Review: The Yearling - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

The Yearling

by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Ages 10+

400 pages



I read this book for the YA Through the Decades challenge (book 1!).

I loved the perpetual question asked in the book: how would they be challenged next?  There was no question it would happen, nor did it feel excessive or overly dramatic.  It was just the way life was in the northern Florida swamp.  Yet even though the question of survival was always on Jody's family's mind, it was never so sharp and immediate as it was in the last chapter, where Jody ran away from home and discovered his own truth: in the end, when one is hungry, animals must be food.  It is eat, or die - no questions asked, no morality, just truth.

I'm listening to another book, Farm City, that discusses this idea, but clearly in our "civilized" world, it is a choice to eat animals for food.  The author embarks upon a month-long experiment to see if she can successfully feed herself on her own garden and animals for one month.   She talks about how she wasn't sure if she could kill her rabbits, being mammals like her, but discovers in the hungry moment that it didn't matter that much.  Food is food, and she is grateful for it.  I think perhaps with Jody being so emotionally tied to Flag that he has crossed a line, but I suspect, had it been necessary, Jody would have been able to eat Flag's meat, with appreciation for what Flag did for him.

Oh, and can I just say?  You know you've really made it when your book gets its own publishing imprint.  Not to mention its own Wikipedia entry.

Ratings

• Awesomeness: 7 - never ponderous even in its tome-like length, this is a great survival story.
  
• Wordsmithing: 8 - Rawlings does a spectacular job evoking the language and attitudes of the people of rural Florida of this time period, but the true magic is in her description of the swamp.
  
• Personages: 7 - several characters were flat, but Jody and his family are multifaceted and fascinating to read.
  
• Mesmerizitude: 8 - I found myself reading bits of it under the covers on my iPhone in the middle of the night.

The Eternal Smile by Gene Luen Yang

Summary from Amazon: "From two masters of the graphic novel--Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese) and Derek Kirk Kim (Same Difference and Other Stories) come fantastical adventures through the worlds we live in and the worlds we create: the story of a prince who defeats his greatest enemy only to discover that maybe his world is not what it had seemed; the story of a frog who finds that just being a frog might be the way to go; and the story of a woman who receives an email from Prince Henry of Nigeria asking for a loan to help save his family. With vivid artwork and moving writing, Derek Kirk Kim and Gene Luen Yang test the boundaries between fantasy and reality, exploring the ways that the world of the imagination can affect real life."

Dang.  This one got me.  I guess I'm used to reading kids' books, which are inevitably predictable. This one had me guessing and marveling at every twist, of which there were several!  

I would say this is YA mostly because of the references younger students wouldn't get (Nigerian spam and genital prosthetics, for example), but it was refreshing to read a story with really nothing to be considered obscene.  Um, except for the genital prosthetics, but we never actually *see* those or anything... 

I am hooked and must go read more Yang!

I read this for the 2009 Cybils.

Awesomeness: 8.5 - this book exudes awesomeness!

Wordsmithing: 7 - clever and well plotted.

Personages: 7 - fascinating but not very likeable, though that is not necessary in short story land.

Mesmerizitude: 8 - it captured me.

Illustrations: 7 - three excellent stories in three excellent styles, all by one artist - very cool.  

Coming-and-Going Men: Four Tales by Paul Fleischman

Having spent nearly a decade now as a librarian, I have been confounded by the two Fleischman authors sitting side by side on my fiction shelves, Paul (son) and Sid (father).  Although I am constantly recommending both, I often get the two mixed up.  It's awkward to point out their dual spot and not know whether to say, "He's the guy who wrote The Whipping Boy," or "Remember that poetry book about bugs I booktalked in January?  That's him!"  

So I decided to answer the question once and for all.  I checked out a whole passel of books by each from our fantastically stocked public library and am working my way slowly through them.  

Paul Fleischman's prose is lush and nobbly.  I don't think it would be possible to read the book aloud without being, or at least affecting the voice of, an elderly white-haired man.  He has a great knack for clever imagery and metaphor: "A vast sickle of wind swept through the air, mowing down the crop of smoke rising from the chimney tops and attempting to harvest the long-limbed, stalklike figure of Mr. Snype himself."  Tasty.  The black-and-white illustrations complement the stories well.

I dislike plot summaries or spoilers in my reviews, but I'll just say that these four stories are all set in the same (fictional?) town, set at the turn of the 19th century, and tie together nicely.  I'll be interested to see if he uses the town again in any of his other books.  They are morality tales about honesty, and have a nice dark quality I imagine many of my older readers will enjoy in a few years.  Sadly, as it seems is the case with most of P. Fleischman's other novels, I think it's too advanced for most elementary students.  A quick read, this was an effective diversion from my sniffles and stuffy head.  

Awesomeness: 6

Wordsmithing: 8

Personages: 7 - characters are not well developed, as these are short stories, but pack a punch

Mesmerizitude: 7

I read this post for the Spring Reading Thing.

The Dangerous Days of Daniel X by James Patterson

Okay, so, my relationship with James Patterson is as a serial killer novel writer (Kiss the Girls, Along Came A Spider).  So I was really surprised when I heard he'd been writing novels for teens.  I'm a little out of touch, being at the elementary school, but I like to read teen novels because, gosh, they're good!  

This one... well, I wouldn't say it's good.  The blurb says "Spider-Man meets Men in Black," which is a very accurate description.  It's scary. It's gory.  It's fast.  It's even funny, at times. It's also very simply written.  The chapters are each three pages long.  The language is easy.  I would guess the lexile level is around 800, or less... (running to Titlewave to check -- ha!  680; that's third grade!).  There's no discernible character development, and all the supporting characters are flat as construction paper.  

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's clearly written for low level readers, but in such a way that most teen readers would still really enjoy it. Heck, I enjoyed it.  So, I guess that makes it good!

It's hard to find hi-lo books in such a convincing, appealing package.  This one works.  But, unfortunately, I think it's too scary and gory for most elementary school students (this coming from a girl who read Steven King at eleven), so don't reach for this as a hook for your third or fourth grade reluctant readers.  

Awesomeness: 5/10

Wordsmithing: 2/10

Personages: 2/10

Mesmerizitude: 7/10