Early Reader Pick: Year of the Jungle

Year of the Jungle
by Suzanne Collins
Illustrations by James Proimos
Scholastic Press
2013
40 pages

A New York Times Editors' Choice

“In this picture book, Collins sensitively examines the impact of war on the very young, using her own family history as a template."


--Publishers Weekly,STARRED REVIEW





“With a notable lack of patriotic rhetoric or clichés about bravery and honor, Collins holds firm to her childhood memories, creating a universal story for any child whose life is disrupted by war. Important and necessary ."

--Kirkus Reviews,STARRED REVIEW


“Collins’ unflinching first-person account details the fears and disappointments of the situation as a child would experience them. And where more realistic illustrations would feel overwrought and sentimental, Proimos’s flat, cartoony drawings, with their heavy lines and blocky shapes, are sturdy and sweet, reflecting a child’s clear-eyed innocence."

--Booklist,STARRED REVIEW


“But though post-traumatic stress disorder is often spoken of these days, the more subtle effects of war on the children of men and women serving abroad are less well known. ....While Sue is not able to formulate her feelings in words, James Proimos’s excellent illustrations capture her confusion....'Year of the Jungle” may take place in the late 1960s, but with more than 2.3 million Americans deployed abroad between 2001 and 2012, the mixture of anxiety, excitement, fear, boredom and confusion Sue experiences on the home front will be sadly familiar to many children. For them, Collins’s picture book may be a good tool to discuss the complex feelings war brings into a household ."

--The New York Times



A father goes to war, a child is at home wondering if she will ever see her father again. She knows the jungle is where her favorite cartoon character lives so it can't be that scary. They tell her Viet Nam is where her father is and he is going to be away for one year. The child is unsure how long a year is. Her father sends her postcards from the jungle and photos, too. Christmas comes and her father sends her Vietnamese doll. It's winter and snowing outside when she receives a birthday card, but her birthday isn't until summer. Her mother tells her the card is probably for Joanie, her sister, and that her father is "...busy and just got confused." The child worries that her father makes "...such a serious mistake"--he must be very busy and confused. Television news shows scare her; there are men dying in Viet Nam, and her mother rushes to turn off the t.v. After a long time, the father finally comes home, but he acts a little strange at first.

Like Suzanne Collins, my father fought in the Viet Nam War. In fact, he spent three tours there since he was a real adrenaline junkie. Each time he left, we saw my mom worry. We saw the news every night on television. We wondered why my dad was in the jungle. We wondered when he was coming home. He sent home movies to us. My dad standing by his tent, my dad on a boat traveling up a yellow brown river, monkeys fighting and rice paddies. My dad waving and flexing his muscles with his buddies and everyone smiling. My dad always came home, but thousands of young Americans didn't and their kids were forever scarred. Today, thousands more American children have a parent or sibling on active duty either at home or in a war zone. The impact of Year of the Jungle will be felt by any child who has experienced a loved one in combat.

Illustrations by James Proimos are light-hearted and even whimsical even when depicting a helicopter or tank. The story may be frightning and awful, the main character worried and lost, but the artwork takes the painful story of Viet Nam and makes it tangible even to very young children. When the father returns, the girl says, "...I stand in the doorway watching him. He stares into space. He is here but not here. He is back in the jungle."

Highly, highly recommended for everyone. This book should have a place in every library and on every book shelf. It is an important book and will likely begin conversations about war and military service.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received the F & G from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano
By Sonia Manzano
Scholastic Press
2012
224 pages



Evelyn (Maria) Serrano is sick of the barrio; she’s sick of Mami’s plastic flowers and cheesy slipcovers, sick of the lacy doilies Mami puts under every knick-knack, and sick to death of her mother’s pathetic attitude and slave like behavior (the book is set in the 1960s). Evelyn will never become a slave to her husband or household. She’s a free-thinking girl with moxie and a mouth that sometimes gets her into trouble!

When Abuela comes to visit, tension soon fills the apartment. Mami and Abuela fight over everything. Abuela was raised in Puerto Rico and remembers the turmoil and people being fired upon by the army. She doesn’t want her people to forget their struggles. Her cause is now the barrio. She wants to join the young men who are marching and protesting for better housing, jobs, education, and cleaning up their tenements. Mami wants nothing to do with the young “hippies” and forbids Evelyn from joining their ranks—forbidding something--the one way to insure that your child will do just what you don’t want them to do!

