I Want to Write Like Her!!!

Because I've so many times held Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond up as a model work of fiction, I decided it might be good if I actually went back and read it instead of relying on my memory. Sometimes, you know, memory isn't completely reliable. But in this case, it was, and re-reading Witch has reinforced my hero-worship of Elizabeth George Speare!

I read differently this time than I did as a teen, having studied the art of fiction writing over the years (I had never heard of "show, don't tell" back then!). One of the things I found myself appreciating this time around was the way Speare developed the romantic relationship between Kit and Nat (oops, sorry for the spoiler if there's actually anyone out there who hasn't read this book). Not until the last chapter, like four pages from the end of the book, does Kit realize what she feels for Nat is love. The reader is aware of how good they are for each other long before Kit is. And maybe it's just me, but there's something so satisfying about watching it develop instead of being told it is developing. For example, I found this section amusing:

"She expected that when they reached South Road Nat would turn back, but to her consternation he strode along beside her, and even when she hesitated at Broad Street he did not take the hint. The happy mood of the afternoon was rapidly dissolving in apprehension. Why on earth had Nat persisted in coming too?"

Well, we know why!

Later, in what would I suppose be the climax of the story (when Kit is at a hearing to determined if she should be tried as a witch), I got the same thrill reading the following passage that I had the first time I read it:

"Every voice was suddenly stilled. Almost paralyzed with dread, Kit turned slowly to face a new accuser. On the threshold of the room stood Nat Eaton, slim, straight-shouldered, without a trace of mockery in his level blue eyes"...(skip a couple of pages)..."In the warm rush of pride that well up in her, Kit forgot her fear. For the first time she dared to look back at Nat Eaton where he stood near the door. Across the room their eyes met, and suddenly it was as though he had thrown a line straight into her reaching hands. She could feel the pull of it, and over its taut span strength flowed into her, warm and sustaining."

She doesn't call it love yet, but as a reader, I'm saying "Yes!" It's just right, in every way.

That's the reaction I want to bring my readers to. They say a person ought to write what he/she would like to read. In that case, I think I need to spend less time on agent blogs and more time really studying what Speare has done, and Janice Holt Giles, and Ann Turnbull, and Lisa Klein. Those are the literary footsteps I want to follow. If I can come close, I'll be happy, even if my work is never published.

(And Ann, if you read this, I'm not sucking up - I mean it!)

Plot vs. Story - A Reader's View

I recently finished reading It's Like This, Cat by Emily Neville, the Newberry Award winner for 1964. I was motivated by curiosity (and the need for an "I" book for my A-Z reading challenge).  Back when I was a kid, I read this book, and I couldn't remember much about it, just that there was a boy and he adopted a stray cat.

Sad to say, after reading it again, I can't say much more about it now.

That's not entirely fair to say, I guess.  There were some stories about Dave's relationship with his father, and about how Dave's family sort of adopts a young man who was like a stray cat, and about the "crazy cat lady" who wins a fortune from her estranged brother, and about Dave meeting a girl.  As I sit here trying to piece it all together, though, it seems to me that something was missing.  I think that something is a plot.

Maybe I'm sensitive to plot right now after reading an entry on agent Janet Reid's Query Shark blog. In that entry, she advises a writer that his/her query has "a series of events rather than any kind of plot."  That made me wonder, what's the difference? (I'm sure Mrs. Richardson, my high school English teacher, would be groaning about now if she read that!)  I won't delve into my thought processes in answering that question here (since I've already done that on my other blog), but suffice it to say a plot is more than just what happens in the story.  The plot is about how the events of the story change the protagonist. If a character is dynamic (and the best ones are), then somewhere along the way in the story, external events have an internal counterpart. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, for example, when Harry gets to the Department of Mysteries and finds the visions of his godfather lying injured were only a lure to bring him there, he realizes his own responsibility for endangering his friends and that he really doesn't know everything it's going to take to battle the powerful evil of Voldemort.  It's a humbling experience for him, one that makes him better in the end.  That's plot.

Back to It's Like This, Cat.  I like Dave Mitchell as a character, really. And if I stretch myself, maybe I could argue that the stray cat is a metaphor for the stray people that Dave accumulates over the course of the story.  A metaphor isn't a plot, though. The novel is a collection of entertaining episodes, but at the end, I can't really put my finger on how Dave is different for going through those episodes.  Maybe he doesn't fight with his father as often?  Maybe he has a wider view of the world? I just don't know. At the end I found myself asking, "It's like what, Cat?"

