The Surrender Tree Response

                I really enjoyed the brevity and flow of The Surrender Tree. It was a fast but lingering read. I find myself remembering images created by Engle's constructions and being reminded of details. It was interesting how so much time went by so quickly in the text, and I didn't find it jarring.  I was also struck how the text began with such a harsh image (the body split four ways and hung from a tree) and ended so anticlimactically with the soft image of the surrender tree from a distance. I don't know. I'm going to have to chew on this thought for a while...

                The story told within the poetry was compelling to me. Rosa led a life of helping others outside of the prevailing tragedy/wrong of the day, shared of herself constantly, and then passed the torch to yet another generation. That's a feel good story for me, and the element of natural herbal healing was icing on the cake.

                The poetry worked in a simple, yet effective way. Engle created strong images that were repeated enough to make them last in lyrical ways. I also appreciated the author's playing with the languages and mingling of tongues. As a fan of language, I like playing with language too, and inserting Spanish into English is always welcome, especially when it accentuates and allows me to practice saying words I don't know how to say. Awesome.

                The narrative worked as a character driven piece as well. I liked how Engle carried them all over time in such a seamless fashion. I could see reading this in class aloud as a dramatic exercise. I kept wanting to audibly boo when Lt. Death made an appearance. Same with Weylar. All in all, tight read.

"Shipwreck..." Response

                Shipwreck At The Bottom Of The World took me a bit to engage with, but once engaged, I was on board for the journey. It really was one hell of scenario. Shackleton was nuts, imo. It surely was another time because while I enjoy adventure, I can't wrap my head around wanting to cross the most inhospitable place on the globe. I mean, it's one thing to go into, say, the Amazon, or the interior of Africa, but it's another thing entirely to go into an ice cube. Yep. Shackleton was nuts.

                It amazed me how many times these guys should have been dead but weren't. The fact that his crew survived mostly intact seems unreal. Between the weather, the seals, the fact that they were all smoking the whole time, and the boredom, I remain stunned they didn't flay each other alive at some point. Really, I wonder what went on that didn't get officially recorded. I'd love to be a fly on the wall for their journey with the option of flying to a warm meal and bed every night if I wanted to, that is.  

                One of the things I particularly liked because it keyed in on a childhood fascination for me was Armstrong's detailed descriptions of how they survived, what they ate, what the supply gathering experience involved, and basically, what the nuts and bolts details of survival looked like. I've always been fascinated with survival. I remember reading some books as a kid about a kid stuck in the wilderness surviving, and I was entranced. That fascination has never really dissipated as I've aged, so reading the details of Shackleton's experiences was pretty awesome. I kept finding myself critiquing some of the choices made, supplies chosen/used, and nit-picking other stuff (the nerve of me, right?); it was fun. Bottom-line: this was a fun read, and the potential multimedia tie-ins seem myriad.

Monster

            Monster. It read like 21^st Century pop culture. It was pop culture. It was a combination of screenplay and diary and it was effective in its mission. I was wrapped-up for two days. I could have finished it in a day, but other aspects of my life needed attention too, so I opted for the two-day blitz. Monster was visceral and hit me in the guts. I felt Steve’s fear. But it was also fluffy too. Adolescent courtroom drama—it’s right off the television screenwriter’s desk. And then came the question about whether he was guilty or not…Hmm, good question. To be honest, I hadn’t considered his innocence or guilt. I assumed he was innocent. In some ways, it doesn’t matter whether he was guilty or not; I mean, it was more about his mind and what was going on in his mind—the subsequent “reality” is subjective. Besides, ask any prisoner behind bars, and they’ll tell you they’re innocent. The prisoners in Monster did so. Steve did so. So is it real? To them it was.

            For me, Monster was a glimpse into the cognitive coping mechanism of an adolescent. Here was a kid facing a long prison term (although I found it all a bit contrived—I mean, come on, twenty-five to life for a juvie who played lookout for a robbery gone bad? Nah, I don’t buy it.), and he wrote a screenplay to help sort out his feelings. I found the drama effective, engaging, and like a sound-bite. It was quick. It was meant to tug on my emotions and get my attention. It worked. But like a sound-bite is meant to do, I was left wanting more. I wanted to know why O’Brien rebuked his hug at the end—was it racially motivated? Or was it just because she didn’t like him? Or was it because she did indeed think he was guilty, as Steve suspected? Questions…

            The style of the piece would probably be effective in grabbing and keeping the attention of our “ADHD Generation” (I don’t buy this either, but that’s another essay), but I actually didn’t enjoy it as much later as I did at first. Perhaps it is my bias, but the book felt herky-jerky to me. I missed more standard prose loaded with description and juicy adjectives. While there were images to be imagined, they seemed of secondary importance. The “effect” of the narrative took over. It was like watching TV. However, I can see how the adolescent mind would appreciate the style—it fits with modern media tactics nicely.

