1) "Are You There God? Its Me, Margaret" by Judy Blume
The comical longings of little girls who want to be big girls -- exercising to the chant of "We must -- we must -- increase our bust!" -- and the wistful longing of Margaret, who talks comfortably to God, for a religion, come together as her anxiety to be normal, which is natural enough in sixth grade. And if that's what we want to tell kids, this is a fresh, unclinical case in point: Mrs. Blume (Iggie's House, 1969) has an easy way with words and some choice ones when the occasion arises. But there's danger in the preoccupation with the physical signs of puberty -- with growing into a Playboy centerfold, the goal here, though the one girl in the class who's on her way rues it; and with menstruating sooner rather than later -- calming Margaret, her mother says she was a late one, but the happy ending is the first drop of blood: the effect is to confirm common anxieties instead of allaying them. (And countertrends notwithstanding, much is made of that first bra, that first dab of lipstick.) More promising is Margaret's pursuit of religion: to decide for herself (earlier than her 'liberal' parents intended), she goes to temple with a grandmother, to church with a friend; but neither makes any sense to her -- "Twelve is very late to learn." Fortunately, after a disillusioning sectarian dispute, she resumes talking to God. . . to thank him for that telltale sign of womanhood. Which raises the last question: of a satirical stance in lieu of a perspective.
2) "Monkey King" by Patricia Chao
A skilled first novel that chronicles a young Chinese-American woman's breakdown and recovery, and her concurrent exploration of her family's murky emotional landscape. When the story begins, 28-year-old Sally Wang is on 24-hour suicide watch at a mental institution that looks like the New England boarding school she once attended. With fellow patients like Lillith, who thinks that she's Joan of Arc, and 19-year-old Mel, who's flirty and prone to violence, Sally endures endless group therapy. Eventually, she begins to talk about her family. Originally from a small Chinese farming village, Sally's father had come to the US with dreams of being a physicist, but his sponsors died, and he ended up gloomy, frustrated, a failure. He also repeatedly raped Sally. Sally's tight-lipped mother didn't intervene and now, at family therapy, accuses Sally of having made up the incest thing. Sally's boy-crazy sister Marty also fails to support her. Sprung from the facility, Sally goes to St. Petersburg, Florida, for what turns out to be an experience in corrective parenting with her mother's less rigid sister Mabel and her husband Richard, who's respectful, generous, and amiable. Still feeling out of sorts, Sally sifts through memories of her unhappy marriage while clearing the yard of bruised grapefruits. She also begins an affair with a stranger that triggers, amidst much pleasure, the memories of the abuse, an advance over the all- encompassing numbness she's felt most of her life. Chao, meantime, never seems to be working hard to bring all this about: Her piercing eye for detail and her mastery of structure go almost unnoticed as Sally's adventures, ruminations, and memories layer one upon the next. But the novel's real strength is psychological portraiture. Every character (including the father) is multidimensional, carried along on deep currents of feeling of which they are often thoroughly (and believably) unaware. Moving, lively, relentless, and deeply sad: an uncommonly accomplished debut.
3) "A Bad Case of Stripes" by David Shannon
Camilla Cream wants to fit in, so she conforms, denying herself the things she craves--lima beans, for example--if the other kids frown upon them. She wakes up one morning covered head to toe with party-colored stripes--not the state of affairs aspired to by a conventionalist, but it's only the beginning of her troubles. Her schoolmates call out designs and Camilla's skin reacts: polka dots, the American flag--``poor Camilla was changing faster than you could change channels on a T.V.'' Specialists are called in, as are experts, healers, herbalists, and gurus. An environmental therapist suggests she ``breathe deeply, and become one with your room.'' Camilla melts into the wall. It takes a little old lady with a handful of lima beans to set Camilla to rights. Shannon's story is a good poke in the eye of conformity--imaginative, vibrant, and at times good and spooky--and his emphatic, vivid artwork keeps perfect pace with the tale. (Picture book. 5-9)
4) "The Gap Year" by Sarah Bird
The daughter’s side of the story, told in parallel with her mother’s, fills in the gaps in a smart, soft-centered, strung-out tale of parental stand-off and reconciliation.
