THE MEANS THAT MAKE US STRANGERS: A YA Debut Novel Review and a Giveaway- Part I

Here is my criteria for loving a book: I don't want it to end so I drag out reading the last few chapters. That was the case with my most recent read, The Means that Make Us Strangers, Christine Kindberg's debut novel. 

The book caught my attention when a friend tweeted that it had won the 2020 Christie Award and Honorable mention for the Selah Award. 

Here is the book's description from the author's website:

Adelaide has lived her whole life in rural Ethiopia as the white American daughter of an anthropologist. Then her family moves to South Carolina, in 1964.

Adelaide vows to find her way back to Ethiopia, marry Maicaah, and become part of the village for real. But until she turns eighteen, Adelaide must adjust to this strange, white place that everyone tells her is home. Then Adelaide becomes friends with Wendy and the four other African-American students who sued for admission into the white high school. Even as she navigates her family's expectations and her mother's depression, Adelaide starts to enjoy her new friendships, the chance to learn new things, and the time she spends with a blond football player. Life in Greenville becomes interesting, and home becomes a much more complex equation.

Adelaide must finally choose where she belongs: the Ethiopian village where she grew up, to which she promised to return? Or this place where she's become part of something bigger than herself?

I knew this book, with its hint of racial overtones and set in the civil rights period in the South, would become another mentor text for Half-Truths. What I didn't realize, is that it would also also provide vivid examples of deep first person point of view (POV)--something I'm working on while I polish my book.

REVIEW

You may be wondering now that I've told you what this book is about, what is left for my review?

Plenty.

Try this for an opening which demands that you read further:

A tangle of arms reaching toward the fig tree. Among the thicket of deep-black arms stretching toward the fruit, two arms stood out, pale as a moon.

I remember thinking how different those arms looked, while waiting for fruit to drop as Maicaah shook the branch. A fig hit the white hands and fell to the ground, and it was with shock that I felt the pain in my hands. (p.1)

Do you see the sensory information conveyed through this beautiful language? The tangle of arms, pale as a moon, and the shock of pain. These marvelous descriptions prepare the reader to be immersed in Adelaide's deep POV.  

That section ends with the children chasing after an ostrich.

We never caught an ostrich, despite the number of times we tried. We sometimes got close, but never close enough to touch, not even the dirty-white tail feathers.  (p.3)

There is something hauntingly poignant about that last sentence that shows the reader how Adelaide feels--without once using the word "feel."

Here's a later example, after she has moved in with her grandmother and aunt in South Carolina. Here, the author uses the word "feeling" but in a unique way. This comes after her aunt reprimands Adelaide for not saying "Yes, ma'am or No, ma'am."

I bunched my anger into a fist, feeling pride for the way I kept it in check. Marmee [her sister] would laugh with me about it later, and the edges of my anger slowly smothered and hardened as I held on to it. (p. 29)

See what I mean about deep POV? 

At school, Adelaide feels acutely that she doesn't fit in with other whites. When she sees a black girl, she assumes the girl must be from the Oromo ethnic group that she knew in Ethiopia. She tries speaking to her in Ormiffa but the girl and her friends misunderstand her friendly advances and tell her to seek her own kind. 

I turned my back to them and sat on the bottom steps, huddled against the railing. I didn't want to cry... This girl had looked so familiar, it had been like a taste of home. But the reality was that no one here knew what my life was like. No one had any idea where I'd come from. (p.41)

Later in the book, she walks home after school and spends her pent-up emotions in a deserted cornfield. By the time she comes home, her face is covered with dirt and tears. She goes to the bathroom to wash up before dinner.

There was a line on my neck showing where I hadn't yet washed. For a second, I stared at the line. Which was my real skin color: the speckled brown-and-tan or the smooth white? Which was the layer I was washing away? I blinked and the illusion was gone. I bent to continue washing, turning myself white again. (p. 83)

I could go on and on, but I'll end with a quote from one of her black friends, Nathan. The group of friends has come through a horrendous riot in which several whites ganged up on the black boys. A white girl, Emily Rose, invited the other girls to her house for a sleep over. One of the black girls thinks they'd just be asking for trouble. 

Emily Rose shook her head. "This is exactly the right time," she said quietly. "Besides it's just having friends over to my house for a party. Why shouldn't I?"

