THE WALL: Growing Up Behind The Iron Curtain: A Graphic Novel Review

I found THE WALL (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007) by Peter Sís in my library under graphic novels and since it was historical, I thought I'd check it out. It's the size of a picture book (9 x 12) with about the same number of pages you'd find in a picture book. But, don't be mistaken. This book is NOT for little kids. It should be compulsory reading for middle- and high-school students; adults can learn from it too. 

Sís used maps, cartoon caricatures of Russian leaders, timelines, photographs of himself and his drawings, black and white panels with sprinkles of red, journal entries from his diary growing up, and a cartoon style to tell the story of his life behind the Iron Curtain. 

https://i0.wp.com/thispicturebooklife.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Screen-Shot-2014-02-26-at-11.39.24-AM.png

Each page tells a different part of his story in a different way. Sís saved full color for the joyous, exciting part of his life in 1968:

https://i0.wp.com/thispicturebooklife.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Screen-Shot-2014-02-26-at-11.00.36-AM.png

But besides all of the amazing ways that Sís found to tell and illustrate this story, there's the story itself. Written in the third person, Sís shows what it was like growing up an artist (and teenage free thinker and music lover) in Prague under communist control. 

He writes of himself as a teenager, "He was painting dreams...and then nightmares. The dreams could be kept to himself, but the drawings could be used against him. He stopped drawing and was left with only his dreams. But he had to draw. Sharing the dreams gave him hope."

Not only is this thin book an amazing pictorial tutorial about life during the Cold War and how the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 led to the collapse of the Communist system, but it shows the pernicious effects of brainwashing--something I plan to tackle in NIGHTMARE IN NUREMBERG.

By the way, the wall came down only a little over thirty years ago. Hard to believe, isn't it?

For more great middle-grade book reviews, make sure you stop by Greg Pattridge's ALWAYS IN THE MIDDLE blog.

Projekt 1065: A Review And TALKING STORY Giveaways

Congratulations to Janet Davis-Castro who won HER FEARLESS RUN on last week's blog. 

No giveaway this week, but I hope you'll check out one of Alan Gratz's wonderful books. 

From the Author's Note:

Project 1065 is a work of fiction set against the very real backdrop of Nazi Germany in World War II. Kristallnacht, the Gestapo, the SRD, the concentration camps, the Hitler Youth, the Edelweiss Pirates, the "Aryan" education in German schools--all of this real. Everything Adolf Hitler says to Michael and the other boys in this book is an actual quote from Hitler; I gathered them together from various speeches and interviews so that I wasn't putting words in Hitler's mouth. Adolf Hitler said enough crazy, awful things that I didn't need to make up anything new for him. p.307

I have the privilege of knowing Alan Gratz, the North Carolina author of this middle grade book for boys and girls. That last sentence is pure Gratz--I can hear his earnest voice saying those exact words.

As readers of my blog know, this isn't my first review of one of Alan's well-researched and well-written pieces of historical fiction. Here is my review of Prisoner B-3087 and one of Refugee. Since Alan's latest book, Grenade takes place in Okinawa in World War II, you can see the connection. Hands down, Alan knows how to connect young readers to the facts and realities of war.

REVIEW

"It's hard to smile when you're having dinner with Nazis." (p.1) This attention-grabbing opening line says a lot. The speaker, thirteen-year-old Michael O'Shaunessey lives a life of pretend. The son of the Irish ambassador to Germany, he is in a precarious position: his parents are spies for the Allies and his uncanny ability to memorize words, numbers, and diagrams is one of their secret tools.