Evelyn fights the good fight and sees what her countrymen (and women) are fighting for. She has an “a-ha” moment or two and finally embraces her given name: Maria.
The back cover quotes from Julia Alvarez, Pam Munoz Ryan and others believe that this book is important for history and the Latino struggle. This is a good book to pair with common core non-fiction and Latino studies. The cover has no wide ya appeal; however, maybe the publisher was trying to attract the historical fiction few (I won't say crowd because historical fiction is not a "cool" genre to most teens).

Recommended grades 7-up. No language. No sex.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

Crossover Appeal: Stephen King's 11/22/63

11/22/63
by Stephen King
Scribner
2011
849 pages

This is an open letter to Stephen King:

Dear Stephen (I use your first name since you have been in my head for at least 25 years. I hope you don't mind):

I now forgive you for The Tommyknockers. I devoted three days of my time back in 1988 devouring The Tommyknockers--during my ten year devotion to all things Stephen King--only to be so disappointed by the ending, I threw the book against the wall! I swore I would NEVER read Stephen King again, and I was true to my word until I picked up The Mist and Cell years later. I have to admit I was becoming a King fan again. I was intrigued by the idea of 11/22/63; that through time travel one man could change a watershed moment in history and prevent the death of a beloved president. I couldn't put this novel down and kept thinking about many questions it answered and many more questions it brought up.

From the moment I began I was enthralled. Stephen, you have outdone even yourself! 11/22/63 is a watershed novel. It has everything a reader could want: mystery, suspense, intrigue, romance, seduction, murder, suicide, evil, magic, and time travel. This is a real page-turner that will make readers think long after finishing the novel.

Jake Epping is a normal high school English teacher who picks up extra money teaching an adult GED class in the evening. He is a divorced guy with a typical bachelor life. He just gets by day after day. He happens to read an essay by the high school custodian that shatters him. The custodian's mother and siblings were murdered right in front of him and he was left semi-crippled by a madman: his own father. Jake takes Harry to grab a burger at a little dive nearby. Later, Al the diner's owner, takes Jake to a back room and tells him a little secret; the rear of the pantry is actually a portal (a rabbithole) that leads back to the past, in fact the same day every time in 1958. A few days later, Jake visits Al and he's shocked by his appearance. Al has lost tons of weight and seemingly aged 20-30 years overnight.

Al explains that he has been gone five years (only two minutes in real time) and that he has cancer and won't last but a few more days. He enlists Jake's help and he begins relating his strange story. Al has been using the rabbithole for a long time. He'll go back and buy groceries for the diner at 1958 prices; sometimes he'll stay a few minutes or a few days, but when he comes back, it's always only two minutes later in real time. Al gives Jake a notebook; it is his notes on Lee Harvey Oswald. Al has the idea that if you could travel back to 1958 and live there a few years, you could find Lee Harvey Oswald and stop him from killing President John F. Kennedy in 1963. This is a watershed moment in history that can be prevented. Al and Jake wonder if Kennedy lives, will the future be better or worse? Will Robert Kennedy live or die, will the race riots occur, will Martin Luther King, Jr., be assassinated, will Vietnam be stopped and millions of young American lives saved?

To prove their theory, Jake travels back in time and tries to stop Harry's father from murdering the whole family. When he comes back to the present, Harry doesn't have a limp and he's not a custodian. Jake is able to save the family and Harry's future. What you put right in the past will affect everything around it--the Butterfly Effect. Will Jake ruin things in the future if he changes the past? Al brings up the principle of Occam's Razor--a philosophy that states if you have two ideas about how something happened, the simplest idea is probably the true one. Al provides Jake 1958 money, a driver's license, his notebook on Oswald and advice to "blend in." Al warns Jake about the Yellow Card man who sits by the opening of the rabbithole and yells at Al each time he travels to the past. After a couple of trips, Jake realizes that the Yellow Card man knows about the time travel and is trying to warn him.

Jake loves 1958 America at first. Although it's stinkier--everyone smokes cigarettes and factories belch out black smoke--food tastes better. A root beer tastes "rootier"--it's before preservatives and artificial coloring. Ladies wear dresses with hats and gloves every day! Children jump rope in front of their homes, women stay home and cook and clean. Husbands work and commute. The seedier side of 1958 is that some men beat their wives and kids and neighbors look the other way. Violence is a part of everyday life in the past. Jake lives in Derry, Maine, for awhile and then moves to Texas so he'll be in place to spy on Lee Harvey Oswald.

