Book Review: Call Me Hope by Gretchen Olsen + Mother-Daughter Book Club Library Meeting

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Last Saturday I was happy to be invited as a guest to the Hillsboro, Oregon, public library mother-daughter book club meeting. Gretchen Olson, author of Call Me Hope, was also there to talk about her book and the Hands & Words Are Not For Hurting Project, which received a portion of the advance for Call Me Hope. A great group of moms and daughters had gathered that morning to meet Gretchen and hear her perspective on the book while also talking about their own thoughts. I loved being in on the conversation. And I admired the commitment of group members who came out at 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning to be part of the meeting. I know how difficult it can be to get kids out of bed and out the door on a non-school day.

Gretchen is a passionate supporter of the Hands & Words Are Not For Hurting Project, and she hopes that her book will inspire readers to take on a service project involving the group, which provides educational materials that can be used in schools among other things.

Here’s a picture of the group with Gretchen, who is in the middle wearing purple.

And here’s my review of Call Me Hope.

Hope Marie Elliot is eleven years old and in sixth grade. She has a lot to hope for: that her verbally abusive mother will stop calling her stupid and making her feel as though everything she does is wrong, and that she will get to go to Outdoor School at the end of the school year. But Hope is aptly named, and while her mother’s insults continue unabated, she begins to form a refuge for herself. She throws her energy into school work and takes on a challenging project related to Anne Frank’s diary, which her class is reading. She forms a friendship with two women who own a consignment clothing shop, and works to earn clothing for herself. She makes new friends at school, and begins to see her school counselor as someone she can open up to.

She is surprisingly independent for a girl her age, but much of her independence is forged from neglect. When Hope could be drawing inward and closing up, instead she reaches out and sees that the wide world is not necessarily like the one she experiences at home. And that gives her courage to reach out for more. Underlying much of the book is the recognition that while physical abuse is no longer accepted, verbal abuse is often still ignored or dealt with awkwardly.

Call Me Hope is told simply through the words of the young protagonist, and it is richly layered with many themes. Some of the questions it asks readers to ponder: What is verbal abuse? How does a parent’s verbal abuse affect members of the whole family, especially when it’s directed at only one sibling? How do voices from the Holocaust have meaning for and inspire us today? What impact does a loving community have on a child’s emotional well being? Is there hope for change?

Author Gretchen Olson has written a book that shines a light on an issue that isn’t talked about much, while giving us a character, Hope, who will burrow into your heart and stay for a while. Highly recommended for ages 9 and up.

Book Review: Getting the Girl by Markus Zusak

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Regular readers of this site know that I’m a big fan a Markus Zusak’s books. The Book Thief is one of my all time favorites, and I also really like I Am the Messenger. I recently finished one of Zusak’s earlier books, Getting the Girl, and it confirmed for me once again why I like his writing so much. The voice of Zusak’s characters is so real, so easy to empathize with, that as you’re reading you almost think of yourself as the main character. I’m certainly not a high school boy like Cameron Wolfe in Getting the Girl, but I really felt like I knew what he was going through and knew his character very well. Here’s my official review; I highly recommend it for readers aged 14 through adult.

In Getting the Girl, Markus Zusak takes us into the world of Cameron Wolfe, a high school boy living in the shadow of his older siblings: Steve who’s smart and driven and successful at everything he does, Sarah who works hard, and Ruben, a fighter who earns the respect of all the guys in the neighborhood and who easily gets any woman he wants.

But Cameron is a loner, with no friends outside his family, no girls to go out with, and nothing to do at night but wander the streets around his home. Things start to change for Cam when Octavia comes into his life. Octavia is the latest in a long line of girls dumped by Ruben. Cam sees her as different from the rest, and when she makes it known she’s interested in him, Cam doesn’t hesitate. But how does he open up to someone when he’s so used to being alone? And how does he tell Ruben that’s he’s dating one of his ex-girlfriends?

Cameron is an unlikely hero. Quiet and unassuming, he’s caught between wanting to find someone who appreciates him for what he is and wanting to be more than what he lets others see of him. Getting the Girl delves into complex issues of family and the roles played by different members, and finding a way to be true to yourself while not being overshadowed by more forceful personalities.

