Dead Ending (for real!) with a Small Observation about Voice....

One thing I find endlessly interesting about Gantos-the-writer and Gantos-the-character is how entwined the voices are. His Jack-character doesn't quite sound like a boy...but he sure doesn't sound like a man, either.

Sure, I have to mention somewhere the semi-autobiographical nature of Dead End. So you'd think this book would have the annoying sound* of a grownup narrating from his remembered childhood---but it doesn't. It sounds mostly like a child, but sometimes not: maybe like a child with a couple of seeds of adulthood already starting to grow.

Those adultish seeds nearly get out of hand there on the last page,** but Gantos-the-writer manages to land the book's narrative-voice airplane mostly on the runway***. So, bravo! to Norvelt and Jack Gantos, both man and boy.

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*The sound is something between a self-aware whiny and the bleat of one who thinks that childhood before the deluge of social media was just swell.

**The reader gets an unexpected snootful of moral rectitude. Fortunately, Dad saves the day.

***Mixed metaphors are best served cold.

Dead Ending with Spunky Old Lady Archetypes...and the Best Dad in the World

Well, I came to the dead-end of Dead End in Norvelt last night.

It's a great book! Definitely read it! You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll get grossed out! But most of all, you'll* realize how tired your are of the spunky old lady paradigm.

The great big world of kiddie lit in deeply infested with 'em. In Dead End, we have a soft-hearted old-lady crank who is the plant for the historical vignettes sprinkled throughout the book. But it could have been an outspoken grandma (preferably from the South). An old lady down the street who makes it heck to be a kid, but then somehow through various, innummerable ways, means, plot devices, character markers and narrative arcs ad infinitum reveals her heart o' gold.** A librarians. A maiden aunt.*** A church lady. And they're all quirkier than anyone has a right to be: they hog the page, blurt out all the great lines and just generally steal the ending.

So.

Though I'm reeeeeeallly done with greeting yet another quirky SpOLA**** every time I crack open a mid-grade, (and I say this with all the love in my heart since I myself am of SpOLA-ish age, and lemme tell you, the inner weird stuff really does come flying out thick and fast. Mainly because your* looks are gone and therefore you* no longer give a yellow rat bastid what anybody thinks, but I digress), I am so glad---oh, so glad!---as a writer and a reader for Jack's dad.

So.

Why don't they give a Newbery for most distinguished character-contribution to fatherhood for children, huh huh huh? Because Jack the Elder is such a great character.***** In the course of this book he rebuilds an airplane, gets his pilot's license, goes hunting and moves the better part of entire town to the next state.

I make him sound like just another archetype---the emotionally-stunted-he-man-who-doesn't-understand archetype. But Jack's dad is FANTASTIC. All you have to do is read the hunting scene to know that this man is a complicated soul.

And the ending? The SpOLA is off taking a well-deserved nap while Jack and his dad get up to no good. At all.

Perfect!

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* Especially if you're me!

**Actually, Miss Volker is a bit of all of these as well.

***My Drags of Spratt has one of these. She's not particularly old, though

****Spunky old lady archetype. Thanks, dear H, for long ago straightening me out on the spelling of archetype.

*****The mom's pretty cool, too. She has a big scene with a gun and a deer, too. Kinda cool, both parents with the guns and deer motif. Don't run across that every day!

More Dead Ending...

"I didn't come in here to talk about Jesus," (my dad) said, trying to sound stern. "I came in here to talk about gun safety."

From Dead End in Norvelt, Jack Gantos

Dead Ending at the Library

After last week's disappointing field trip through the stacks, I am happy to report that I got the real deal at the my latest trip to the public library:

Tada!

I adore Jack Gantos. His Jack books are great. His Joey books are great.* And Hole in My Life is the sin qua non of sin qua noniness.

I can't wait to read Dead End.** It's just that...reading Jack Gantos puts me in the strangest moods....

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*The series just goes on about two books too long. You know this. I know this. I suspect Jack Gantos knows this. Apparently it is very hard work to resist the siren call of writing a runner-up to one's award-winning Newberino book. Just ask Louis Sachar, Jennifer Holm, Ingrid Law, Susan Patron...why, even our personal favorite for this year's Newbery sticker, Rebecca's dad couldn't resist.

**Which has yet another example of separated-at-birth covers so beloved by nervous publishing companies:

To India, the Brave and Beautiful....

...kickin' polio in the arse.

Hooray!

More Blank Books with Bright Covers

Boy. Rough week at the public library. Two books nearly killed me:

Book with an Orange Cover (or Book/Clone I've Read Like a Bajillion Times Before) is the heart-warming, mildly funny story of a kooky relative (in this case an aunt) doing One Big Plot Thing (like oh, I don't know---turning a big ol' house owned by a cranky but generous patron into a B&B). Much chaos ensues.

There's nothing wrong with this book---heck, it's well-written by a write who's way way more famous and deluxe than I'll ever be; it's in present tense and full of warm hearts and mild fun. It even has a warm and snuggly afterward---but goodness me. If writing for the great big world of kiddie lit really has drifted into a choice really between grindingly violent dystopias and warm and snuggly family stories, then it's a good thing I took that job full-time mixing paint.

Because my stuff is doomed.

Book with a White Cover not only nearly killed me, it drove me nuts. Again, another way more famous (and deluxe!) author than I writing a stream -of-consciousness type dealio with kids who write profoundly, meaningfully, subversively in their school journals.* No worries, though. You can keep every kid straight because they have different fonts, which strikes me as a terrific publishing idea, since you can't actually, technically, exactly discern any differences in the voices and points-of-view without the font shifts.**

After I finished White Cover, I knew it was a good thing about that full-time paint-mixing gig.

Thank goodness for Iva Ibbotson! I've been a fan of her writing since I stumbled across her women's fiction back in the 'eighties*** Now she's way more famous (and super-duper-dee-luxe!) for her children's books, all of which I have read and loved; none more so than The Ogre of Oglefort---which totally saved my reading week.

Thank you, dear Ms. Ibbotson!

"Your mother thought you might make me a familiar," said the Hag.

"It could be something quite simple---a spotted salamander perhaps?"

Dr. Brainsweller looked worried.

"Oh dear," he said. "Of course if Mummy thinks....

But I tried once and ...well, come and look."

He led them to a cupboard

and pulled out a plate with something on it.

It looked like a very troubled banana which had died in its sleep.

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*Also known as the One Big Plot Idea.

**Well. There is one Shy Kid who writes shy stuff, subsequently getting his groove on toward the end.

***I understand a lot of these have been reissued as YA---track down a copy of Countess Below Stairs or The Morning Gift. Great stuff!

Bra. Vo. You.

Once a year I check this blog's stats. The number of hits to the My Books page outruns the Bio page hits by two to one.

Which is darned near perfect.*

Blessed New Year!




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*Perfect would be three to one.