A Face First by Priscilla Cummings; Dutton Children’s Books: New York, 2001; $16.99 When Kelley got in the accident it made me realize how precious life really is. The poor girl is only in sixth grade and she is scarred for life. I cried as I read about all the things that happened to Kelley, and the way she felt about life; she wanted to die if she had to look the way she did. I can’t imagine how life could be so bad that you would want to die. This book showed me how quickly your life can change, from being healthy and great to being at the hospital with a broken leg and having third-degree burns on your face and body. Thinking of how quickly things can change reminded me of September 11. How the day before the nation was bright and on September 11 the nation was torn and shattered; that one day has scarred the nation forever. Kelley is scarred forever in what happened to her, for the thought that she will never look the way she used to. Priscilla Cummings, the author, described everything so well. I felt like I was there watching the whole accident, and being there at the hospital with Kelley it is unbelievable how she describes everything. One part that I think was just unbelievably moving is when Kelley’s sister Leah was in Paris for college, and she wanted to come home because of Kelley’s accident. Kelley knows that going to college in Paris is her sister’s dream so she begs her not to come; her sister says she won’t come. Then when Kelley comes home from the hospital, Leah comes without telling Kelley. Kelley is so happy to see her. The thought that Kelley was thinking of her sister and her dream of going to college in Paris, before thinking of herself and how much she needed her sister at the time, was really moving. This book is so truthful because the story it tells is so true. I don’t think people want to realize it though—the fact that there is a chance you can die tomorrow, or that you will be diagnosed with cancer, or get in an accident. This book does not hide the truth, it tells it, and that is something I really like about this book. This book changed my outlook on life, and it will change yours too. Tahani Al-Salem, 11Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Book-Reviews
Girl in Blue
Girl in Blue by Ann Rinaldi; Scholastic Press: New York, 2001; $15.95 Girl in Blue was one of the most fascinating and suspenseful books I have ever read. I could hardly put it down! Girl in Blue is a story about a sixteen-year-old girl, named Sarah Louisa Wheelock, who disguises herself as a teenage boy and runs away to serve in the Union army during the American Civil War. Ann Rinaldi captivates you with her story and her characters. Although there are no illustrations in the book, I feel there really is no need for them. She paints a vivid picture of each of the characters, in appearance, actions, and personalities. For example, Sarah was described as a sweet, quiet girl, who was always there for anyone who needed her. But she was also described as the one in the family who always supplied them with fresh venison for dinner. She loved hunting in the woods, carrying her father’s rifle, which she had named Fanny. Throughout the book, her character traits were displayed through the different experiences and problems she had. When she served in the army, she was brave, and although it was very difficult to keep disguised who she was, she kept going and pretended to be Private Neddy Compton. She was very gifted in medicine and doctoring. She knew many remedies to cure diseases that even the so-called doctors in the army had not been taught. Rinaldi described Sarah’s experiences in this book so well, and realistically, I felt like I was truly a part of the story. For example, at one point in the book, Sarah crosses the borders, into the Rebel territory. She is stopped and searched, and the suspense in the book was captivating. Sarah was carrying some very important letters to deliver, and if they were discovered, it could mean death for her and many others. When Sarah received word that her father had died, and she was grieving, I felt like I had known him as well and was sad too. My great-grandmother died recently, and that was really sad. She had been a wonderful great-grandmother to me and my three brothers. She would always send us a card with money in it for our birthdays and at Christmas. Whenever she was able, she would come visit us, or come to our plays or piano recitals. In a way, I can relate to Sarah, when she found out her father had died. There was one character in the book named Rose Greenhow. Sarah was assigned to work as a maid for her, after Sarah had been discovered to be a girl. Mrs. Greenhow was suspected of being a Rebel spy, and Sarah was given the job to find out whether or not that was true through her duties as her maid. Rose Greenhow was the most stuck-up person I have ever read about! She was always cranky and grumpy, even though her every want and need