He buys a degree from a college and takes a job as a high school teacher making friends and romancing the school's librarian. Sadie and Jake fall in love but they can't marry because Sadie is still legally married to her first husband who beat her. Jake is happy and he thinks of staying in 1958 and marrying Sadie, but he knows he must save the President and complete his promise to Al.

Jake gambles on prize fights and ball games--losing a few times to make it look like he's a bad gambler, but winning when the payoff is huge. After all, he knows who will win and bets accordingly. This doesn't sit well with bookies and soon Jake is beaten by some goons who work for the local bookie. He loses his memory but finally comes clean with Sadie telling her his strange story that he's from the future and has a job to do. Sadie's husband shows up with his own vendetta.

Will Jake and Sadie save the President? If they do, what repercussions will there be? Will Jake stay in the past? What happens if he does? If he returns to present day, will Sadie ever forgive him? How many things can be changed in the past without changing reality itself? The ending was just as weepy as "The Notebook," so have tissues ready.

Stephen, you said you tried to write this book back in 1972 but "the wound was too fresh"--only 9 years after Kennedy's assassination-- and that you were glad you waited until now to write it. I am glad, too. In 1972, I would have been too young to read this book, let alone appreciate it. I want to thank you for entertaining all of us--not just entertaining--but giving us a fresh look at history and making us want to know more. This is your masterpiece, and I'm thrilled to have read it and reviewed it.

Highly, highly recommended grades 9-up. This is an adult novel with teen crossover appeal. Anyone who loves King's earlier writing will love 11/22/63. History buffs and Kennedy fans will also want to read King's thrilling opus! Mature content, some sex, rough language.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Teen Pick: Okay For Now

Okay For Now
by Gary D. Schmidt
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.
page count of the galley is 371; book page count not yet determined
Available April 5, 2011

Touching, gritty, funny, compelling, and sweet, Okay For Now is a poignant coming of age story set in small town America during the 1960s. The novel is narrated by "skinny delivery boy" Doug who reminds this reader of a younger Holden Caulfield, although Doug is not quite the snarky misanthrope, he has his moments and considers almost everyone a "chump." Doug dreams of baseball and his hero Joe Pepitone who once gave him a signed baseball jacket.

Besides baseball, Doug discovers his love of art when he sees a beautiful book on display at the town's library--a large building with intimidating marble steps. The book is a set of prints by American artist John Audubon. Many of the prints are missing having been sold off by the town council or given as gifts to various political friends. Doug starts to sketch each bird under the tutelege of the cataloging librarian Mr. Powell. Doug begins to understand that art has the magic power of taking someone far away--if you can dream it, you can paint it.

Doug's family life is nothing short of dysfunctional. Mom and Dad don't have a real relationship; his dad is always mad and hangs out too late with loser friend Ernie and hates his loser job at the loser mill. Doug's oldest brother is off in Viet Nam fighting the war. His other brother Chris is a bully.

School is not easy either. It seems the gym teacher has it in for him. One day, Doug meets a quirky girl named Lil, and through this chance meeting, he is hired to deliver for her father's deli business. Doug loves his Saturday job and meets several "characters" who help shape his life.

When brother Lucas comes home from Viet Nam, everything changes. Lucas comes home a shell of a man; he is now a blind paraplegic and hates himself and his plight. In one of the most disturbing scenarios in the book, war protesters yell at Lucas in his wheelchair saying it served him right he lost his legs, that they are glad he's blind, and they spit in his face. It's hard to remember that Americans could harbor that kind of hatred toward one of our own.

Doug is also funny. His hatred of poetry is hysterical; readers are sure to smile when he says he wants to punch Percy Bysshe Shelley in the nose! Doug is one determined delivery boy--he gets all the Audobon prints back into the book, makes amends with the gym teacher, gets his handicapped brother a job he loves, and helps Lil through her illness.

Okay For Now is well-written with believable characters and the captivating love that grows between Doug and Lil is heartfelt.

Highly, highly recommended grades 7-up.
No language, some adult situations.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received the galley from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.