Miranda lives in a small Pennsylvania town where potential prom dates rule thoughts of spring. That and the fact that her best friend Megan is undergoing some “born again” alterations in her lifestyle and mindset are enough to occupy Miranda without TV news warnings of a potential asteroid strike.
Heavens above, an asteroid strike on earth?! No, silly, on the moon, no need to worry. Still, a certain frisson of fear ripples through her family as they stand outside one night, awaiting the event that will forever change Life As We Knew It. The asteroid actually knocks the moon a tad off its axis, thereby causing cataclysmic damage to earth: tsunamis destroy coastal areas, and earthquakes and volcanoes inflict damage beyond belief, the worst being clouds of ash which produce the dreaded effects of a nuclear winter.
What’s a girl to do? Susan Beth Pfeffer’s answer is what makes this story so appealing; she focuses on Miranda and her family, giving the Hollywood disaster scenes scant attention. Her quick-thinking mother enlists the aid of the children and their older neighbor, Mrs. Nesbitt, to stock the house with food, batteries, candles and water. Her younger brother is sent home from baseball camp that summer when they run out of food. Other brother, Matt, chops the backyard trees into so much firewood that the family is pushed out of the downstairs living spaces into the sunroom with the wood stove. We watch her father and his new wife bravely drive west after a tearful family reunion. With no school and no transportation, Miranda tries ice skating on the pond until the polluted air forces her inside, ever inside into a tighter and more confining space. A virus strikes the family, already weakened as their food supply dwindles, but the local hospital has become a dead zone. And then, in what seems like the nick of time, Miranda courageously ventures into town through the piles of fallen snow.
Stop. Slow down a minute and follow the domino effect of little sunlight and no power for electricity, water, and heat. No hints here; just think about it, all the way down the food chain….
If you’ve already read this, let me know if you think the story is plausible, and if there truly is a reason to be hopeful. What would YOU do?
(HHSLibrarian also podcasted on this title a while back.)
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Parrotfish
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas of her junior year in high school, Angela McNair made some changes. Not just her hairstyle. Not just the sort of clothes she wore. Not just the people she hung around with. And not just her name. Nope, Angie changed way more than that. She changed her outside to match her inside: she changed her sexual identity. Sort of like the parrot fish.
Parrotfish, by Christine Wittlinger, has been on the shelf since last September. Well, not really on the shelf very much; it’s the number one most-taken-out new novel of the 2007/2008 school year -- beating out Bloodline, Life As We Knew It, and The Secret Hour by just 1 circulation. In a story all about family, and self, and coming of age, Wittlinger takes us on a rare journey through the early experiences of a female to male transsexual teen.
Angie tells her family first. Her Dad, with whom she has always done lots of guy stuff, is pretty zen. Her sister, Laurie, is mad and mortified. Her brother, Charlie, hardly looks up from his video games. Her Mom is absolutely stunned, and can’t even really look Angie in the eye. Angela, daughter and sister, is now Grady, son and brother.
When Grady goes back to school after Thanksgiving, he finds out pretty quickly that his spot in the pecking order has changed. He encounters equal opportunity harassment, from male and female alike. Some of his teachers can deal, and some cannot. People he never knew very well treat him better than most of his old friends. “ ‘Angela was my friend, but I don’t know who Grady is! I’m sorry, but I can’t call you that in front of people. I can’t be a part of this whole thing. It’s just too bizarre.’ "
In this novel, we spend a month in Grady’s head, silent observers as he grapples with the realities of his identity change. There are bad times, but nothing unspeakable. There are good times, but nothing ecstatic. There are a lot of uncomfortable, in the middle times. And there are the no-longer-mundane details associated with living a male life in a female body: where to go to the bathroom, changing before and after gym class, etc. Not to mention the complications of falling in love. And parts of Parrotfish are pretty funny. The wildly excessive Christmas prep at the McNair household and Grady’s wry inner monologs (“Does a Hamlet fish carry around a skull and ponder suicide?”) come to mind.
If you haven’t read Parrotfish, I have carefully not told you how everything comes out. If you have, why not take a minute to comment and tell us what you thought of it?
Parrotfish, by Christine Wittlinger, has been on the shelf since last September. Well, not really on the shelf very much; it’s the number one most-taken-out new novel of the 2007/2008 school year -- beating out Bloodline, Life As We Knew It, and The Secret Hour by just 1 circulation. In a story all about family, and self, and coming of age, Wittlinger takes us on a rare journey through the early experiences of a female to male transsexual teen.
Angie tells her family first. Her Dad, with whom she has always done lots of guy stuff, is pretty zen. Her sister, Laurie, is mad and mortified. Her brother, Charlie, hardly looks up from his video games. Her Mom is absolutely stunned, and can’t even really look Angie in the eye. Angela, daughter and sister, is now Grady, son and brother.
When Grady goes back to school after Thanksgiving, he finds out pretty quickly that his spot in the pecking order has changed. He encounters equal opportunity harassment, from male and female alike. Some of his teachers can deal, and some cannot. People he never knew very well treat him better than most of his old friends. “ ‘Angela was my friend, but I don’t know who Grady is! I’m sorry, but I can’t call you that in front of people. I can’t be a part of this whole thing. It’s just too bizarre.’ "
In this novel, we spend a month in Grady’s head, silent observers as he grapples with the realities of his identity change. There are bad times, but nothing unspeakable. There are good times, but nothing ecstatic. There are a lot of uncomfortable, in the middle times. And there are the no-longer-mundane details associated with living a male life in a female body: where to go to the bathroom, changing before and after gym class, etc. Not to mention the complications of falling in love. And parts of Parrotfish are pretty funny. The wildly excessive Christmas prep at the McNair household and Grady’s wry inner monologs (“Does a Hamlet fish carry around a skull and ponder suicide?”) come to mind.
If you haven’t read Parrotfish, I have carefully not told you how everything comes out. If you have, why not take a minute to comment and tell us what you thought of it?
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