            The story itself was engrossing. Steve was a smart and creative kid. Through the handwritten parts, I felt sympathy for his predicament. I empathized with his fear. Myers did a nice job of helping me to care about Steve. The glimpse I got of Steve was an angle, or lense, I had not looked through before. As a reader, I was allowed access to an experience I have not directly experienced before. It was cool. Sure, I have imagined what it would be like to be in prison (don’t ever want to go there, thank you very much), but Myers’s writing sucked me in and actually put me there, if only briefly. I could see, feel, hear, and almost smell his parents’ interactions with him in the lock-up. It was sad. It hurt. I wanted things to work out for them.

            As is common in Adolescent Lit., everything did end up working out. I assumed it would, based on the tempo of the text. To be frank, I did not ever question his innocence. I assumed he was too smart a kid to be an accomplice to robbery. In retrospect, I suppose it is quite possible he was guilty. However, I still don’t think it matters much. Monster was about stepping into the shoes of someone else, hanging out for a bit, and then getting the heck out of Dodge. Even if he was guilty, I don’t think he should have been put away for 25 to life. I guess that would have really torqued-me-off. I’m glad Myers didn’t pull that trick.

            As a rule, I’ve lost my taste for courtroom dramas. They’ve been overdone in the last couple of decades, I think. Every other TV show is some kind of courtroom drama. Movies are littered with the same. To me, it’s a tired genre. However, others really enjoy it, and that’s great. If a courtroom drama would draw an adolescent into reading, I’m all for it. Whatever works. Once again, Monster may be an effective means to that end. Students will inevitably identify with Steve on many levels (as I did), and if that act of identification stimulates more reading, hooray!

            Final thoughts: Monster was a solid read—albeit hasty—and I think the style might be particularly effective with the media-addled minds of modern day adolescents. I appreciated the emotional complexity of Monster the most. I give it a thumbs-up.

The People Could Fly

             I just finished reading The People Could Fly, and I have some tears drying in my eyes. I was absolutely touched by the last folktale—wow—the imagery of Toby and his people flying up and away from their fields of misery spoke to me. Oh, how I wish all of the others could have flown away too. The tale was beautiful and sad, and I have been moved. I found the tales about winning freedom to be especially enjoyable for many reasons, not the least of which is how I can identify with their very "human-ness"—the human desire and need to make sense of what is insensible and to inspire hope where there is none.

            I have never been able to fully grasp slavery. It is anathema to me. As a result, while fascinated by the history, I have never sought to expose myself to it too deeply. Thinking about it too much is painful for me, and I feel a rage build when I think of what has been done to human beings in the name of economic “progress.” However, these tales were an enjoyable journey into folklore that I am relatively unfamiliar with. I struggled a bit with the Gullah in some of the early tales, but reading the words aloud helped some. I kept thinking as I was trying to say the words, “I can’t wait ‘til I have some babies to read this to.” Dialectical excursions are always more fun when there are young ‘uns around…

            The animal tales were fun to read, though the “moral of the story” sometimes escaped me, and the Gullah often caused my brow to furrow a bit. I wanted to be sitting around a campfire being told these stories, soaking up their aural richness, and seeing Bruh Rabbit and Tappin come to life in the shadows thrown by licking flames. I especially liked the Fish-Horse. What a great name for a manatee! As I read, I thought about the thousands of years humans have been sitting around campfires personifying the animal kingdom. Maybe for a future class one could take a field trip to a campground and spend the night reading stories around a blazing fire? Just a thought…

            The fanciful tales were neat, and I especially liked the illustrations in this section. The Hairy Man tale was my favorite. For some reason, this tale made me think of some of the fantasies I created while living next to a swamp in Florida when I was a kid. I may not have called him Hairy Man, but there was a similar thing that I used to think watched me when I was snake-hunting with my BB gun. Thankfully, I never had to conjure anything up... The Moon Tower story was my least favorite, if only because the kid had to kill her father to marry her, and I tend not to appreciate needless slaying of parental units in any story. Ce la vie.

            The supernatural tales were pretty creepy, and I can definitely see great possibilities for campfire-telling with these stories. Maybe it was because it was dark when I read these, but I felt chills, and the illustration in The Peculiar Such Thing was eerily scary to me. I’m not sure I’d show that picture to really-little ones. Then again, perhaps I’m a wuss.

            The illustrations in this book were beautifully done and had an almost mythical quality about them. They complemented the tales marvelously. Not to be redundant, but I think all of these tales are better served by campfire visualizations rather than illustrations, but what the Dillons came up with was cool. In fact, if I may be so bold, all of these tales, being derived orally, are best experienced just so. These are stories to be told and heard by the light of the moon. Of course that means some memorizing and creative embellishments on the part of the storyteller, but that’s okay. A good story has always been in the telling.

            Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading The People Could Fly. It offered me a glimpse into a world I had not chosen to look at before, and it reminded me of the themes and motifs that unite us all under the umbrella of humanity. While dialect may differ, human stories are shared.