I do have to say one other thing - I can't imagine parents today letting a teen do the things Dave got to do in this book.  Riding a bike from one borough to another in New York City????

Who's Cribbing from Whom?

Ok, I'm kidding with that title. I recently finished reading Caddie Woodlawn for the first time. How did a girl who loved pioneer stories as much as I did as a child grow into adulthood without reading this book?!! Well, that's a question for another time. My point tonight is to talk about the similarities I kept noticing between Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink and the Little House book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

There were a number of events that happened to the girls in both stories - a prairie fire, encounters with the Indians, interaction with a overly prim girl, an unruly student who threatened to disrupt the school, the disappearance of a beloved dog, a potentially life-threatening dunk in a body of water. I know it's not the case, but it's almost like one author was copying ideas from the other. I checked the publication dates, and it's sort of ironic, I think, that both Caddie Woodlawn and Little House on the Prairie were published in 1935. There just must have been certain experiences that were common in pioneer communities. Some, like the prairie fires, were due to the landscape; some, like the encounters with the Indians, were due to the proximity of the different cultures; some, like prim cousin Anabelle and snotty Nellie Olsen, are just a part of human nature, regardless of the time or place.

The thing that is interesting is the way the different authors develop these similar experiences. Let's just use as an example the threat of a possible Indian attack. Here's an excerpt from Caddie Woodlawn:

"After dark, sentries were stationed about the farmhouse to keep watch during the night, and the women and children made their beds on the floor of the parlor, after the bedrooms were filled. No one undressed that night, and fires were kept burning in the kitchen and dining room for the men to warm by when they changed their sentry duty. Windows were shuttered and lanterns covered or shaded when carried outside. A deep silence settled over the farm. They did not wish to draw the Indians' attention by needless noise or light."

Now, here's an excerpt from Little House on the Prairie:

"Laura crept out of bed and huddled against Ma's knee. And Mary, left all alone, crept after her and huddled close, too. Pa stayed by the window, watching."
"The drums seemed to beat in Laura's head. They seemed to beat deep inside her. The wild, fast yipping yells were worse than wolves. Something worse was coming, Laura knew it. Then it came - the Indian war-cry."
"A nightmare is not so terrible as that night was. A nightmare is only a dream, and when it is worst you wake up. But this was real and Laura could not wake up. She could not get away from it."
"When the war-cry was over, Laura knew it had not got her yet. She was still in the dark house and she was pressed close against Ma."

I enjoyed Caddie Woodlawn, and I will definitely be recommending it to my 11-year-old daughter. But I have to admit, I like Laura Ingalls Wilder's version of the pioneer life better. Her description makes me feel like I was right there, hearing that terrifying cry in the dark. I guess that's the difference between telling about your own pioneer experience (which Wilder was doing) and telling the stories of someone else's experience passed down to you (which Brink was doing).

Good Advice from an Author

I'm getting along pretty well with my A to Z Reading Challenge so far; I just finished Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. It was all right. I like reading children's books, but this one was a little younger than I really prefer. That's not to say anything bad about the book. Curtis did well with maintaining the suspense of the story throughout, and I learned something about the racism that African-Americans faced during the Depression era.

The best thing I took away from the book, though, came in the author's note at the end - actually in the last paragraph.

"Be smarter than I was: Go talk to Grandma and Grandpa, Mom and Dad and other relatives and friends. Discover and remember what they have to say about what they learned growing up. By keeping their stories alive you make them, and yourself, immortal."

My grandfather on my mother's side just turned 99 about a week ago. When I think about everything that has happened in his lifetime, it's pretty amazing. He was about 7 when the U.S. entered World War I, 18 when the stock market crashed, a young married during the Great Depression, in his 30s during World War II. He witnessed Sputnik, the assassination of JFK, Watergate, the fall of the Berlin wall, the fall of the Twin Towers. When he was a child, cars were uncommon. He has only an 8th-grade education, because people had to pay tuition to attend high school, and he needed to work to help support the family, anyway. Now -- although he doesn't use them! -- we have tools that can instanteously communicate with people around the world, and that can store an entire music library on something smaller than a deck of cards. Think of the stories he could tell!

