Large Themes Loom in Small Damages by Beth Kephart

Small Damages has grown on me, especially when reflecting on it after reading the final page. 

     Kenzie is a senior in high school, which should be a highlight of her life, and it is. However, she also has to contend with the fact that she is pregnant.  Her mother’s answer to this “dilemma” is to send her to Spain to a cortijo to be cared for, to deliver, and to not be a disgrace to the family and social network.  A teen mother and child out of wedlock is simply not something Kenzie’s mother could handle, and certainly not something she believes, nor wants, Kenzie doing on her own.

     Kenzie does a lot of soul-searching while in the countryside of Spain and away from her friends and boyfriend who are enjoying their summer on the shore.  She thinks adoption is the best way to go, but truly is conflicted about what to do – what really is the right choice for her to make.  In the comfort and safety of Spain and its people, Kenzie learns about love, loss, and healing through the meals she cooks with Estela, the horses and quiet nature of Esteban, and the music and stories of the Gypsies.  Kenzie has to deal with a mature reality that she doesn’t think she is ready to endure.  Yet, it is beautiful Spain and these strangers that become family for Kenzie, and, thus, teach her more about herself and support her to make her life decision. 

     What appears to be a simple story is a story with deeper meaning than meets the eye.  It’s a a story that provides insight into the emotional and psychological realities of life, no matter teenager or adult, and linger after the book is closed.     

   Since reflecting on the themes, and I've found myself appreciating the book..One of my favorite quotes is: "Don't judge, my father said.. "Evaluate.  Evaluate, especially youreslf, because no decision is a decision until the action has been made" (275).  Though, I still don't understand the cover art. The title, cover art, and story don't mesh for me.

Lincoln Deception by David O. Stewart

How does one solve a mystery that has endured almost 150 years? Why is a secret sustained for so long? Award winning author David O. Stewart ably seeks to explore the question of who was really behind Lincoln’s 1865 assassination in The Lincoln Deception.

This historical mystery is set in 1900 and provides numerous details about John Wilkes Booth and possible conspiracies related to Lincoln’s death.  It explores the relationship between Jamie Fraser (a white doctor from Ohio) and Speed Cook (an educated black man trying to become a journalist) as their adventures unfold and they try to trust each other. In describing this “rocky partnership,” the author says, “America was a very racist place in 1900; the Jim Crow segregation laws were spreading…” As a reader, both the mystery of who wanted Lincoln to be killed and the struggle to form a friendship across racial lines were fascinating and I will recommend the book as a possible selection for Junior Theme.  I read it as an eBook and found myself often turning to quick online research for background on historical characters such as Stanton, Seward, or Lucy Lambert Hale Chandler.  For students and general readers, I therefore think the book could benefit from a brief description – with cameo images – of historical characters or even from including a brief timeline of key Civil War events.

Surely this book will itself eventually become a movie, but classes could consider pairing it with excerpts from Robert Redford’s film The Conspirator for added sense of the time period’s speech and dress. Other titles by this author include the non-fiction works Summer of 1787, Impeached, and American Emperor, any of which may also appeal to our Junior Theme writers and researchers.

Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

If you are still reeling from the twists and turns in Wein’s award-winning Code Name Verity, look for Rose under Fire, a companion novel. We meet Rose Justice, an American teenager and volunteer civilian pilot during WWII who is captured over France by the Nazis and ultimately sent to Ravensbruck, a women's concentration camp.

Told through journal entries which describe appalling conditions, this novel is darker and yet even better in some ways than Code Name Verity. Once again, Elizabeth Wein has aptly crafted a story of WWII – with flashbacks and foreshadowing. No incident that Wein shares with us is wasted … fuses and hands… aerial ramming…  the technical descriptions and images fill your mind.  

Wein’s books do take patience and slowly build to a place where the reader truly empathizes with the characters. It was difficult to think about the day to day sacrifice and hardship associated with the camps… perhaps that is why the writer carefully provides such detailed descriptions – truly pulling her readers into the place and time period.