It's being together in the simple, common things that's most radical," said Nathan. He didn't look up from his sandwich. It was the first time he'd spoken all day.

"What does that mean? said Wendy. "It sounds like a quote."

"It means that basic, everyday things are the last barrier. When it's not strange for us to eat lunch together or spend the night at each other's houses or get married--then we'll really see each other as people, over and beyond our differences."  (p. 239-40)

Obviously, I love this book. Even though it's considered young adult, I recommend it for middle graders through adults. Anyone who wants to read a well-written book about segregation in the south--this is for you. The book is by far the best self-published book I've ever read. I can see why it won an Honorable Mention in Writer's Digest self-published books.

On Monday, come back to my blog for Part II when Christine talks about her inspiration for The Means that Makes Us Stranger, her path to publication, what she's working on next, and a funny way in which Christine and I are connected.

GIVEAWAY

Leave a comment (with your name and email address if you are new) and I will enter your name once. You'll have another chance next week to win a personally autographed copy of the book. If you are new to my blog or share this on social media, I'll give you an extra chance. Winner's name will be drawn on Thanksgiving Day!

                                                ******

Macduff                        See who comes here.

Malcom           My countryman; but yet I know him not.

Macduff           My ever gentle cousin, welcome hither.

Malcom           I know him now. Good God betimes remove

                         The means that makes us strangers.

                                (MACBETH, ACT IV, SCENE 3)

Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe: A Review and ARC Giveway

Introducing Jo Hackl

Over two years ago I had the pleasure of sharing Jo Hackl's path to publication. (Both Part I and Part II are great reading; Jo shared how she came up with the ideas for the book and the process of acquiring a publisher). Jo and I have been friends through SCBWI-Carolinas for over ten years, and now that her hometown of Greenville, SC is also mine, I proudly claim her as my critique partner also.

It is with great joy and pride in her publishing accomplishment that I share my review of Jo's debut middle grade novel, SMACK DAB IN THE MIDDLE OF MAYBE. 

Review

Read these opening paragraphs and hear voice oozing out of every sentence:

Turns out, it's easier than you might think to sneak out of town smuggling a live cricket, three pocketfuls of jerky, and two bags of half-paid-for-merchandies from Thelma's Cash 'n' Carry grocery store.

The hard part was getting up the guts to go.

 It happened like this: There I was in Thelma's produce section, running my fingers up and down a bundle of collards. Collards never did make for good eating, but I was wondering if maybe they were some kind of sign that it was time for me to skedaddle. Collards always reminded me of Mama. She used to make me drawing paper out of collards, sumac seeds, dryer lint, and newspaper Daddy chopped up in his wood chipper. She plunked things in her paper the way other people stuck things in scrapbooks. Thread from the hem of her wedding dress, a four-leaf clover, Daddy's first gray hair. Mama's paper held so much life, it made my drawings pop off the page.

That was the kind of Mama and Daddy I used to have.  (p.1-2)

Who wouldn't keep reading after a hook like that?

Soon the reader discovers that Cricket is on a quest to find Mama who ran off and left her with Aunt Belinda. Taking a cricket who she names Charlene, a little bit of food, her father's pocketknife, a doogaloo, and a small notebook full of Mama's paper, she sets off. 

By nightfall she gets to the woods near her family's property. Here is a setting description that I used in my writing classes this summer: "The woods smelled like a hundred and fifty years of dark. A goose-bumpy ghost-town kind of dark."(p. 19)

She climbs into the tree house that "smelled like cedar, clean and wild," which her father built before he died. There, she reviews a letter addressed to her mother indicating her Grandmother's tombstone was to be placed on March 1-- in exactly eleven days. On it her mother had scrawled before, "I'm off looking for my birds." This brings back memories of all the times her mother left to find the "Bird Room" so she could prove it was real. 

With her few supplies, Charlene to keep her company, hope, and a pocketful of clues, Cricket begins her quest--but first she has to learn how to survive living outdoors. 

Like all good stories, Cricket's search has several twists and turns that test her gumption:  raccoons steal her food, snow, and a copperhead bite. The last is too much for her to deal with alone and she seeks help from Miss V., an eccentric woman who provides more answers about her mother and the bird room than Cricket could have dreamt of. At the same time that the story moves forward, the author provides bits and pieces of backstory that help put the puzzle pieces together. 