The same thing is true of my father's father. He's a youngster at 94, ha ha. He actually served in the Pacific in World War II, including the Battle of Midway.

But....I haven't heard their stories and probably won't. When we were both younger, I didn't even think about doing it. Now that I realize it, it's not going to happen. For one thing, they aren't exactly forthcoming with the stories. For another, I'm intimidated by them, sad to say. I might feel differently about it if it were my grandmothers. In fact, I do remember hearing some stories from my paternal grandmother about when she was first married and lived in a house with big cracks between the floorboards. The problem is, I didn't write those down, and now she's gone. All I have are the rather faded memories of the conversation.

Maybe kids will take Curtis' advice. But just in case my grandchildren are intimidated by me (ha!) I'm going to try to write down a few things and use scrapbooking to help preserve "how it used to be."

I'm Sorry, but I Just Don't See It That Way

I recently finished reading (and really enjoyed) My Brother Sam Is Dead, by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier. The edition we have (from a book fair at my son's school, I think) had bonus features, including an interview with Christopher Collier. In that interview, Collier said, "Johnny Tremain provides a simple interpretation of the Revolution that puts it into easy categories of 'good' versus 'bad'....that book shows the war in a way it didn't really run."

Granted, I've been a huge fan of Johnny Tremain since Mrs. Howell read it to my sixth-grade class. So I immediately took offense to seeing it labeled as "the Revolutionary War for Dummies." Hot on the heels of finishing the Colliers' book, I started in on Johnny Tremain, seeing if maybe my fond nostalgia had clouded my memories and judgment.

My conclusion? No, it hasn't. I know Christopher Collier is the historian of that pair, and I am not the expert on the Revolutionary War that he is, but I think he is selling Forbes' book short on its portrayal of the war.

Let's take for an example his contention that the book puts the events of the war into "easy categories of 'good' and 'bad'." One area in which a reader might expect to find those easy categories would be in the development of characters. So for Collier's thesis to hold up, the British would be unequivocally "bad" and the Americans unequivocally "good." Yet I think of the portrayal of Lieutenant Stranger, the young British officer who at one point taught Johnny to jump with his horse. Certainly he is shown as eager for the fight; as one character described him, "He likes fightin' real good. He ain't no cardboard soldier...." Yet when Johnny is taking riding lessons with Lieutenant Stranger, he finds the officer treats him as an equal when they are in the saddle. The officer also displays a strong sense of honor. "Johnny knew he longed to own [Johnny's horse] himself. He could, any moment, by merely saying 'commandeer.' And Johnny knew he never would say it." The next paragraph sums up the complexity of Johnny's relationship with Lt. Stranger: "Johnny almost worshipped him for his skill and almost loved him...but still it was only where horses were concerned they were equals. Indoors he was rigidly a British officer and a 'gentleman' and Johnny an inferior. This shifting about puzzled Johnny. It did not seem to puzzle the British officer at all."

I can think of other British characters for which there was that same ambivalence. The deserter Pumpkin, tough little Sergeant Gale who married the daughter of Johnny's former master, the admired and hated Major Pitcairn. I think Forbes made it clear that though the characters disagreed on politics, they were all, at the heart of it, human beings with a combination of good and bad characteristics.

So maybe the fault lies in Forbes' portrayal of the American characters. But again, I would have to say no. I think about the way Sam Adams, one of the heroes of the revolutionaries, was portrayed. You would think a writer who is oversimplifying events would show the heroes to be universally good. But Forbes has Johnny observing that "the Tories were saying that Sam Adams has seduced John Hancock, even as the Devil had seduced Eve -- by a constant whispering in his ear." The reader is left with the impression that maybe the Tories aren't so wrong in their assessment. Adams is consistently shown as a warmonger: "He doesn't care much any more about our patching up our differences with England." Granted, Forbes does seem to indulge in some hero worship of Paul Revere (reading this book made me want to hunt up her Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of him).

