Rebecca Stead (WHEN YOU REACH ME)
For kids who are ahead of the game and have finished their Harry Potters, Hobbits and other classics of summer reading lists, here are three recent novels they could polish off for fun before school begins: suspense with a bit of the supernatural; a friendship story set during the Great Depression; and a historical novel involving mistaken identity and swordplay. Call it the pleasure reading list. THE EDITORS
WHEN YOU REACH ME
By Rebecca Stead. 199 pp.
Wendy Lamb. $15.99. (Ages 9 to 14)
In this era of supersize children’s books, Rebecca Stead’s “When You Reach Me” looks positively svelte. But don’t be deceived: In this taut novel, every word, every sentence, has meaning and substance. A hybrid of genres, it is a complex mystery, a work of historical fiction, a school story and one of friendship, with a leitmotif of time travel running through it. Most of all the novel is a thrilling puzzle. Stead piles up clues on the way to a moment of intense drama, after which it is pretty much impossible to stop reading until the last page.
It is 1979 on the Upper West Side of New York City, and Miranda, a sixth grader, is telling us, or rather someone in particular, about the events of the previous few months — “trying to map out the story you asked me to tell.” How the spare apartment key suddenly disappeared. How her best friend, Sal, stopped talking to her after being hit by a strange boy on their way home from school. And how anonymous notes started appearing, referring to things no one else but she could know about and begging her to do things as well.
It all happens within a few blocks, an urban neighborhood as intimate and familiar as any small town. There’s Miranda’s aging apartment building; her school; Jimmy’s deli, where she and two friends snag lunchtime jobs; and the corner with the crazy man who shouts weird things. Others in this small slice of Manhattan include Miranda’s single mother, a law school dropout who likes to wear striped tights and electric blue nail polish and is preparing to go on the “$20,000 Pyramid” game show; her mother’s boyfriend Richard, Mr. Perfect (except for having one leg slightly shorter than the other); some new friends, Annemarie and Colin; and Marcus, an enigmatic boy who talks of Einstein and time travel.
My fourth-grade students became obsessed detectives when I read this book to them — examining the map-like cover for clues, studying the clever chapter titles and constantly recalibrating their ideas as more pieces of the puzzle were revealed. When I reached the end, when they saw just how everything fitted together, they were completely and utterly delighted. I anticipate many others will be too after reading this smart and mesmerizing book. MONICA EDINGER
STRAWBERRY HILL
By Mary Ann Hoberman.
Illustrated by Wendy Anderson Halperin.
231 pp. Little, Brown. $15.99. (Ages 8 to 12)
Even if you didn’t know that Mary Ann Hoberman is the current national children’s poet laureate, with a shelf of distinguished picture books to her credit, you could tell from “Strawberry Hill,” her first novel, that you were in the hands of a seasoned writer. The restraint of her style is a tip-off that here is someone who knows how to bring detail and language into just the right balance to catch you up and pull you into the story.
The virtues of “Strawberry Hill” may not be immediately apparent from a synopsis of the plot, which is set during the Depression and follows the narrator, Allie, from the end of third grade, when her family moves from an apartment in one
Hoberman maintains an exquisite balance between Allie’s perspective and that of the adults around her, allowing for both a child’s way of thinking and a polished narration. Allie struggles with friendships and best-friendships: she’d rather spend time with Martha from next door than with Mimi from across the street, who cries easily and whose bookie father is “always a little scary, all dressed up and fancy all the time” — even after Martha remains overly loyal to a classmate who calls Allie a dirty Jew. While the brush with anti-Semitism and the economic hardship of the period might separately furnish entire novels, this author keeps these issues lifelike in their proportions, so that Allie feels more upset when her mother marches her over to Martha’s house and noisily tells off Martha’s friend than she is by the slur itself; Allie knows her mother has “spoiled everything.” The shifting of fortunes in Mimi’s favor doesn’t punish Martha or proceed without reversals, and the impact is the greater for being measured and realistic. In the conclusion, when Mimi shows Allie that strawberries grow on Strawberry Hill after all, they feel to her like magic. Magic or not, she and Hoberman have earned them; they are the fruits of Allie’s year of discovery. ELIZABETH DEVEREAUX
THE PLAGUE
By Joanne Dahme.
272 pp. RP Teens. $16.95. (Ages 12 and up)
From “The Prince and the Pauper” to “Gossip Girl,” readers have been tempted by the idea that our lives can be changed with a new set of clothes. But of course, trading places brings its own set of problems.
In Joanne Dahme’s novel “The Plague,” Nell is a poor English girl who has just lost her parents to the black death. As the gravediggers are taking their bodies away, the king happens to ride through town, catches sight of her and notes a resemblance to his daughter, Princess Joan. The King invites Nell to come live at the palace, thinking it might be useful to have a double around, but when Joan, too, dies, the evil Black Prince forces Nell to secretly take her place in order to carry off a beneficial marriage.
A suitable wardrobe is provided — “I was wearing one of the princess’s favorite summer dresses. . . . It was a red-and-blue silk gown with golden Plantagenet lions sewn on both the skirt and blouse” — but dressing like a princess is not the same as being one, and Nell is terrified someone will find out the truth. Unfortunately, the author misses an opportunity here. Among the many wonderful things about “The Prince and the Pauper” are the scenes in which Tom and the Prince fail to act correctly in their new situations (Tom using the royal seal as a nutcracker). Nell worries a lot, but she has few encounters with anyone who would be likely to see through her charade, especially once she makes her escape from the castle and flees across
But Dahme’s story is engaging and absorbing. It offers romance and sword fights, as well as a forgotten world without mass publications or photography, where most people wouldn’t know what the real princess looked like. Dahme’s strengths are in the moods she creates. Everything feels dark, wet and scary. She conveys the panic of being chased by terrible things — Black Prince and black plague — one is helpless to stop. SOPHIE POLLITT-COHEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/books/review/KidsChronicle-t.html?_r=1
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