their customs and beliefs. Crowley creates a suspenseful story through wonderful storytelling that is a love letter to nature and Native American culture. Although the novel is littered with mild profanity (it’s nothing that younger audiences wouldn’t hear in a standard Marvel movie) and contains a few instances of violence, these shouldn’t discourage the targeted age range of 8-12 from reading it.

I loved the insights into Blackfeet tradition and I’m a total pushover for stories that highlight strong sibling relationships; however, the only thing that held back a five-star rating was the ending. It felt abrupt and awkward and didn’t match the same feel and flow of the rest of the book. I am not one that demands a happy ending in order to fully enjoy a story, but I do need an ending that is thoughtful and provides adequate closure. Because Crowley spent so much time and care giving readers such a well-developed story, it felt as if he ran out of steam at the end.

I find that with nearly every book, the last few pages will either make or break a story for me and in this case, those last pages of Starfish just felt incomplete and hollow. Unlike the ravens and eagle that soared high in the Montana sky, this story doesn’t reach the heights that I hoped it would, but it still manages to lift the spirits and take us on an unforgettable journey.

Rating: 4/5

* Book cover image attributed to www.goodreads.com

This Boy’s Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff

This Boy’s Life: A Memoir

Tobias Wolff (Adult Memoir)

It was 1955 and we were driving from Florida to Utah, to get away from a man my mother was afraid of and to get rich on uranium. We were going to change our luck.

Ten-year-old Toby “Jack” Wolff dreams of escape and freedom. He dreams of transformation. Traveling with his mother from Florida to Utah in their Nash Rambler, their prospects finally seem bright and expansive. The future was theirs for the taking…that is if their luck changed which, in Toby’s case, seems highly unlikely.

Tobias Wolff’s memoir is not one of those redemptive stories where everyone links arms and watches the sunset over the mountain or one where friends and family cheer as our young hero makes his way across the stage, grabs his diploma, and raises it high into the air signaling triumph. This is another kind of story where the reader bangs their head against the wall as our young protagonist continues to make one horribly bad decision after another. Where the hero doesn’t learn from his mistakes and continually seems to disappoint everyone around him except himself. This horribly flawed and painfully real boy is the reason why I fell in love with this book.

Former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden once said that the true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one’s watching. A lot of what Wolff includes in his memoir could certainly have been softened or even omitted in order to allow the reader to have just a small bit of sympathy for him and his circumstances. Instead, he goes full bore and gives us all the ugly, raw, and sordid details of his early years. He deprives us of feeling any sense of pity although we understand that he is but a product of a mother who continues to be drawn to poisonous men and friends that are a whisper away from juvenile detention.

Throughout this book, Wolff explains that he craved distinction, that he only wanted what he couldn’t have, and that he was merely living off of an idea that he had of himself. Although we understand and accept this, we still ache when he tries to please a parent who neither deserves or earns it and hold our breath and silently curse as we realize yet again that another opportunity has been squandered away. Through all of his pain and suffering, Wolff reminds us that life is messy. It’s gnarled. It’s complicated. Life sometimes is just like that…especially this boy’s life.

Rating: 4/5

* Book cover image attributed to www.amazon.com

The Silver Pencil by Alice Dalgliesh (YA Fiction)

The Silver Pencil

Alice Dalgliesh (YA Fiction Newbery Honor)

The silver pencil was a miracle. It was handsome to look at, delightful to use because it never needed sharpening. One had only to change the lead. Janet was sure that she could write almost anything with it. Confidently she sat down at her small table, with clean sheets of paper in front of her and the shining pencil in her hand. To her surprise, exactly nothing happened.

Nine-year-old Janet Laidlaw was a British citizen living on the tropical island of Trinidad. She loved her life in the House on the Hill, but things quickly changed following the sudden death of her beloved father. At thirteen—when most Colonials went off to school—Janet traveled to her mother’s birthplace of England where her world suddenly got a lot bigger. With the promise of new friends and adventures, perhaps her silver pencil wouldn’t be silent for much longer.