SMACK DAB is not only a story of outdoor survival or putting puzzle pieces together. It is also a story of a young person coming to grips with her mother's mental illness. Beautifully woven into the text is Cricket's slow realization that her mother's behavior was eccentric, unexplainable, and unstable. Like Laura in CRAZY by Linda Phillips, Cricket begins to see a different picture:

What about all the sharp looks in the grocery store? The looks at Mama. The looks at me. 

If my mama was crazy, just what exactly did that make me? 

The floorboards felt like they were shifting. Nothing felt solid. I grabbed hold of the wall. 

Is this what going crazy feels like? (p. 141)

After I finished reading SMACK DAB I told Jo, "When I grow up I want to be like Cricket." Readers young and old will be inspired by Cricket's courage and spunk--as well as her love for her mother and the truth. And of course, also for her love for the outdoors.

Trailer

Just in case my review didn't sufficiently entice you, here is the trailer:

Giveaway

I took this picture when Jo hand-delievered
the ARC to my house!

Please leave your name and email address (if you don't think I have it) in the comments for my gently read autographed copy of this ARC. Winner will be drawn on July 13. Jo, our expert for the summer issue of Talking Story is also giving away a personally autographed copy too (anyone see an outdoors theme here?). Share this post on social media (and tell me what you do) and I'll enter your name twice. 

Hattie On Her Way: A Review and TWO Giveaways!

Congratulations to Linda Phillips. Random.org selected her name to win an audio book off last week's blog.

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Several weeks ago I pulled one of the books I received at Highlight Summer Camp, Hattie on Her Way (Candlewick Press, 2005) off my TBR shelf. Written by my friend and fellow blogger, Clara Gillow Clark, this girls' middle grade novel weaves together some troubling family situations in a very sensitive manner.

The Review

A sequel to Clara's first book, Hill Hawk Hattie, this book opens in April of 1883 with Hattie arriving at her grandmother's house. Right away, the reader hears her voice:

Pa said hawks don't crash into mountains or trees. He said they fly alert, watchful. But suppose a hawk got itself blown off course, ended up somewhere strange, somewhere it didn't rightly belong? Could it find its way home, fly back to its nest in the hills again? (p. 1)

The imagery of hawks and the theme of Hattie yearning for home repeat themselves. Surrounded by secrets, Hattie tries to get used to living with a grandmother she doesn't know in the house where her deceased mother grew up.

If she [Grandmother] thought we were on the same side together, she might share the shadowy secrets of Grandfather, and why the keys had gone missing and the silver was squirreled away, and why she didn't wear black, and where all the furniture and pictures had gone, and why she had hurried Pa away, and mostly why Ma had run off and never come back. It was a powerful lot to find out. And that's why I had to stay here and behave properly, though sitting so close to Grandmother made me even more lonesome for Pa and Jasper and my real home. (p.28)

A young next door neighbor, Ivy Victoria, pretends to befriend her. Ivy doesn't know that Hattie's mother is dead but relays the town rumor that her mother ran off with her father because her Grandmother killed her Grandfather. This theory only lends credence to Hattie's over-active imagination. 

Hattie's relationship with her Grandmother warms up when she sings Hattie the same songs she sang to her mother. That new closeness makes Hattie think,

Somehow I knew it better not to tell Grandmother about Ma's fairies becoming real to her. "Can you hear the fairies in the hemlocks?" Ma would say to me. All I heard was the wind. "See their gossamer wings?" All I saw were rainbows on raindrops or crystals of frost. She would tilt her head and smile. "They wish me to sing and dance with them," she would say. "Will you dance too, Hattie Belle?" The fairy make-believe was mostly enchanting.  But I didn't want to dance about in the clearing with invisible things or answer them like they were asking me questions or telling me what to do." (p. 63)

On the day that Grandmother unlocks her mother's bedroom, the two of them inspect her mother's dollhouse where she made up imaginary fairies rather than played with dolls. When her Grandmother finds little dresses and cloaks that her mother had made,

A sick feeling came over me like we were caught in a blinding snow together, and I shivered. "She sewed little dresses and bonnets for my clothespin dolls," I said. "She just liked to do it, sew dainty things." I reassured myself that Ma's fairy world had been make-believe and enchanting for both of us until just a few months before she died.