I was struck not only by the power of this story but by the many connections it raised, especially to poetry and art.  I liked the reference to the embroidery, the paper airplanes and other efforts the prisoners made to find beauty in their circumstances … they made me think of similar efforts by other groups of prisoners (for example, see Art of Gaman about Japanese Internment at that same time period or the Return with Honor exhibit of works by Vietnam-era POWs at National Museum of the U.S. Air Force).   And Rose’s poetry and “counting-out rhymes” connected for me with the modern day Landays shared by women in Afghanistan.  If you want to develop this connection with your students, more information on that is available through Poetry magazine or the Poetry Foundation.

Yes, Rose Under Fire is dark and heavy in telling of the “Rabbits,” Polish political prisoners who were victims of medical experiments.  Yet, Wein wants Rose and us to soar, to TELL THE  WORLD, much like Rabbi Joachim Prinz did 50 years ago at the March on Washington when he said, “the most tragic problem is silence.”  

Where the Stars Still Shine by Trish Doller

A “hot and gritty” story aimed at older teens, this novel centers on Callie who was kidnapped at age five and lived a dozen years on the run with her Mom until they are discovered and Callie is returned to her dad – and his extended Greek family – in Florida. Callie struggles with the transition and questions her identity: “Granddaughter, daughter, friend, a girl a normal boy would date -- a growing list of people I don’t know how to be.”

While I enjoyed reading Where the Stars Still Shine and found the colorful cover especially appealing, I also struggled with some aspects of the story:

·         Why did Callie not receive any counseling?

·         Was her Dad so afraid of losing her again that he could not bring himself to put any limits on her behavior?

·         Or was this just an aspect of his personality and how he had treated her Mom in the past?

Doller raises these and other questions as she chronicles Callie’s difficulties in building friendships and relationships. Teens will relate to Callie’s confusion and Doller’s everyday example like choosing an ice cream cone to illustrate Callie’s efforts to define her loyalties (should she pick the flavor she always chose with her Mom or something new?). Readers looking for similar themes may also like Just One Day by Forman, Rules of Survival by Werlin or Story of a Girl by Zarr.    

Invasion by Walter Dean Myers

What did it feel like on the beaches and marching inland in the days and weeks after D-Day?  Invasion is another excellent novel by Walter Dean Myers about the hardships and moral dilemmas faced by soldiers during war.  This time he has chosen to focus on World War II and tells the story primarily through the eyes of soldier Josiah (“Woody”) Wedgewood.

Myers aptly uses scenes of war to show how the soldiers will never be the same again. He provides his readers with plenty of action and a sense of the shock and horror of war.  Even still, we see soldiers trying to cope: “Two first downs and I would be all right,” thinks Woody as he prepares to cross open fields. Woody’s internal dialogue (“I thought about God more than I ever had.” and “My reactions weren’t thought out any more – they just happened.”) will help readers empathize with the soldiers.

While Myers alludes to self-inflicted wounds, possible court-martial for disobeying orders, and the futility of taking a now-deserted town, he focuses primarily on the action that Woody sees.  Marcus Perry, a character in Invasion who is black and related to soldiers in Myers’ other novels (Fallen Angels or Sunrise over Fallujah), does not have his story fully developed.  If you are looking for more about racial discrimination at the time try Mudbound by Jordan or Flygirl by Sherri Smith.

Myers’ Invasion should have a map and I would definitely show some documentary footage if I was teaching this book with middle or high school students. Pair this with novels also set in the 1940’s:  Eyes of the Emperor, Code Name Verity, When the Emperor was Divine -- literature circles focusing on the European Theatre, the Homefront, and Pacific Campaign would have much to share and to teach each other.

J.D. Salinger and Catcher in the Rye - more backstory and more works to come?!

Shane Salerno is c a no-author of a new book on J.D. Salinger and his work Catcher in the Rye.  Salerno also directed a documentary film, Salinger, which will debut on Friday, Sept. 6, 2013.  More stories written by Salinger will be published between 2015 and 2020, according to this interview/article on NPR:

An interview with Salerno by Wade Goodwyn of NPR on Sunday, Sept. 1, 2013.
 
There also is an article in The New York Times  from August. 25, 2013.