Michael's spy work is under the cover of being a member of the SRD, the junior group that will eventually join the Hitler Youth. It's a role he despises but one that grants him opportunities to access information which he passes along to his parents. He is in class with forty other members of the junior Hitler Youth; much of their time is taken up in learning Nazi propaganda and training to die for Germany. 

https://www.history.com/news/how-the-hitler-youth-turned-a-generation-of-kids-into-nazis

SECONDARY CHARACTERS

Fritz Bendler, a new scrawny boy at school who Michael befriends; Michael's teacher, Herr Professor Doktor Major Melcher; and Simon Cohen, a Jewish airman who the O'Shaunessey's hide in the Irish embassy, are all important secondary characters. Although Simon teaches Michael important lessons about facing his fears and being willing to make sacrifices, I'm going to share some excerpts about Fritz and Melcher which help define Michael's journey.

Early in the book Michael provides an observation that is as much about himself, as it is about his teacher:

Even though I wasn't his biggest fan, I had a soft spot for the old codger. I'd gotten the impression he didn't love the Nazis. It was nothing Melcher had said or done--anything that explicit would have gotten him hauled off to a concentration camp or reenlisted in the army, even though he was too old to fight again. it was just the way he talked so lovingly about the way things used to be. I felt he was a kindred spirit. A fellow faker. (p. 29)

Later on, his classmates are taken aback when Doktor Melcher points out that Hitler, and the other Nazi leaders do not fit the blonde, blue-eyed, straight-nosed Aryan ideal.

You could almost hear the classroom gasp. Was Herr Professor Doktor Major Melcher joking? It had to be a joke. It was no secret that the Führer didn't match the Aryan ideal that he'd gone to war to defend, but no one talked about it. To speak of it in public was like saying the emperor wasn't wearing any clothes. It just wasn't done. But Melcher wasn't joking. I could tell, and so could the other boys. I felt as though I could hear the heartbeats of every boy in the room but mine slow to a cool, calculated thrum. They were trained to be on the lookout for dissenters, people who didn't agree with the Nazi party, tuned in like the special radios that Nazis sold that only picked up German radio stations.

.....If he wasn't careful he was going to end up in a concentration camp. (pp. 103-104)

Meanwhile, Fritz is frequently picked on because of his short stature. Michael decides to teach Fritz how to defend himself and the other boys set up a boxing match between the two friends. To his surprise, Fritz doesn't hold back and tries to clobber him. The scene graphically shows Michael's inner turmoil as well as the brutality of the fight. 

I savaged him, fueling each new punch with some new hatred. I hated Hitler for starting this war. I hated the Hitler Youth for their constant bullying. I hated Fritz for making me hit him again. I hated myself for hitting him. 

When at last I stopped, Fritz lay motionless on the ground, completely and totally beaten. All around us was utter silence. I looked up, eyes afire, chest heaving, arms tensed for another fight. Horst took a step back in fear. I had managed to scare even the monsters, and when you can scare monsters, you can be sure you've become one yourself (p. 128).

As the story progresses, the SRD boys--led by Fritz--torture and capture Doktor Melcher while the police stand by. Michael realizes that the police were scared of a group of 13-year-olds who could turn them over to the Gestapo. He is in agony--but chooses not to say anything in order to carry out his vital plan: steal the plans for Projekt 1065 from Fritz's house. 

https://www.history.com/news/how-the-hitler-youth-turned-a-generation-of-kids-into-nazis

In a moment of painful analysis, Michael finally realizes why Fritz has become cruel and calculating.

Fritz stood over me, a look of fierce cruelty in his knitted eye-brows and suddenly I understood. Why Fritz had wanted me to teach him how to fight. Why he'd been so desperate to join the SRD. All his life, Fritz had been the boy with the bloody nose sitting here on the ground, looking up at the bully who'd beaten him. 

He'd joined the SRD so he could become the bully himself. Just like little Hitler. (p. 236-7)

 *******

PERSONAL NOTE

If you haven't already realized it, I believe this book is a must-read for middle school students, teenagers, and adults. It is suspenseful, full of tension and page-turning action. At many points Michael is forced to make difficult choices, to sacrifice beliefs and people he loves, and to conquer his own fears. Although it is a frightening book because of the subject matter, the material is not gratuitously graphic for the sake of displaying violence. It is unfortunately, an accurate description of what life was like for these young boys who were brainwashed and forced to assume responsibilities that even adult solders would abhor. 

https://www.history.com/news/how-the-hitler-youth-turned-a-generation-of-kids-into-nazis

My father was forced to flee Germany in 1939. He remembered the Hitler Youth rallying outside his parents' apartment in Nuremberg and that one boy betrayed his parents. "Either you were in the Hitler Youth--or else," he told me. 