Book Review: The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman

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Ruby in the Smoke imageFans of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series will find The Ruby in the Smoke very different, but in many ways just as pleasurable to read. It opens with sixteen-year-old Sally Lockhart visiting her deceased father’s shipping firm and accidentally causing one of his associates to die of a heart-attack when she ask him if he knows of the Seven Blessings. The phrase was on a piece of paper dictated by her father before his death and sent to her in secret.

Fearing that her life is in danger, Sally seeks to unravel the mystery of why her father died, who would like to see her dead, and where to find the famed ruby of an Indian maharajah. Set in Victorian London, The Ruby in the Smoke takes the reader into the dark underworld of the times, where opium dens, disreputable boarding houses and seedy characters abound, while poverty forces many into a life of crime. Pullman keeps us guessing right up until the end, when the facts of several mysteries building during the story are revealed.

Book Review: The Night Tourist by Katherine Marsh

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Jack Perdu is a loner, a ninth-grader who is an expert on Greek classics and lives on the Yale University campus with his archeology-professor father. One winter afternoon, while he has his nose in a book, he is nearly killed when a car hits him in a crosswalk. Mysterious things start to happen to Jack after that. He finds a strange man in his father’s study—a man who disappears without a trace from an upstairs window when he spots Jack. Then his father sends him to see a doctor in New York City, a place he hasn’t visited since his mother died there eight years before. But while he’s waiting for his train to return, he meets a girl named Euri who takes him on an adventure into the mysterious realm of New York’s ghostly underworld.

As Jack dodges Cerberus, the three-headed dog who’s mission is to eliminate the living from the among the dead, her tries to locate his mom before he has to return to the world of the living or remain permanently in the world of the dead. An interesting twist on the story of Orpheus in Greek mythology, The Night Tourist by Katherine Marsh will have you looking over your shoulder at dusk and paying attention when you feel you’re being watched but no one’s there. It’s morbid subject matter never becomes too dark or overwhelming, and it asks questions that are great for group discussion: What happens when you die? Why is it important to treat life as a gift? Why do your family and friends need to know how much you care for them? The ending feels a bit rushed, but the fast wrap-up can provide good possibilities for conversation of what happens to Jack after his adventure.

Book Review: Becoming a Superhero by William Smith

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Becoming a Superhero by William D. Smith is an endearing tale that is a semi-autobiographical account of a young boy who dreams of being a superhero, and discovers a lot about himself along the way. We meet Billy Smith, a 10-year-old growing up in a Pennsylvania coal-mining town, as he decides to try his superhero powers by jumping out of the second-story window of a deserted house wearing a Superman cape he is sure will make him fly. His disillusionment doesn’t last, and he’s sure there’s some way he can become a superhero.

Set in the closing days of World War II, Billy’s story will take the reader back to the innocent times of those hard days. Times when boys collected scrap metal for the war effort, built soap box cars for derby races, and everybody watched cowboy movies. Billy’s also always getting into trouble because of his creative spelling, unusual solutions to math problems and general sense of adventure. It was a time when kids played without too much adult supervision and their neighborhood included the whole town.

Billy’s alter-ego, William, is always whispering in his ear about the things he knows he should be doing, but Billy does a pretty good job of ignoring him most of the time. Told very simply, this story is very accessible for younger readers, ages 8–12, who will appreciate Billy’s observations about his parents, his grandparents and his teachers. Younger readers being read to would probably also enjoy it, while parent readers will appreciate the quiet wisdom Billy’s mother gives him to help him learn how to become a superhero without ever developing supernatural powers. And Billy’s grandfather ultimately gives him a wonderful gift by inspiring him to leave their coal town and see the parts of the world that the grandfather knows he will never see.

While the writing is not very polished, that actually contributes to the feeling that you’re hearing a story about “those good old days” told to you by your grandpa. I believe young girls and boys both will have fun reading this book.

Book Review: The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald

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Last night Catherine and I hosted our book club (9th grade girls) to talk about The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald. A classic book first published in 1947, The Egg and I tells the story of life for Betty and her husband when they buy a chicken farm in a remote area of Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula.