were catered to immediately. Sarah must have been in an awful position living with her! I know I would hate having to constantly be wondering if anyone knew who I was, or where I was from, like Sarah, and having to watch my back around every street corner. At one point in the book, Sarah went home to visit her family. She was still disguised as a boy, dressed in the Union Army’s uniform. Her mother did not recognize her, but her brother Ben did. She and Ben had always been close. Sarah really struggled with wanting to tell her mother that she wasn’t Private Neddy Compton, but that she was her daughter, Sarah Wheelock. I can’t imagine being away from my family for more than a year, and then going back home to all the familiar smells, sights, and places, and still not be able to reveal who I really was. Sarah must have felt awful. This was a wonderful and exciting book. I could read it several times. Girl in Blue revealed the hardships of the war in the times of slavery and showed what people had to endure. I came away feeling like I had made a new friend in Sarah Wheelock. I love the Civil War, and this book made it even more exciting. Sarah Bollenbach, 13Coatesville, Pennsylvania
A Real American
A Real American by Richard Easton; Clarion Books: New York, 2002; $15 This is the heartfelt story of two young boys becoming friends under some very adverse conditions. Nathan McClelland is a Pennsylvania farm boy whose neighbors have moved out, sold out to the coal company. He is lonely, with all of his friends gone, and his wish of a friend comes true with Arturo Tozzi, a young miner boy in the first wave of immigrants, the only child of the lot. Arturo wishes to see Nathan’s animals, and have a friend in his new country. Nathan wishes to mold Arturo like his old and now gone friends Ben and Pete, and first tries to teach Arturo how to read. However, he acts too uppity, and Arturo shuns reading, wanting to be “a friend, not a student,” or inferior. When Nathan’s old friends, Ben and Pete, come back to visit, they accuse Arturo of being a foreigner, and Nathan tries to tell them that he is who he isn’t, a boy named Arthur who’s just like them. Arturo runs away, saying that he is who he is, Arturo Tozzi. Nathan, eating humble pie, decides to help Arturo, and assists in hindering troopers to convince Ernesto, Arturo’s firebrand brother, to give up the strike. In this act of faith, Nathan and Arturo’s friendship is restored, and they go on as friends. However, did Nathan and Arturo really resolve their friendship? If Arturo can’t read, he can’t communicate as well with Nathan as he could if he could read. The friendship is less powerful when Arturo and Nathan can’t communicate in ways other than a pidgin English. It’s like a Russian and an Egyptian trying to talk through Russian. The Egyptian can’t use a full mastery of Russian, so the two don’t know each other as well, and the bond is less potent. In the book, Nathan rebels against tradition to become friends with Arturo; his father expects him to stick only with the people and things he knows best. (Arturo’s father supports the friendship, for the good it could do his son.) In the book Rocket Boys, by Homer Hickam, Jr., a young boy defies his own West Virginia coal mining town’s tradition of becoming a high-school football star, and going on to work in the local mine. He decides to become a rocket scientist, under the heavy hindrance of his father, a head miner who doesn’t believe in rockets until the very end, when the boy wins the National Science Fair, like Nathan’s father who didn’t believe Arturo could be a good friend until he helped Nathan stop the strike. It was surprising that miners had to buy their own tools, blasting powder, and extra timber to hold up the mine. This may account for the destitution of conditions in the mine, with no protection from the poisonous gases inside, and not enough timber to support cave-ins, and the poverty of the miners themselves, living in company-built shacks, and with barely enough food bought with credit from the company store to feed a family. This penury is illustrated in Growing up in Coal Country, listed in the back of the book by the author as reference, which gives a detailed account of the day-to-day lives of Pennsylvania coal miners. But, if Nathan wasn’t lonely, if his friends Ben and Pete were still living right next door, and hadn’t sold, would there still have been a friendship? That’s doubtful, because the only reason Nathan agreed to be Arturo’s friend was because he was lonely for Ben and Pete. Likewise, if Arturo had been in the second wave of miners, when they brought their kids, and Nathan was lonely, then Arturo wouldn’t need Nathan, though Nathan would need him. It’s sad that the only beginning fuel for this friendship came through the needs of Nathan and Arturo for a friend. If one of their needs had been fulfilled, there wouldn’t have been a friendship. Trent Kim, 10Athens, Georgia