Maybe Collier's objection rests with the glossing over of violence. He and his brother take a "gritty" approach to describing what happened in the war, like when the boy sees the slave's head come bouncing off his shoulders during a skirmish. Yes, Forbes doesn't go into graphic detail, but she does include the violence that was part of the war, and not just in battles. At one point, Johnny hears a Tory man being beaten by the Sons of Liberty: Johnny heard blows and oaths from the street outside. His hands shook....They were doing something -- something awful, to the Tory." And strangely enough, it was one of the images of violence, from Pumpkin's execution, that was most deeply linked to my memories of this book: "Squared scarlet shoulders - and on each shoulder a musket. Each musket ended with a wicked round eye....Eight cruel eyes. It was like looking into the face of death."

I would have to conclude that Mr. Collier's comments are wrong. However, I have a theory as to why he would think Johnny Tremain is oversimplified. Yes, it doesn't place the reader right into the action of the war the same way My Brother Sam Is Dead does. I think that's because the Colliers wrote their book after television and Forbes wrote hers before television. Once we have seen footage of actual battle scenes and extreme closeups of actor's faces, I suppose anything other than "gritty" writing seems naive and oversimplified. Johnny Tremain depends on the reader to be involved and fill in the details; My Brother Sam Is Dead gives the reader the details up front. Johnny Tremain allows the reader to stay at arm's length if he/she wants to; My Brother Sam Is Dead forces the reader to be right in the action.

The View from Saturday

(This is the only review my son did for the other blog.)

This is a really good book. It follows the story of 4 members of a 6th grade trivia team. They have made it to the finals in their state, and are playing a team of 8th graders. In between questions asked by the judge, it follows each of the team members' stories. First is Noah, a Jew. Next in line is Nadia, Half-Jew, Half-Protestant. Ethan, Nadia's cousin, also helps the team. And last but not least is the quirky Julian, Indian, and very smart. Their loveable stories make up this Newberry Honor Book. If you would like to read it, the author is E.L. Konigsburg.

Pie Eater Kid (age 13)

A Little Jewel

I'm a sucker for bargain books. When I found The Matchlock Gun by Walter D. Edmonds as a bargain book, I picked it up for the kids, knowing nothing about it but that it was a Newberry winner. I'm so glad I did. I'm also glad that one of the kids "forgot" to put it back on the bookshelf so that it was lying on the kitchen table last Saturday while I was eating my lunch. I idly opened to the first page and was quickly enthralled.

This is a retelling of a true story from the pioneer days of New York State, when there was no "United States." The French and Indians are sweeping down into the frontier settlements, burning homes and killing settlers in the outlying areas. The book begins when Teunis Van Alstyne is leaving home for militia duty because of rumors of more raids. He leaves his wife, Gertrude, and their two young children home alone with reassurances that the militia will stop the Indians before they could threaten the Van Alstyne home.

He's wrong. Fortunately, one of the militia men is able to warn Gertrude that Indians are near, and the rest of the book relates the story of the plan Gertrude makes to protect her family using the only weapon they had available -- an antique Spanish gun that none of them are strong enough to hold.

I was impressed as I read it by the ingenuity and courage that Gertrude showed, and by the discipline and courage 10-year-old Edward showed. If either of them had failed, the entire family would no doubt have been murdered. But they don't fail, and the story lived on, handed down generation to generation until Walter Edmonds came across it and wrote it in a book.

I like this kind of story. It gives me new appreciation for what the pioneers did. Sure, we look back on it now and judge it as ethically wrong to push the Native Americans off their land. But you've got to admire the individuals who stuck with it through hardship for the dream of a better life for their families.

Something else I think is funny in this story -- Gertrude refused to go to her mother-in-law's brick house. She says it's because she thinks they'll be just as safe at their own home, but I can read between the lines -- there's no love lost between those two women. Gertrude would rather face the Indians alone than knuckle under to her mother-in-law!

Entry for June 7, 2007 - Just What IS "Moral," Anyway?

First, I have to sadly confess that I failed to keep my resolution. During May, I didn't read. Well, I read a lot of student papers and a lot of tests, but that's a lame excuse. The real reason is that I got so involved with a writing project I have going that I didn't do anything else (other than tossing food at my family three times a day and making sure they had at least one pair of clean underwear, lol). I'm disappointed in myself -- I thought I was on a real roll with this resolution. Ah, well.

But I think maybe I redeemed myself today. I had to kill a little time while my son was at basketball camp, so I went to the local library. I browsed the "teen" section looking for a particular book I want to find and read, and instead picked up The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman. I commandeered the comfy rocking chair in the little kid's section and I finished the book in an hour and a half (and still got back in time to see my son get "camper of the day"!).