***********

TALKING STORY GIVEAWAYS

The summer issue of Talking Story, Celebrating Young Adults is now live. Our expert and illustrators are young adults and we're giving away four wonderful books: The Perfect Candidate, The Next to the Last Mistake, When Worlds Collide and Don't Blame the Reckless.  Giveaway ends July 11th and don't forget to leave your email address if you are new to my blog. Also, please let me know which book you're interested in too. 

DRIVE: A Review and Two Giveaways!

Congratulations to Clara Gillow Clark and Dorothy Price who won the downloadable version of Eyes on the Prize from last week's blog.

The night that I stayed up late to finish reading Joyce Hostetter's fourth book in the Bakers Mountain Stories series, DRIVE (Calkins Creek, 2018), I texted Joyce: "This is going to be a hard book to review. There are too many wonderful things to say about it. Somehow you're able to catch the heart of emotions so well. I'm still crying."

The funny thing is that I almost didn't read the book. I'd read several drafts and thought that I knew the story. Boy, was I wrong!

After all the brainstorming, outlining, and drafting that I'd read, Joyce added layers of characterization, sensory details, and plot points that deepened the story. Having read those earlier drafts, I look back and see how she added flesh to the bones of her story--and I got to see a book develop and grow. 

One other interesting background note. When Joyce was brainstorming DRIVE, I had just given up writing Half-Truths from two points-of-view. I told Joyce of my struggles to make each character act and sound differently from the other. There's no mistake: Joyce pulls this feat off beautifully. This is a story of twin sisters vying to hold onto their sisterhood at a time when they're growing up and apart.

REVIEW 

PROLOGUE- Ellie

Mommy says Ida was born ten whole minutes ahead
   of me
and I spent the first years following after her,
doing what she did
and trying to be as good as she was.

Then, when Daddy came home from war
with hurts we couldn't see
and moods he couldn't predict,
the uncertainty hit Ida hardest of all.
She pulled back like a turtle inside its shell,
slowing down while I sped up.
I soon realized I liked running ahead,
hearing people cheer for me.

But sometimes, it was Ida they'd be bragging on,
And when they did,
I always felt that I was losing.
Life became a competition that one of us had to win.

And I was determined that the winner would be me. (p. 5)

********

Competition. This theme pervades the book as Ellie and Ida prepare to enter their first year of high school. As the reader meets the girls, we see how Ellie thinks she's not as good as Ida and aches for a normal family:

I wanted a father who didn't get frazzled over a bad dream or loud noises. And a mother who wasn't always aching over her husband. I didn't actually want another family; I just needed to not be embarrassed by the one I had. (p.28)

Ida, who describes herself as the quiet one, avoids the spotlight and feels as if Ellie has the drive to succeed but she doesn't. 

...I stared at the red velvet curtain on the stage and thought how I never got to pull it open and shut. It was the only job I ever wanted in any play we ever did. But thanks to being a twin, I almost always had to be out front, doing something cute with Ellie and feeling like a country bumpkin in the shadow of a movie star. (p.29)

I loved seeing the sisters from each other's POV. This is Ida talking about their different reactions to their father:

Ellie wasn't scared of Daddy the way I was. She was more like Ann Fay. Bold. Always acting like there was no mountain so tall she couldn't climb it. No race so fast she couldn't win it. And no daddy so mean she couldn't charm him. (p.42)

In this section, Ellie thinks about taking Latin in school.

