By Tracie Vaughn Zimmer
Another Sasquatch nominee. First, let me say, that I didn't feel the cover spoke to the book. The cover invoked some sort of traveling adventure and frankly, the slightly sullen look of the girl, while somewhat fitting, didn't really hit the content and makes it look like a downer. I know how much a cover impacts our impressionable youth and I think this cover is going to make me work a whole lot harder to sell this book to the audience I think will enjoy it. The book does deal with some heavy subject matter, but there is a joy to it that isn't present on this cover. Yes, our students like "grown up," but not depressing. I liked this book too much for it to have that cover! I wish the cover mirrored some of the perfect illustrations, by Elaine Clayton, found inside the book.
So onto the content- this book is a beautiful collection of poetry that expresses the torn life of a young girl as she lives between her two households of her divorces parents. That isn't to say that she doesn't enjoy both lives, because she does, but it isn't ever on her terms. When she was born, her parents couldn't agree on a name, so they combined one, calling her JoEllen. So now she is Joey with her father on the farm and Ellen with her mother in the city. We get a lovely look at the life she shares with each and the love they share, along with a peek at the faults of each. But we also get how difficult it is to live in 2 worlds sometimes, with the quietness about the "other life" that is unspoken, but expected. We hear the anguish in the poem "Symmetry" of holidays divided- her life, like a hexagon in math class, split down the middle.
We also get to witness, through rich, sometimes sweet, sometimes slightly sour, poems about this 12 year old girl's life, her friends, the female school bully, school itself, her asthma (which shows a sweet tenderness between a father and daughter) and how she spends her leisure time with her parents. We get to enjoy the best of the city and the best of the farm as well. Zimmer's observations, filled with detail and insight, make the prose feel alive and genuine. The characters breathe because of her ability to capture small moments and find the truth in them and the settings are easy to picture. When describing the movie theater, we get to enjoy little details, relatable to kids, like
"There's a place in the carpet
that's so worn
it looks like a scraped knee.
And the gold tassels at the bottom
of the red velvet curtains
seem to unravel a bit more each week."
When Ellen/Joey gets an assignment at school to write an autobiography, she isn't sure what to write. Is she going to tell Ellen's story or Joey's? As her 13th birthday approaches, she begins to feel empowered and has the courage to try to start making her two lives meld. She decides to be JoEllen with both parents and makes attempts to start living her life on her own terms, like sometimes missing a weekend with Dad to do something special with her friends because she has always missed out on those events. She invites her friends to come out to the farm with her on another occasion, allowing people from each separate life to meet, becoming one life instead of 2. She has her birthday with everyone together and though it is uncomfortable for her parents, they do it out of love.
Though I truly loved the empowerment our young lady felt and the permission it gives others to try to live to live on their own terms, I did wonder if it presents just a bit too much of a fairy tale ending to divorce. I guess the parents don't get back together, so maybe it isn't truly "happily ever after," but I wonder how many kids would be let down by less mature parents when maybe trying the same thing?
I truly enjoyed this book- for it's beauty and for the content it offers our young readers. It makes a fine addition to the Sasquatch nominee list this year and I look forward to selling it, despite the droopy cover.
No comments:
Post a Comment