Middle Grade Monday Book Review: The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchet

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett, illustrated by Stephen Player

A nightmarish danger threatens from the other side of reality . . .

Armed with only a frying pan and her common sense, young witch-to-be Tiffany Aching must defend her home against the monsters of Fairyland. Luckily she has some very unusual help: the local Nac Mac Feegle—aka the Wee Free Men—a clan of fierce, sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men.

Together they must face headless horsemen, ferocious grimhounds, terrifying dreams come true, and ultimately the sinister Queen of the Elves herself.

Three things for a kid to like

1. It’s hard to beat Terry Pratchett for humorous fantasy. On a bookshelf full of gloom and doom alternate worlds this story is set in a place that holds all the thrills and chills a kid is looking for and is genuinely hilarious besides. It will work particularly well for fans of British humor. If you’ve got a young reader who is driving you crazy quoting Monty Python and Dr. Who, this is the book for him.

2. Dream worlds are tricky to pull off in a story and it’s an element that made this a challenging read in the original edition. The pictures here do much to enhance the dream world Tiffany enters without overtaking it entirely and leaving nothing to the imagination. In my opinion the illustrations are just scary enough but not so vivid as to be daunting to a tender-hearted reader.

3. There is amid all the boogymen and monsters, some really thoughtful elements about the nature of dreams and the problems associated with getting everything you ask for. Plenty to inspire good conversation.

Something for the writer to think about

I’m seeing more illustrated work for middle grade readers all the time and I’m very happy about the change. I love it that there is more work for the many working artists I know. I think it makes a challenging text more inviting to a struggling reader and more accessible to an immigrant child who often comes to the page with little context for the stories he finds at school. In my own work I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can, not so much beg my publisher to put art inside, but create a story in which the images are integral to the plot and therefore necessary to the finished book.

The most recent two Newbery winners will illustrated and I’d love to hear your recommendations in the comments for other illustrated middle grade books you think were particularly well done.

How I came to review this book.

I first read this book aloud to my kids many years ago and loved it then. Recently I found a beautiful illustrated edition at my library and gave the book a re-read. Not every book I like stands up to re-reading but this one did.

Middle Grade Monday Book Review: Five, Six, Seven, Nate! by Tim Federle

Here’s what it’s about:

In the sequel to Better Nate Than Ever, Nate Foster’s Broadway dreams are finally coming true.

Armed with a one-way ticket to New York City, small-town theater geek Nate is off to start rehearsals for E.T.: The Broadway Musical. It’s everything he ever practiced his autograph for! But as thrilling as Broadway is, rehearsals are nothing like Nate expects: full of intimidating child stars, cut-throat understudies, and a director who can’t even remember Nate’s name.

Now, as the countdown to opening night is starting to feel more like a time bomb, Nate is going to need more than his lucky rabbit’s foot if he ever wants to see his name in lights. He may even need a showbiz miracle.

The companion novel to Better Nate Than Ever, which The New York Times called “inspired and inspiring,” Five, Six, Seven, Nate! is full of secret admirers, surprise reunions, and twice the drama of middle school…with a lot more glitter.

3 things for a young reader to love

1. The thing I loved the most about my childhood reading was being swept away to someplace new and exciting and this book has that in spades! The backstage look at Broadway as a child performer was fun and fresh and eye-opening. Even if you’ve never been in a show or wanted to perform there’s something appealing, and I think fairly universal, in the summer-campy, we’re-all-in-this-together vibe that Federle presents in this story.

2. For kids who do love the theater and are acting, singing, or dancing in community shows I think they’ll find a kindred spirit in Nate, who is such an appealing blend of strengths (memory for lines, heart, team spirit) and weaknesses (perhaps not the best dancer on the set). The arts are so often the red-headed stepchild of after school sports, it’s nice to have a book that celebrates theater with such unabashed joy.

3. The crush in a middle grade book is so tricky to get just right because middle grade kids are all over the map about romance, from deeply repelled to just as deeply intrigued. Nate hits the sweet spot with a story that manages to capture the intrigue of secret admirer notes and the slightly befuddled, what-just-happened-there of a first kiss without ever heading into territory that seemed to be icky or off-putting to the middle grade sensibility. Kids who are ready for a first kiss in a book will love this. Kids who aren’t quite ready for that probably won’t be grossed out.

Something for a writer to think about

Tim Federle has done something fairly amazing here. He’s got a story with a boy’s first kiss with another boy and yet it’s not a coming out story, not really even a story about being gay. The driving conflict in the story has everything to do with the show and orientation is not the contentious issue. Which seems exactly where the middle grade sensibility is with LGBT issues. The characters aren’t brimming over with anxiety about being gay because most kids in 4th to 8th grade are not at all concerned with the issues that drive such passion from older generations. It refreshing to see in print and I hope we see a lot more of it.