Ida wouldn't want me to because then we wouldn't have all our classes together. But that also meant I wouldn't always be compared to her. I could have a class that was all my own. A hard one that she couldn't show me up in.  (P.59)

Ida feels lost and shy in their new school but Arnie, a fellow freshman, reaches out to her. Ellie who is used to being the strong twin, sees Ida with Arnie and suddenly realizes that Ida might not need her anymore. What's worse is that Ellie has a huge crush on Arnie. This conflict leads to more tension and misunderstanding between the sisters. 

Throughout the book the word drive is used in a number of ways. One of the plot threads is Ellie's passion for racing and the Hickory Motor Speedway. Whereas Ida can't stand the noise and grit of the races, Ellie thrives on the excitement and exhilaration of watching the cars zoom around the track. Unfortunately, this love for a thrilling adventure leads to a devastating accident. Without a spoiler, let me simply say that Ida is the only one who can bring Ellie out of the no-man's land of her near-death injury. 

Joyce interlaces history throughout this skillfully written story.  The 1952 presidential election, the threat of communism, and the Korean conflict are all important backdrops to the drama taking place in the little town of Hickory. 

But that's not what made me tear up. Forgiveness, love, character growth, individual accomplishments against high stakes--all of these made me root for both Ida and Ellie, as I'm sure you will too. Although written for the upper middle grade reader, adults will also resonate with the coming-of-age theme interwoven into DRIVE. 

As I told Joyce, I'm a lot like Ellie. I think many of us will see a little bit of ourselves in the two sisters. And isn't that what a great book is about?

*******

EPILOGUE- Ida

After Daddy came home from war
with wounds we couldn't see
and moods he couldn't predict,
I pulled back and let Ellie take the lead.

I didn't mind so much if she wanted to run on past
and steal the show from me.
I didn't need to be seen or heard the way she did.
Art was my voice.

But then in her race to be first
Ellie crashed
and I had to go around her--
to face scary unknowns
and accept good things that came my way.

I think we both learned
that life is not a race with one of us winning
and the other losing.
We can drive on our own separate tracks
without competing.
And when we do
We'll each come out a winner. (p. 342)

GIVEAWAY and AN AUDIOBOOK WISH

Since so many of Joyce's fans read my blog, Boyds Mills Press kindly agreed to give away TWO copies of DRIVE. Leave me a comment by October 11 with your email address if you are new to my blog. If you want additional chances to win, share this on social media or follow my blog and I'll add your name twice to the hat--but make sure you tell me what you did. 

And while I'm on the topic of Boyds Mills Press--who wants the Bakers Mountain Stories to be published in audio format? I think they'd be perfect! If you agree with me, please join me in tweeting @boydsmillspress. 

Behind the Scenes of REFUGEE: An Interview with Alan Gratz and Giveaway-Part II

Congratulations to Connie Saunders and Jennifer Ervin for winning FIRST TIMES from last week's blog.

As promised last week, Alan Gratz  has returned to share some of the intricate process of writing his middle grade novel, REFUGEE. 

Alan autographing a copy of REFUGEE
for the Cousins Club. 

INTERVIEW

CAROL: How much time did you spend researching REFUGEE? Was that typical for all your books?

ALAN: I spent a month or two researching REFUGEE, which is typical for me.

CAROL: Why did you pick the topic?

ALAN: Writing about refugees was something I wanted to tackle. I empathize with the plight of refugees in today's world, and wanted to do something to bring that situation to the attention of school children, the way Linda Sue Park did with water in Africa and A LONG WALK TO WATER.

CAROL: At what point in that process did you realize you were going to use three different characters in three different time periods? Did you plan it or did it “just” happen? Did you know the ending when you started writing? 

ALAN: I knew I was going to write a story about three different kids in three different time periods when I began researching and outlining the book. That decision--to tell three stories--took a while to come up with on its own. But as soon as I realized I could not only show parallels between each story, but actually link the three main characters and their families across time, that's when I knew I had a novel!

CAROL: Each POV is a complete story. Did you write the 3 POV separately or concurrently the way the book appears?