When I got home, I perused a few online reviews for the book (I like to see what other people say) and I found one that bothered me. The writer of this review had given the book one star (out of 5), which is ok -- everybody has an opinion. But I thought the argument this person gave for the low rating missed the whole point of the novel. As a result, this entry is going to serve as a rebuttal to that misguided (from my viewpoint) review.

The review called the novel "vulgar" and "very inappropriate." It complained about cruelty to animals and a lack of "good, moral characters," citing specifically the scene when the midwife believes a baby is going to die before birth and so leaves the mother to go attend another birth -- and manage to be paid for both. The review ended by saying "this is a book that should be avoided" as young people try to establish healthy self-concepts and relationships.

I couldn't disagree more! I think that reviewer fails to understand the irony of this novel. Brat/Beetle/Alyce is the lowest of the low in human society, a nameless, homeless beggar, and yet she shows a compassion and humilty that make her stand in direct contrast to the hypocrisy of the "regular" folk. She doesn't overtly condemn them, and maybe that's what the reviewer doesn't like, but I think her observations allow us to condemn them instead, so that we are the ones making the moral decisions, not just listening to someone else preach them to us. A good example is what happens while Alyce is working at the inn. We find out that she is learning to work sawdust into the pie crust to make it stretch farther and other practices that Alyce accepts as part of the way things are, but that we know are cheating and just plain wrong. Cushman has made the moral judgments subtle, and I guess we have to have a base in good morals already to recognize that subtlety. Looks like to me it would make a great basis for discussion of moral behavior with young people who are at the point in life where they are establishing their own ethical parameters.

As for the charge of being "vulgar," I'm not entirely sure what the reviewer refers to -- I suppose he/she doesn't like the discussions of childbirth, maybe the opening scene when Beetle is sleeping in a pile of dung, maybe the language (I think I saw "piss" in there once - I don't remember if there was anything else that might have been objectionable). Guilty as charged. But -- what does "vulgar" mean? I checked my dictionary -- "vulgar" is "1)of or associated with the great masses of people as distinguished from the educated or cultivated classes; common; 2) deficient in taste, delicacy, or refinement; 3) ill-bred, boorish, crude; 4) obscene or indecent; offensive, coarse or bawdy. (There are others, but these seemed most relevant.) I checked also the definition of "obscene" and found that it "strongly suggests lewdness or indecency, particularly in reference to accepted standards of morality." I can't think of anything in the book that could be considered lewd or as possibly inciting lust, so that can't be the intended meaning for "vulgar." I'm going to assume the reviewer is basing use of this term on the second and third definitions above. Yes, sleeping in a pile of dung is crude and deficient in delicacy. But Beetle is not Pollyanna -- Beetle is a product of a cruel society that would allow a young girl to grow up having to fend for herself and take warmth where she can find it. The childbirth scenes are filled with screaming and writhing and slippery babies, yes, but you know what? Childbirth hurts, and babies don't come out clean the way they do on TV. Actually, there's not a lot of graphic detail in those scenes -- most of the emphasis is on what the midwife tries to do in terms of potions and other remedies to ease the birth. People in the book take baths in the river; they get caught "cuddling" in the barn; men try to get Alyce to give them a kiss. Yeah, that's all vulgar -- but this is a book of the common people. And people do those things -- it's part of human nature (well, ok, I don't know the last time anyone I know took a bath in the river, ha ha). Personally, I appreciate that Cushman puts in the warts instead of giving medieval English society a bit of plastic surgery to make it more palpable to our more delicate and refined modern tastes (although we still have problems with adultery and sexual harassment!).

The reviewer said the book is not worth the paper it's printed on. He/she is entitled to that opinion. I think, however, there is much about ethics and morality that can be gleaned from the book. In fact, I think the entire book is about ethics!! I certainly don't think young people should avoid the book. Some of them may be able to pick up on the ethical/moral implications on their own, while some may need the guidance of an adult to see the issues, but either way, I think it can be an asset in helping their ethical reasoning mature.

Oh, and as a communication teacher, I have to say I really appreciated the part where she names herself and then refuses to let others label her anymore.