Likewise Federle has written a story with a kid who is a little self conscious about his body size without it being a book about a fat kid who needs to get thin. Nobody’s plaguing this kid to lose weight (although they’d like him to be a better dancer). He, in fact, doesn’t get in shape over the course of the story. His eventual triumph is based on his generous spirit, his ability to memorize other people’s parts, and his willingness to perform open heartedly. Qualities which have nothing to do with body type. Again, refreshing and well worth emulating! It’s got a razzle-dazzle cover, but this book is far more subtle than first meets the eye.

How I found this book

Unlike many of my reviews, I’ve never met the author. There are many theater-loving young people in my life which is why I picked it up at my public library and why I’ll be recommending it to lots of singing, dancing and acting kids I know.

Learning to Love your Book-alikes

When my very first book Heart of a Shepherd came out back in 2009 I met Suzanne Morgan Williams from the Class of 2K9 marketing group whose book Bull Rider was astonishingly similar to mine. It was all the more surprising because they were western stories about ranching families with family members deployed to the Middle East. Not exactly the most crowded genre. It was very tempting to think of this as a disaster, a head to head competition, a diminishment of what I had worked so hard on. But my husband pointed out that selling a book is not like selling a car. It’s not like a person buys a book and then doesn’t need another for 5 to 10 years. A very helpful perspective. The beauty of the book business is that the more people read good books the more they want new good books.

And the really terrific thing was getting to know Suzanne and working together to promote our books because we’ve found that if a reader likes one of our stories, they will probably like the other. They aren’t identical books after all. The main character in Suzanne’s story is a little bit older. Heart of a Shepherd is about the experience of having a deployed parent. Bull Rider is about the experience of having a brother return from war with a traumatic brain injury. We’ve done joint book store appearances, spoken together on panels and in workshops at writers conferences, and even sold our books together at the Reno Rodeo. And much to our mutual delight these books have flourished side by side.

But I’ve also known people who’ve worked for months, years even, and seen a book published which is very similar to their own manuscript, and then decided to drop their own project completely. It’s such a shame because there is often plenty of room for multiple

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books on a topic. I think of them as “book-alikes” and in some ways they can be an asset to your own work. If somebody has written a book similar to mine then it’s a great strategy to encourage my book to be grouped in with a similar book. Often teachers are looking for several books from a historical era so that there will be something to suit every reading level in her class. Many bookstores prefer to host multi-author events. The picture to the right is myself and Elizabeth Rusch (dressed as Nannerl Mozart) and Virginia Euwer Wolff. We are doing an event which drew dozens of vocal and instrumental performers and lots of families to a community center to celebrate our three music-themed books: Virginia’s Mozart Season, an absolute classic YA story of a girl preparing for a music competition, Liz’s picture book biography For the Love of Music about Mozart’s big sister, and my middle grade novel Second Fiddle.

I’ve learned to love my Book-Alikes over the years and have become good friends of people whose books are similar to mine. And in celebration of that here are four books who like my story Written in Stone are set in America in the early part of the 20th century. They are Crossing Stones by Helen Frost, A Whistle in the Dark by Sue Hill Long, Born of Illusion by Teri Brown and In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters.

Celebrating my Paperback Birthday and Indy Bookstores

Today is the book birthday of the paperback edition of Written in Stone. I’m so grateful for all the support I’ve gotten for this book from teachers and librarians and independent bookstores. My book has been honored by the Junior Library Guild. It was on the Mock Newbery list at Anderson’s Bookshop and on the Amelia Bloomer list for books with significant feminist content. It was placed on the 100 Best Books for Reading and Sharing by the New York Public Library and most recently on the Bank Street Center for Children’s Literature Best Books of the Year list.

It’s never easy to find a market for a book with a non-white main character. Historical fiction doesn’t usually get the kind of buzz that goes to fantasy and science fiction. Middle grade books are often overshadowed by their larger and more glamorous cousins in the young adult market. And yet this little story about a Quinault and Makah girl trying to hold onto her culture in the face of huge social and economic change is chugging along just fine because independent bookstores have chosen to feature it and teachers and librarian’s have advocated for it in their schools.

There is a well-publicized battle afoot between Amazon and one of the largest publishers in the country, which is reminding me a little bit of my character Pearl and her struggles for the survival of her culture. So I thought I’d spend a moment today to remember things that independent bookstores (and libraries) do for their communities that Amazon will never do.