ALAN: I outlined each separately, all the way out--first Josef's story, then Isabel's, then Mahmoud's--although Isabel's story was created knowing what happened to Josef, and Mahmoud's knowing what happened to the other two children. Once I had all three stories outlined, then I wrote the book linearly. That is, I wrote Josef's first chapter, then Isabel's first chapter, then Mahmoud's first chapter, and so on and so on.

CAROL: What system do you use to keep the research, plot lines, and characters straight? 

ALAN: I had a system I had developed over the years, but that has now been replaced by the awesomeness that is Scrivener. Scrivener is a great program for writers that allows you to store all your research and outline and story notes and character sketches in the same file with your manuscript--and it doesn't take a million years to load. You can click between separate screens very easily. It even has an outlining feature with faux note cards on the screen, but I prefer to do that by hand on the big pin board in my office. I'm a heavy outliner, and Scrivener allows me to keep all of my pre-writing notes in one place and at my fingertips when I'm writing.

CAROL: You make writing look easy. 😀 How many drafts? 

ALAN: Including my outline--which, again, is pretty extensive--I did eight drafts of Refugee. The first drafts see the bigger things hammered out, and see major changes to the book's structure and characters. Beginning with the fifth draft, I'm focusing on much more specific problems. By the final drafts, I'm doing line editing. After the manuscript was finished, the Author's Note went through many more revisions than the book, as I tried to stay on top of all the changes happening in American politics and policy--both for the Syrian story AND, to my surprise, the Cuban story!

CAROL: This isn’t your first multi-POV book. What have you learned in the process of writing books from several POV? 

ALAN: With multiple POV books, you have to be very careful to make sure that each POV character has a unique voice and character. Ideally, you want the reader to know whose story they're reading just by the narration and dialogue, even without names or chapter titles. So I do a lot of work on the front end to develop my POV characters, and make sure they have rich, detailed lives off the page as well as on!

GIVEAWAY

Leave me a comment for a chance to win this amazing book. If you left a comment last week, I'll add another entry. MAKE SURE you leave me your email address if you are new to my blog! Random.org will choose a winner on September 28. Like last week, if you also leave a comment through Talking Story, I'll give you another chance (PLUS there are other great books on this topic in the Refugee issue!).

REFUGEE- A Review and Giveaway- Part I

This is a busy week on my blog. TWO giveaways running concurrently! 

WARNING: Reading this book will make you stay up late and the characters will haunt you long after you finish reading it.

Readers of my blog are no strangers to Alan Gratz's books. You're a click away from seeing what I thought of Prisoner B-3087, The League of Seven, and Samurai Shortstop. And believe it or not, I still have Dragon Lantern on my TBR shelf. It's no use. I can't keep up with this t-shirt and jeans-always-in-a-hat favorite of SCBWI-Carolinas and now a NY Times Bestselling author!

Review

It's difficult to know how to review a book that takes the lives of three young people from three different periods of time, who are escaping from atrocities in three different countries and weaves them into one volume. Each chapter tells a different part of each refugee's story and each (see warning above) ends in a cliff-hanger. Masterfully written and entwined together, the reader never loses track of who is speaking and the events that character faces.

In 1938, Josef Landau is a twelve-year-old German Jew who's family barely escapes the concentration camp. In 1994, Isabel Fernandez is an eleven-year-old who is hungry, musical, and afraid.  Castro has been making life difficult for her and her fellow Cubans for years. In 2015, Mahmoud Bishara is a twelve-year-old stocky Syrian who prefers to stay invisible so that he can survive artillery shells and bombs.

Although they are worlds and cultures apart, their stories intermingle. Their stories include broken glass, threatening soldiers, harrowing escapes, unbelievable obstacles, bodies of water which swallow family members, music, close-knit family ties, and heroism on each character's part.

Here are a few bits and pieces to entice you to read this book:

After Mahmoud's apartment building is bombed and crumbles his father says, "We should have gone long ago. Ready or not, if we want to live, we have to leave Syria." (p. 55)

This scene takes place soon after Isabel's family escapes to Florida in a makeshift boat their neighbors built.