Striving to be Teflon-coated, Zen Mama (“delayed-adolescence annoyance and college jitters expressed as bitchiness slide right off Zen Mama”) is more often seen simply as the “boob-whispering (i.e. lactation consultant) ex-wife of a cult bigwig.” Bird’s (How Perfect is That, 2008, etc.) stressed-out central character, aka Cam Lightsey, is a heaving mass of anxiety and guilt. Her daughter Aubrey has gone missing on her 18th birthday, the day the pair are supposed to go to the bank to clear the trust fund laid down by ex-husband Martin for Aubrey’s first-year college fees. The reasons for the disappearance, which have developed secretly during the preceding 12 months and involve a football jock and ambitions at odds with Cam’s, are chronicled in alternating chapters swapping Aubrey’s sulky teen point-of-view with Cam’s sassy, self-deprecatingly–voiced account of meeting Martin in Morocco, loving him, losing him to the cult of Next and stranding herself in the suburbs as a working single mom for Aubrey’s sake. Bird’s snappy style compensates in part for a slender story with too many cliffhanging chapter ends, but it doesn’t excuse the fairy-tale ending.
5) "Shiloh" by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
6) "The Whistling Season" by Ivan Doig
Scenes from an early-20th-century Montana childhood, from this veteran Western author (Prairie Nocturne, 2003, etc.).
Lured by the government promise of free land for homesteaders, Oliver Milliron forsook his Wisconsin drayage business and brought his family to Montana. Now it’s 1909, and Oliver has been able to make ends meet as a dryland farmer, weathering the death of his wife from a burst appendix. He is struggling to raise his three boys single-handedly (13-year-old Paul, the narrator, and kid brothers Damon and Toby) when he spots an ad for a housekeeper. Rose Llewellyn doesn’t come cheap; she wants her fare paid from Minneapolis, plus three months wages in advance. Oliver submits, not expecting that pretty, petite Rose will have her brother Morrie in tow. Conveniently, the teacher from the one-room schoolhouse absconds, and dapper, erudite Morrie steps into the breach. Doig’s story centers on the impact of these unconventional siblings on simple rural lives. While Rose gets the farmhouse shipshape, Morrie proves a surprisingly successful novice teacher. Overall, it’s a sunny tale. The boys ride horseback to school. A dispute between Paul and an older bully is settled with a race, riders facing backwards. The novel is also an elegy for the “central power” of the country school as a much older Paul, in 1957 the state superintendent of schools, is charged, to his dismay, with their abolition. In 1910, the school passes its inspection with flying colors, as Halley’s comet streaks across the sky and the schoolkids greet it with harmonicas. Paul hasn’t developed an interest in girls yet, but he will have a man-size decision to make. Oliver has fallen for Rose and they are set to marry when Paul discovers that Rose and Morrie are on the run from a scandal. Should he tell his dad? The melodrama is a weak ending for a novel that had so far avoided it.
7) "Buddha Da" by Anne Donovan
Shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award, a tenderly funny and unpretentiously philosophical portrait of a Glasgow family in turmoil.
Like her compatriot Irvine Welsh, Donovan writes in Scots dialect that gives marvelous savor to her story but is quite easy to read. Unlike Welsh’s junkies and outcasts, her characters are ordinary working folks leading reasonable, responsible lives--until their own yearnings and fate’s whimsical ways take them in unexpected directions. Things begin to go off kilter when Jimmy, a house painter in his 30s who until now has liked his “bevvy” and a practical joke as much as anything, begins spending more and more time at the local Buddhist Centre. His 12-year-old daughter Anne Marie is surprised but willing to tolerate his new religion, but wife Liz is bewildered and increasingly annoyed; she feels left out, and his involvement in Buddhism exacerbates Jimmy’s tendency to leave all the housework and responsibilities to her. When he follows up forswearing alcohol with a unilateral decision to become celibate, Liz accuses him of having an affair, and he moves out. The novel’s first (and better) half delineates with accuracy and wit people’s complicated reactions to change. Though not especially intellectual or well-educated, Jimmy and Liz are both thoughtful and intelligent; his descriptions of practicing meditation and her reflections while cleaning out her dead mother’s house are textbook examples of an author speaking in her characters’ voices without condescending to them. Anne Marie is just as appealing as her parents, and the scenes of her burgeoning friendship with an Indian classmate offer nice snapshots of multicultural Britain. As the plot thickens—Liz gets pregnant, Anne Marie enters a BBC contest with a recording that combines a Latin hymn, Tibetan chants, and her friend singing in Punjabi—the story loses some of its freshness. But its charm remains, thanks to Donovan’s deft way with Scottish speech and warm affection for her protagonists.
Let’s hope the funny spelling doesn’t keep this engaging and accessible tale from the broad readership it deserves.
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