Amazone will not post your local school’s summer reading list in the store and promise to stock those books all summer long.
Amazon will not provide a meeting space for your book club.
Amazon will not bring balloons to your book launch party.
Amazon will not bring your favorite author to town to chat about book and music and going to college with your avid reading teen.
Amazon will not hold the book that author signed for your teen behind the counter so that she can pay for it after her next lawn mowing job.
Amazon will not donate anything to your local fund raiser, certainly not a basket full of carefully chosen and beautifully wrapped novels.
Amazon will not organize writers’ workshops in your neighborhood.
Amazon has never read a picture book out loud to a circle of eager preschoolers or given their mothers a place to shop where children are welcome to touch things and talk out loud and sing if they feel like it and pet the cat if they are gentle.
Amazon does not make window displays that encourage foot traffic to nearby businesses. It doesn’t organize the neighborhood shops to provide a safe trick or treat zone for kids at Halloween. It doesn’t join the local small business association and work on projects that boost the economy of the entire neighborhood.
Amazon does not carry your grandpa’s favorite newspaper and have it ready for him every morning and stand around and chat politics with him for a few minutes every day. And on the cold icy morning when your grandpa doesn’t come to the shop like usual, Amazon does not call him at home to ask if it can drop off the newspaper at the end of the day.

Yes, I know, I’m being a little sarcastic here. Amazon does some things very well. Mostly its good at making books cheap. But even there the books you get at Amazon will never be free. For free books, you have to visit your public library!

I’d love to hear from readers about what they love about their local indy booksellers or libraries. At the end of the week I’ll give away 5 copies of my paperback to people who comment. I know some of you don’t have an indy bookseller nearby. On all my book pages there is a button to link you to either Powells or an indy bookstore near you who will ship you any book you want. And as always, if you want a signed copy of any of my books please give my local bookseller a call. They’ll set aside a copy for me to sign and ship it wherever you’d like. They are Annie Blooms Bookstore at (503) 246-0053.

Letters About Literature

This spring it was my great pleasure to serve as a judge for the Letters on Literature program which is sponsored by the Library of Congress. It’s a nation wide reading and writing contest for students from 4th to 12th grade. In this contest students are asked to reflect on a book, poem, or speech that influenced them personally and then write a letter to that author (living or dead) to describe how that work of literature affected them. It’s one of the largest writing and reading programs in the country. Tens of thousands of students enter every year.

My role in this process came after the letters were sent in to the Library of Congress and after they’d gone through the preliminary screening. The Oregon State Librarian then received three batches of letters by grade school, middle school, and high school writers. She then assembled a team for each level with a public librarian, a school librarian and an author. We each got our batches of letters, 87 in my case, and a couple of weeks to read them. And then we had a very long conference call to choose a first, second, and third place winner and any letters we wanted to give an honorable mention. Each state winner goes on to a national competition. The winning letters are posted here on the Library of Congress website. http://www.read.gov/letters/ The 2013 winners have just been posted and are well-worth a read.

Here’s what I loved about the process of reading and selecting the winning letters. It reminded me yet again what an individual experience reading is. Every reader brings their whole self to the page and takes away their own unique experience of the story. What is for one reader overwhelming and scary is thrilling to another. What is utterly foreign for some readers will be as familiar as family others. And sometimes a reader will see something in a story that the author never intended, or even knew was there. One of the most surprising and moving encounters of my professional life was a meeting I had with a young Iraqi veteran. He had read my book Heart of a Shepherd in his adult English language class and told me that he felt my main character, the son of an army officer deployed to Iraq, was just like him. “He doesn’t have a heart for war but war seeks him.” he said. I was astonished that this man, who had fought against American forces would be open hearted enough to find a kinship with a child of an American soldier. This is a reader I never imagined would even find the book much less feel a connection to it.

And that is the beauty and I think the unique strength of story, it’s a participatory art in a way that performance-based arts seldom are. A book invites a reader to walk for a while in the world view of the story character. It asks a reader to use his or her imagination to fill in all the details not explicitly on the page. And best of all it invites a conversation not just with the author as happens with the Letters About Literature contest but also a conversation with friends and family and classmates and even a whole community of readers who’ve shared the experience of the book.

If you are a teacher, I hope you’ll consider encouraging your students to give Letters about Literature a try next year. If you’re an author I hope you’ll consider volunteering to judge at the state level.

If you are lucky enough to live in Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, or West Virginia there is a summer writing contest called A Book That Shaped Me sponsored by the Library of Congress and the National Book Festival. It’s an essay contest for raising 5th and 6th graders. All the details are here: http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/kids-teachers/booksthatshape.html There are cash prizes for state winners and finalists and the grand prize winners will be sent to the the National Book Festival to present their essays at a ceremony at the end of August. Best of luck to all you avid readers and writers who will enter this summer.