Entry for April 9, 2007 - I Hope the Movie Is Better

My son has been asking to go to the movie Bridge to Terabithia, so I thought I would read the book first. Usually, movie adaptations of books are too overdone, in my opinion (like that ridiculous scene when Harry falls out of the flying car in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets). But after reading Bridge to Terabithia (by Katherine Paterson), I hope the movie can fill in some of the richness I so longed for while reading.

I'm beginning to think I have something against Newberry Award winners, because I haven't really liked either of the ones I've read so far this year. Bridge to Terabithia is the story of a poor boy (Jess) with an artistic, sensitive soul who befriends the new girl in school (Leslie), who is shunned by everyone else because she is too different (for one thing, her family doesn't have a TV). Their friendship centers around the imaginary kingdom of Terabithia, which they create in a forest and enter via a rope swing over a stream.

(SPOILER ALERT!)

While Jess is visiting museums in Washington with his favorite teacher, Leslie tries to cross to Terabithia and falls when the rope swing breaks, killing her. The story then deals with the emotions Jess feels as he tries to cope with her death and his feelings of guilt for not inviting her on the trip with him.

I think this is fine subject matter for a children's book, but I kept having the weird feeling that I was missing something, like I had skipped over a couple of really important paragraphs that kept me from completely "getting" the story. For example, I wanted more explanation of Terabithia. All I know about it is that the friends built a little shack from scrap lumber but turned it into a castle for a kingdom by using their imaginations. Paterson hints to us about the kinds of adventures Jess and Leslie have in their imaginary kingdom, but I guess I wanted it more fleshed out so I could better identify with the characters.

Overall, the whole story seemed to be a Cliff Notes version of itself. I thought there were several times when characters did things that were not well-motivated (for example, why does his teacher call him up out of the blue and invite him to Washington? She had not been in the book for several chapters. AND what 20-something teacher in her right mind would invite a 10-year-old boy on a "field trip" without talking to his parents herself???!!!) . And Jess' father goes from basically ignoring him to being sensitive and supportive when Leslie dies, which could happen, I guess, but just feels contrived (to me). I've read other books in the "kid dealing with death" genre (like A Taste of Blackberries a LONG time ago, and others), and this one doesn't seem to have a convincing ring to it.

I want to like these characters, and I want to be a "participant" in Terabithia. But this book just seems to have an emotional distance that keeps me at arm's length, like it's afraid of me getting too close, and so I can't really be friends with it.

Entry for February 28, 2007 - In Which She Reflects on Race Relations

I cut it close, but I did manage to finish my book for this month -- here on the last day.

I knew there were kid/young adult books written by African American authors that have had good reviews, so I thought I would read one this month. I selected Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor. It's a Newberry Award winner, so I expected it to be exceptionally good. However, I was disappointed, especially at first-- in fact, I considered just dropping the book and moving on to something like Bud, Not Buddy. The book moves very slowly in the beginning -- VERY slowly. Taylor likes to use description -- the "slow the story down to a crawl" type of description, and the characters don't really seem to ring true to me. The "good" characters are totally good, and the "bad" characters are totally bad with no redeeming qualities. It seemed like a sort of cardboard morality story.

(Note: This entry is going to contain spoilers, because I can't say what I want to without revealing important plot action.)

The narrator of the story is 9-year-old Cassie Logan, who lives with her 3 brothers, her parents, and her grandmother in the Mississippi delta in 1933. The story goes through most of a year with the Logan family, who are different than the other black families in the area because the Logans own their land instead of sharecropping for the wealthy descendants of the pre-Civil War plantation owners. The family has managed to keep the land for about 50 years, though the father has to go to Louisiana to work on the railroad to get money to pay for the mortgage and taxes.

The story describes the persecution the blacks in the area suffer, starting with an incident (which the Logan children only hear about) in which three men are burned alive for supposedly making advances to a white woman. The children have to bear up under the indignity of having school books that are discards from the white schools and the taunts of the white children on the school bus that passes them every day. Over the course of the story, the persecution escalates after Cassie's parents organize a boycott of the local storekeeper, who was responsible for the burning incident. Cassie's mother loses her job as a teacher, and her father is attacked on his way home from getting supplies from a store in Vicksburg. Cassie herself is the subject of harassment when she accidentally bumps into a white girl and is forced to apologize and to refer to the girl as "Miss" Lillian Jean. But all the tension between the blacks and the whites in the area comes to a crisis point when TJ Avery, one of Cassie's oldest brother's friends, gets involved in a robbery gone bad with two white boys, who put all the blame on him. Cassie and her brothers observe the "night men" come and haul the entire Avery family out of their house, and only a fire that threatens one of the plantations keeps the vigilantes from lynching TJ.