They [the fathers] kept arguing, but the engine and the slap of the boat against the saves drowned their words out for Isabel. She wasn't paying any attention anyway. All she could think about was the ninety miles they still had to go, and the water pouring in from the gunshot hole in the side of the boat. (p. 65)

Josef turns 13 onboard the MS St. Louis. Like other Jewish boys, it is time for him to have his bar Mitzvah, which the men on board arrange. His father, who was tormented in Dachau, refuses to attend believing that the Nazis will snatch him away.  Here is Josef in this sad yet foreshadowing scene:

Josef felt like someone had yanked his heart from his chest. In all the times he'd dreamed of this day, his father had always been there to recite a blessing with him. But maybe this is what becoming a man is, Josef thought. Maybe becoming a man means not relying on your father anymore. (p. 75)

While Mahmoud's family meets one obstacle after another as they seek to get to Germany, they meet a Palestinian refugee who left his home in 1948 during the first Arab-Israeli war. Since I was listening to Blood Brothers, the story of the displaced Palestinians (to be reviewed and given away soon)--this man's help to the Bishara family added another dimension to the history and plight of refugees. 

On their cobbled-together boat Isabel thinks about her beloved music.

This journey was a song, Isabel realized, a son cubano, and each part of it was a verse. The first verse had been the riot: a blast of trumpets, the rat-a-tat-tat of a snare drum. Then the pre-chorus of trading her trumpet for gasoline--the piano that gave the son its rhythm--and then the chorus itself: leaving home. They were still leaving home, still hadn't gotten to where they were going. They would return to the chorus again and again before they were done. (p.155-6)

Floating on a dinghy in the Mediterranean Sea with his mother, Mahmoud is hoping to be rescued. In the dark he hears a boat, but can't see it. 

But the sound of the motor stills stayed frustratingly, agonizingly, far away. If only whoever was on the boat could see him, Mahmoud thought. All his life he'd practiced being hidden. Unnoticed.  Now, at last, when he most needed to be seen, he was truly invisible. (p.192)

Josef contemplates joining nine other men who plan to storm the bridge of the St. Louis and demand that the ship be run aground in America instead of being returned to Germany. As much as he wishes he could return to childhood he thinks,

But he wasn't a kid anymore. He had responsibilities. Like keeping his sister and his mother safe. Papa had told him what the concentration camps were like. He couldn't let that happen to Ruthie and his mother. (p. 253)

Alan expertly wraps up the three refugee's stories in an unexpected ending. This is a timely book that both adults and readers from ages 12 and up will enjoy; it is also be a tremendous curriculum resource.

Trailer

Giveaway

I am giving away a copy of REFUGEE in conjunction with the fall issue of Talking Story. Leave a comment here to enter once. Leave a comment through Talking Story and you'll have another chance! Come back next week for a look behind the scenes of writing REFUGEE. You'll have another chance to win the book! Giveaway ends September 28. 

Not On Fifth Street: An Interview with Kathy Cannon Wiechman

As promised last week, here is my follow up interview with Kathy Wiechman, author of NOT ON FIFTH STREET.

CAROL: Just like in LIKE A RIVER, you wrote NOT ON FIFTH STREET from two points of view. What led to that decision? 

KATHY: NOT ON FIFTH STREET is about a rift between two brothers. When I was a kid and got into a dispute with one of my siblings, my mother always said "There are two sides to every story." And she wanted to hear them both. I felt the only way to give Pete and Gus an equal chance to tell their sides was to write it that way. Since doing that had worked well for me in LIKE A RIVER, I felt comfortable doing it again.

CAROL: Unlike RIVER, Gus’s POV doesn’t follow after Pete’s. You go back in time and show the reader what everything looked like from Gus’s POV. What led you to writing it in that manner? Why didn’t you flip-flop chapters between the two?