"Yes," Grandmother said slowly, thoughtfully as if she'd stumbled onto something a bit troubling and sad.  (p.121)

In the end, Hattie discovers the truth of the mental illness that plagued both her grandfather and her mother. This "madness" is dealt with in a very sensitive manner and enables Hattie to make an important decision. 

Girls in grades 4-6 will enjoy this historical novel. The only scene that may trouble some sensitive readers is a seance towards the end of the book.  

Two Giveaways

Clara is generously sponsoring this give away. The first winner will receive a Hattie doll plus an autographed copy of the book. The runner-up will receive an autographed copy of the book. What are you waiting for? This is a great holiday gift for the younger sister, daughter, niece, or granddaughter in your life! Please leave me a comment by December 8. Share this on the social media of your choice or become a new follower of my blog, and I'll never your name twice. PLEASE leave your email address and tell me what you did.

Kiss of Broken Glass: A Review and a Giveaway

Image-driven poetry. 

A serious mental health issue. 

Deep point of view. 

Madeline Kuderick's debut novel, Kiss of Broken Glass, reminds me of another beautifully written novel-in-verse, Linda Phillips' book, CRAZY.

Or to put it simply, if you liked CRAZY, you'll like Kiss of Broken Glass. 

When a "friend" finds fifteen-year-old Kenna cutting in the school bathroom and rats on her, Kenna finds herself "Baker Acted" (i.e., involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward for 72 hours). 

The first morning Kenna meets the other teens on the ward and the group therapist, Roger. 

I start to fixate on the paper clip stuck to Roger's folder.
The one with all those shiny, sharp possibilities.
I imagine the clip uncurling, transforming,
becoming straight and strong and stiff,
just like an arrow. 

A few beads of sweat form on my neck
near the vein that beats faster every time
something really good or really scary is about to happen.

I bet I can swipe the clip when Roger isn't looking,
and I have to bite the inside of my cheek
so nobody sees how excited that idea makes me. 

Then I remember what Donya said.
How they can keep me here
even longer than 72 hours
for something as lame as a paper cut. 

So I sit on my hands
and try to get a song stuck in my head instead,
and send screaming telepathic messages to Roger
to put that freaking paper clip away
before the click, click, click
shoots a bullet in my brain. (p. 24-25)

From that moment, the reader is immersed in Kenna's inner turmoil about an addiction she jokes about, "It's kind of like a club, I say. Sisters of the Broken Glass," (p. 23) and pretends she can quit at any time.

Kenna's favorite place at school is the bathroom where she can draw and be alone:

It's okay to be myself 
in that handicapped stall,
even if being me feels
sort of like a blank piece of paper.

I don't have to come up
with any colorful lies in there,
or force a smile until my cheeks hurt,
or roll up my long cotton sleeves,
and show off my scars,
just to fit in. (p.41)

Cutting is an endorphin riddled high. 

Whoosh!

The skin tears
and I feel this rush
swirling in my brain
like a waterspout.

A finger-tingling
tongue-numbing
heart-pounding
rush.

And the pain doesn't feel like pain
but more like energy
moving through my body
in waves.

Rushing.
   Cleansing.
       Pulsing.

Purging all the broken bits out of me
like a tsunami washing debris to the shore. (p.65)

While Kenna wrestles with guilt, she is also aware that she doesn't have a huge, deep dark secret causing her actions. She realizes that her main motivation is to be accepted by the gang of girls in her school who cut themselves. 

She uses her one phone call to call Rennie, the girl who is the head of the gang. Rennie picks up the phone.

And then I hear her.

"This better be good."

Her words are like punches
knocking the breath out of me.
I want her to say:

OMG! Are you okay?
This is sooooo unfair!
Are they going to let you out soon?
Everybody misses you like crazy.

But something's off.

"I just wanted to talk," I say.

"So talk," she answers.

I hear water running and someone giggling
in the background. Then Rennie sighs,
like she's bored with me already.

"Look. The school's on high alert," she says.
"A message went home telling parents to be
on guard for the Top Ten Signs of Self-Harm
and now every mom in Manatee County
is searching for scissors under the bed
and taking inventory of their Band-Aid boxes."