The climax of the book must be why it was a Newberry winner, because all those things I complained about above are no longer true at that point. The scene is vivid, to the point that it is painful to read it and to know that scenes like that really happened to people. But as painful as it is to look, we can't afford to look away. It's part of the truth of the American South of the early 20th century, and recognizing and remembering the brutality of race relations at that time is important. The ending of the book was especially poignant -- "What had happened to TJ in the night I did not understand, but I knew it would not pass. And I cried for those things which had happened in the night and would not pass."

But that brings me to the thing that bothered me about this book. The message seems to be that things between blacks and whites won't get any better. Of course, we see the brutality and the harsh use of power by the whites in the story. But the blacks also do things that keep the relationship negative. Cassie's older brother Stacy engineers revenge on the busload of white kids who have splashed him and his siblings with mud earlier in the day. Cassie herself masquerades for a month in "Uncle Tom" style so she can get a chance to get back at "Miss" Lillian Jean. And it doesn't matter to her that Lillian Jean doesn't understand why Cassie turns on her -- Cassie is satisfied with the revenge.

The saddest part, to me, is the relationship between the Logans and a poor, "white trash" boy named Jeremy. Jeremy keeps reaching out in an effort to be friends with the Logan kids. He walks part of the way to school with them every day. At Christmas, he brings Stacy a present. He comes over to their house in the summer just to talk and he invites them to come see the bedroom he built for himself up in a tree. But they rebuff all his attempts at friendship. As Mr. Logan explained it after Jeremy brought the Christmas gift, "Far as I'm concerned, friendship between white and black don't mean that much 'cause it usually ain't on a equal basis. Right now you and Jeremy might get along fine, but in a few years he'll think of himself as a man but you'll probably still be a boy to him. And if he feels that way, he'll turn on you in a minute . . . . white folks mean trouble. You see blacks hanging 'round with whites, they're headed for trouble. Maybe one day whites and blacks can be real friends . . . . the trouble is, down here in Mississippi, it costs too much to find out."

I have to take a little side trip here for a minute. The other day, I was talking to a friend about this book (before I'd finished it and when these thoughts were first coming together in my head). He said he's reading a book about the Crow and Sioux Indians and the way they dealt with the occupation of whites and being forced onto the reservation. He said the book says the leader of the Crow had a dream about a chickadee, which he took as a sign that the Crow should be like the bird -- smart and adaptable and able to learn from those around them. So they began to raise cattle rather than hunt buffalo, and they prospered as ranchers. The Sioux, on the other hand, followed Sitting Bull's vision of the ghost dance, which reinforced their past identity as great warriors of the plains -- and we know what the ultimate outcome was there. My friend said the book said the Sioux had a "thin" identity that limited their world and their options to the point that there couldn't have been a different outcome.

I think the view of race relationships in Roll of Thunder is a similar "thin" identity. Just about everyone in the book -- black and white -- has a view of others that is based only on skin color. It doesn't matter that Jeremy acts more like a friend than TJ does (he's always trying to use Stacy to get the answers to tests for school, he cheats Stacy out of a good wool coat, he gets Mrs. Logan fired from her teaching job); when it comes down to it, the Logans stick with TJ because he's black and they reject Jeremy because he's white. If we identify the "other" as the enemy based on outside appearance rather than trying to get past that appearance to find out who the person is, of course racism and prejudice "w[ill] not pass."

Maybe I'm naive. Maybe it's easy for me to say that because I'm white, and I've never had to face a lynch mob or be dragged out of my house in the middle of the night. But it seems to me there's a element of risk in any relationship. Anyone -- white or black -- can turn on you. But if we allow ourselves to have relationships only with those people who are "safe" because they belong in the same category we do, or if we treat others who are different as if only that "skin" is the reality, the world becomes a small, tight straitjacket. The only way we can achieve Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream world -- a world of "thick" relationships with possibilities -- is by opening ourselves up to the risk of getting to know the person behind the skin.