KATHY: Part of Pete's worry in Part 1 was due to him not knowing where Gus was or if he was all right. If I had alternated chapters, the reader would have known more than Pete about Gus's circumstances and wouldn't be able to commiserate with him about it, and I think empathy with the POV character is always one of an author's goals. I felt it was a good way to add to the suspense in Part 1.

CAROL: This conflict between Pete and Gus is crucial to this story. How did you come up with that? 

KATHY: When I wanted to write a book about the '37 flood, I knew the flood itself wouldn't provide enough conflict. I grew up in a house with six siblings, my husband grew up with six siblings, and together we raised four children. I am quite familiar with sibling rivalry and the rifts that can cause conflict in a large household. It felt natural for the brothers' feud to be the key to the story. When I began my first draft, the first line I wrote was "Pete had never seen his brother so mad." In the final draft, that line appears in Chapter 2, but I let those words set the mood for the story.

CAROL: Did using your father’s story make writing this book more or less difficult?

KATHY: I was surprised at how much more difficult it was to get into Pete's head because he was based on my dad. I created Pete and he had to be Pete, not Dad. But that was tough to do. The part that was easier was knowing Dad's story so well, I always knew what would happen next. I also spent a lot of time in my grandma's house as a child, and I could always picture my setting so clearly, from the homemade picnic table in the sunroom to the back bedroom overlooking the garage to the mantel clock in the living room.

CAROL Can you give us some idea of how much is fiction and how much is fact? Obviously the flood and the fact that your father evacuated his family was fact. What else?

KATHY: Much of what Pete does, like taking the motor out of the refrigerator, my dad did. And like Gus, he was listed as missing. And my grandmother dug in her heels about evacuating because she didn't know where he was. His family did have his name mentioned on the radio as missing, and that call was put out by WLW from Cincinnati. Dad was not 14 or 15 like Pete and Gus. He was 20, but my Uncle Bill who marked the garage wall with the height the flood reached was only 12.

CAROL: How has life changed for you since receiving the Grateful American Prize?

KATHY: My day-to-day life is the same. I write or work on some part of the process every day. It might be research or promotional, but it's for my books. What has changed is my connection to the phenomenal team of people with the Grateful American Book Prize, who believe, as I do, that knowing American history is essential for today's young people. This group pays attention to what I am doing and they continue to help promote LIKE A RIVER even two years after it won the award. And the cash prize that came with the prize helps to fund my research trips.

CAROL: What’s next?

KATHY: I am working on another Civil War novel. This one takes place in Wilmington, North Carolina during the final months of the war. And I am doing a bit of preliminary research for a possible sequel to LIKE A RIVER.

******

For a chance to win my ARC, please leave me a comment along with your email address if you are new to my blog. A winner will be chosen on August 17. 

My husband's uncle, Robert Toupal, is
always eager to read well-written historical novels. He often
greets me with, "Got any new books?"

Not on Fifth Street: A Review and ARC Giveaway- Part I

If you're one of my faithful followers, than you're no stranger to Kathy Wiechman's historical fiction for middle grades. I'm proud to review her newest book, NOT ON FIFTH STREET (Calkins Creek, 2017), a fictionalized account of the flood of the Ohio River in 1937. 

Two feuding brothers + one record-breaking flood = a fast paced middle grade book for boys and girls they won't be able to put down.

After you read the book you'll understand

why this is a perfect cover.

The Review

Thirteen-year-old Pete doesn't understand why his big brother, Gus, has become more interested in a girl named Venus than spending time with him and their friend Richie. They had been the Three Musketeers up until Gus met Venus. On top of that, a New Year's dinner where Venus is the guest goes sour and it's all Pete's fault. 

Then the rain starts. Within days the mighty Ohio river is rising and the folks in Ironton, Ohio fear flooding. Pete looks at the river and thinks,

...out in the middle, the river surged like a fierce animal, whipping into waves that rose and hurried downriver. A tangle of branches floated past, carried in the swift current. Were they branches from an Ironton tree? Or had they traveled all the way from Pittsburgh?