I hear the phone chasing hands
and another voices jumps on the line.

"You can't even get a plastic knife
in the cafeteria thanks to you." (p.131,2)

As crushing as that phone call is, it is also an eye-opener for Kenna, as she begins to see the lies she had begun to believe. She also admits to herself,

I need help.

And I wouldn't say it feels
like a huge first step.
Not in the Mount Everest way
that Skylar said it would.

But it definitely feels 
like something.

And just for a second,
a swirl of promise
tickles up inside me.

And I feel calm.
Without the guilt.  (p.198)


The book doesn't end syrupy sweet, but it does end with honesty and hope. When her family comes to pick her up Kenna says,

And it's not like I get
all happy ending-ish
and ride off into the sunset
or some crap like that.

But I do feel like I have a choice.
Like a fork in the road or whatever.

I just hope 937 Things to Do Instead are enough.

Because to tell you the truth,
I could go either way. (p.201)

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Madeline Kuderick wrote Kiss of Broken Glass the year following her daughter's involuntary commitment under Florida's Baker Act for cutting. Kenna was in sixth grade when she found herself surrounded by teens who cut themselves and as Madeline wrote in the Author's Note: "She tried it, experimentally at first, but was soon drawn into the strangely addictive allure of the blade." 

The book ends with two pages of resources. If you know someone who is struggling with self-harm, this book may be their first step towards hope and help. 

I met Madeline at the SCBWI Florida mid-year conference and was excited to have her autograph a copy of her book. I'm offering Kiss of Broken Glass as my first giveaway of 2016 and hope that it'll eventually land in the hands of a teen who needs to know she's not alone.  

Leave me a comment by noon on January 14th to be entered into this giveaway. If I don't have your email address, make sure you leave it too. 

Zane's Trace

When Allan Wolf was thirteen, he lost a penny behind the baseboard in his bedroom. He grabbed a pencil and wrote, "Penny lost down here on the night of April 12, 1976 at 2 til 9 PM and 5 seconds by Allan Dean Wolf."

In some ways, that was the genesis of Zane's Trace, a poetic coming of age novel that combines elements of historical fiction, free verse, and fantasy. 

Using a combination of powerful images, prose, real places, events and people, this book documents Zane Guesswind's journey as he wrestles with his painful past which includes his mother's suicide, an abusive grandfather, and his father's desertion. If that wasn't enough baggage for any teenager to carry around, Zane also has epilepsy. 

Up until the story's opening Zane has dealt with his pain by writing on any non-conventional surface imaginable including his bedroom walls and ceiling. Translating his thoughts and feelings this way sometimes has a therapeutic effect on Zane:

Whatever it was, the simple act of writing
on my wall had strengthened me somehow. (p.9)
.............
A red Sharpie made the men bleed. 
And I wrote and I wrote and I wrote.
The worse Mom got, the more I wrote.
The more the old man nagged her,
the more I wrote.
And the more empty spaces I filled,
the better I felt. (p. 12)

But, as a not untypical adolescent, it also gives him more power than he truly has. So, when his grandfather dies in his sleep, Zane thinks,

I did not kill him directly, yet I
was certainly the cause.
                       Last night--
the Zane-atopia scene on my ceiling,
the flash of light at the top of Mount Guesswind
the heaven holding Mom, Stanley, Zach, me
and Grandpa?
                     I smudged the old man out
with a fat, black marker--king size.
Last night I erased the old man from the light. (p. 30)


This book is a quick read, but not a simple one. It is full of powerful metaphors and layers of images--even as the writing on Zane's walls and his thoughts are layered with meaning. The line, "One straight shot" is repeated over and over again with various meanings and nuances. 

Zane's physical journey back to his mother's grave is also his emotional journey as he deals with his own deep grief. In the end, Wolff brings together the disparate elements of this poignant story as Zane reconciles the branches of his family tree. After his grandfather's funeral Zane says:

And all of us there--living or dead, crazy or sane, 
friend or foe, black or white, family or stranger--
we all crowd around and add our own names
to the twisted, crazy-beautiful family branches. (p.177)

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I would recommend this book for teens, particularly those who are wrestling with suicidal thoughts or have experienced mental illness and suicide in their families. Wolf includes a number of good resources at the end of the book, as well as information on what is historically and geographically accurate.