While there were obviously some challenges in reading the book (different writing style, a few outdated references to things neither of us knew about) all in all it was fun to read and talk about. Many of the passages actually made us laugh out loud. Betty’s wit in looking at a life and a community filled with never-ending work and many hardships is a treasure for the glimpse it gives us into rural life just before the Depression.

While it would have been easy for us to talk about some of the funniest passages, we chose instead to focus our discussion on two issues: the role of women in those days versus today, and the part racism plays in how we view others who are not like us. There was a lot to talk about with both topics.

The Egg and I starts with Betty saying that her mother taught her at an early age to always be sure she did everything she could to help her husband be happy with his work. That advice is what probably contributed greatly to Betty’s ending up on the chicken farm, a place she may not have ever chosen for herself if her husband had not wanted to go into the business. Once there she throws herself into making the experience as successful as possible, while combating loneliness, fatigue and isolation. The girls all felt their experience would involve more compromise than Betty had, and they’d be able to work toward what they want to do in life as well as what their eventual husbands may want to do.

The moms tended to think we’re still in transition. While relations between the sexes have come a long way since the 1920s, the reality today is that far more women move for their husbands’ careers than the other way around. But the trend shows a positive gradual change.

As for racism, we talked about how easy it often is for people to look at someone, not like what they see, and assign the characteristics they don’t like to everyone who is of the same race. If instead we see people as people, we see that people of all races often struggle with the same problems, and we’re more likely to think of those as individual instead of racial issues.

I expect next month we’ll be bringing some of those same points up again and discussing them even more when we talk about The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, our next book.

Celebrate the Freedom to Read During Banned Book Week

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Next week, September 27 to October 4 is the American Library Association’s Banned Book Week. The ALA says this event “reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.”

I looked over the list of the most frequently challenged books from this century, and was surprised by some titles that made the list. It was no surprise that the Harry Potter series was there, because I’ve heard of many challenges to those books. But the Captain Underpants series? I read them all with my daughter when she was young, and they fit perfectly into the crude sense of humor so many kids have. She loved them, and I don’t think reading them has led to any long-term crass behavior on her part.

Looking at the list of most challenged books from the 20th century I was not surprised to find Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird, two of my all-time favorites that do stir up controversy occasionally. But I couldn’t believe Lois Lowry’s The Giver made the list. Both of my daughters read that in their 6th grade lit classes, and then they went on a field trip to see it performed on stage. It’s a very powerful book with a message that lasts.

Celebrate your freedom to read by checking out the list of challenged books at the ALA’s website, then pick one to read. I think I’ll check out Huckleberry Finn again, and maybe read it to my daughter this time.

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Book Review: Sarah’s Key by Tatiana De Rosnay

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Sarah's Key imageSet in both 1942 and modern times, Sarah’s Key by Tatiana De Rosnay is a mystery as well as a heartbreaking look at the round up and deportation of Jewish families from Paris to Auschwitz in what was known as the Vel d’Hiv for the place the families gathered—the Vélodrome d’hiver, or winter velodrome.

Ten-year-old Sarah Starzynski is sleeping when the Paris police bang on her apartment door.  Her family had heard of Jews being rounded up, but only the men. So Sarah’s father was hidden in the basement, thinking his family was safe. But the police this night came for everyone. Sarah’s four-year-old brother, Michel, stubbornly refused to go and insisted on hiding in a secret cupboard before the police saw him. Sarah locked Michel in and promised to come back when she returned.

Sixty years later, Julia Jarmond, an American journalist living in Paris, investigates the story of the Vel d’Hiv and uncovers Sarah’s story when she finds out that her husband’s family moved into Sarah’s apartment after her family left. She is determined to find what happened to Sarah, in the process uncovering family secrets that some think would be best to leave buried.

Gripping and emotional, this fast-paced book brings to life Paris in the 1940s and in modern times. It takes a frank look at a nation and a people who for so long would not come to grips with its complicity in sending its own citizens to die in Nazi concentration camps. It also follows Julia as she delves deeper into the story while confronting conflicts of her own with her husband and his family. I recommend it for mother-daughter book clubs with girls in high school.

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