Pete looked at houses and imagined them with muddy water up to the second-floor windows and people using rowboats to go places. He and Dad had fished on the river before. But that river was nothing like this wild, alive one. He hurried away as though it might reach out and grab him. (p. 32)

Pete's father asks Gus to come with him to help out on the riverfront and Pete is devastated. He's the one who works around the house--not Gus, who would be rather reading Shakespeare and "who doesn't know which end of a shovel to hold." Why is he being left behind with the women and children?

http://www.irontontribune.com/2017/01/29/remembering-the-1937-flood/

Even though he's angry with his father and jealous that Gus was chosen to fight the flooding river, his practical knowledge of their home proves useful to his mother and two siblings. After he starts moving household items to higher ground his mother says:

"Your dad knew what he was doing, Pete, leaving you here to take care of things." 

Was she right? Was that why Dad had taken Gus to the West End? Because he wanted Pete to take care of Mom and the kids and the house? Maybe Pete had been wrong about Dad. (p. 59)

As the rain continues to fall and street after street is flooded, his worries increase over not hearing from his father and Gus. Where are they and why hadn't they been in contact? As he evacuates the family to the second floor the reader feels the impending doom, "He almost felt the river lapping at his heels as he kept moving." (p.86). The ticking clock of the rising river parallels Pete's growing anguish and remorse over his misunderstandings with Gus. 

In the middle of the book, Kathy Wiechman switches over to Gus's point of view. In a manner in which I've never seen before, (and which she'll explain in my interview with her in next week's blog), Kathy begins Gus's POV from the time he leaves with his dad to work on the riverfront. It's a clever device that shows not only what some were doing to battle the rising river while others were trying to survive, as well as each brother's misconceptions and fears about the other.

At first Gus is thrilled to be chosen to do men's work. But after unending hours of filling sandbags, eating little, wearing soaking wet clothes, and blisters blooming on his hands, he feels like a chain-gang prisoner. He can't imagine that Pete really likes this kind of work. In fact, when he asks if his father shouldn't call home to tell his mother they're okay, his father replies, 

"I don't have to worry about home," Dad said. "Pete's there. He can handle things as well as I can." 

Gus had been easing down to the floor as Dad spoke, but he landed hard when the impact of Dad's words hit him. Dad hadn't left Pete at home because Gus would be a good worker, or because Dad wanted to do something with Gus. Dad needed Pete at home because Pete was the reliable one. The one who can handle things as well as I can.  

         ........

Julius Caesar couldn't have felt worse when Brutus stabbed him, Gus thought. (p. 139)

In a "love conquers all" moment, when the river continues to surge and the National Guard send the men home, Gus decides he must check on Venus, who lives on the other side of the river. The trip is perilous and Gus proves his mettle as he risks his life to help her family.  While stranded at her house, Gus spends a lot of time thinking about his family, realizing what is important, and wanting to make things right with Pete.

Maybe reading to David (Venus's younger brother) was a way to push the rising water to the back of his mind. But the back of his mind was already filled with shame for the way he'd treated Pete. And regret for failing to tell Mom where Dad was. The flood wasn't his fault, but so much else was.  (p. 198)

I've probably already given away too much of this fine story, but I'll just tell you this--the ending will bring sighs of relief and smiles to readers' faces.  

Navigating the flood in Kentucky

A Classroom Resource

This would be a great classroom resource for history, science, and English classes. I'll use it as an example of "man vs. nature" the next time I teach problems that characters encounter. (Here is my Plan a Problem worksheet.) Teachers could have great discussions about family misunderstandings and trying to see a situation from another family member's point of view. 

The Giveaway

Next week Kathy is going to talk about how her father's experiences in this flood inspired this book. This ARC giveaway will last two weeks. Leave me a comment today and I'll enter your name once. Leave a comment on both blog posts and you'll be in twice. Please leave me your email address if you are new to my blog. Winner will be drawn on August 17th.