Newbery books have always been my “go to” reads. Whether I’m looking for an excellent story for myself or I need a solid recommendation for a young reader, that silver- or gold-foiled sticker always let me know that I had picked out a winner. Unfortunately for me, The Silver Pencil fell short of this assumption. Awarded the Newbery Honor Book distinction in 1945, Alice Dalgliesh’s coming-of-age (and semi-autobiographical) book is about a young girl who travels from Trinidad to England and then to New York while pursuing a career in teaching before ultimately stumbling upon success as a children’s author. This book is meant to mirror Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, which was Janet’s first introduction to America. Unfortunately, Dalgliesh’s tale didn’t quite rise to the level of its literary inspiration and probably won’t have the same appeal with a young adult audience.

Published in 1944, the beginning of The Silver Pencil is full of racially insensitive and inappropriate cultural references. These obviously didn’t cause a ripple back then, but would clearly result in a tsunami today. Also, Janet’s favorite book is The Story of Little Black Sambo, which she shares repeatedly with youngsters that are in need of fast and effective entertainment. Although the story’s text and illustrations have undergone numerous revisions over the decades, its very title still conjures up negative feelings and emotions. With that being said, the remainder of the book is pretty safe although I felt no attachment to the story and had zero connection to its characters. Despite it being a beautifully written book, the words just hung there and felt lifeless—lacking any sense of warmth or feeling. Even when Janet was dealing with the death of her father, I didn’t feel her pain and loss although she was obviously experiencing it. Her experiences felt more like a list to be checked rather than a life that was lived.

Despite the low rating, I loved how Dalgliesh used stories and storytelling to bridge the gap between cultures and class, to calm the rowdy and connect the displaced, and to bring people together to make the world seem a little bit smaller. They say that the pen is mightier than the sword, but Janet Laidlaw and Alice Dalgliesh showed us that a silver pencil could be just as mighty…if not more.

Rating: 3/5

* Book cover image attributed to www.amazon.com

Ain’t No River by Sharon Ewell Foster

Ain’t No River  

Sharon Ewell Foster

Everyone and everything in Garvin Daniels’ life seem to be going wrong: her 70-something Meemaw is hanging out with a young and handsome fitness instructor named GoGo, her friend Ramona is embarking on a bicycling fundraiser with a pastor that she just met, and her high-powered law firm has given her a case that will surely mean the end of her career. Has the world gone crazy? After an involuntary leave of absence, Garvin decides to leave Washington, D.C. and head back to her hometown of Jacks Creek where she is determined to set things right…no matter what it takes.

If you were to search Google and look for ideal character traits of lawyers, you’d get things like compassion, willingness to listen, good judgement, and great emotional balance. GARVIN DANIELS HAS NONE OF THESE! Instead, Sharon Ewell Foster gives us a whiny, insensitive, self-absorbed, inconsiderate, spoiled, selfish, petulant…well, the list goes on and on. I understand why an author would make their main character absolutely insufferable because their end goal is for that character to finally realize the error of their ways and be redeemed. They clearly realize the hell they are putting their readers through by having to deal with this horror of an individual, but we remain loyal because we know—we just know—that all of this emotional turmoil will be worth it because the character’s ultimate salvation will be our reward, too. Not so with Garvin Daniels. Nope. Even when she begins to understand that maybe she isn’t her best possible self, it doesn’t take long before she’s back to slinging insults, scorn, and contempt. And by the way, complaining about life in your tailored suit while standing in a gleaming marble restroom of a prestigious law firm to a woman who is currently busy cleaning the toilets is NOT a good look.  

I would have enjoyed this book so much more had Foster instead focused on the complex, quirky, and beautifully damaged residents of Jacks Creek: Monique, the teenager forced to give up her child and then has live with the shame and stigma afterwards; Big Esther who runs her own salon and dispenses truth and wisdom in never ending supplies; Smitty, the seller of snowballs who basks in the glow from the attention of the women at the hair salon but is looking for something more; GoGo, retired pro-football player who can’t seem to outrun his past; and Meemaw, the town matriarch who always seems to know just what a heart and stomach needs and is ready to graciously fill both. I wanted to know more about these people and spend a few more nights on the front porch with them to understand their pain and share in their journey towards healing. But those opportunities didn’t come often enough and instead I was sent back to Garvin where I counted the pages until I might be rewarded with Meemaw’s words of wisdom or one of Smitty’s deluxe snowballs with marshmallow on top.

At the end of one of her poor-me pity parties, Garvin wondered to herself why everybody around her expected her to fix everything for them. If only she had searched Google and used one of those ideal lawyer character traits. If she had, she would have quickly discovered that nobody does.

Rating: 2/5

* Book cover image attributed to www.goodreads.com