So B. It by Sarah Weeks, HarperTrophy: New York, 2005; $6.99 So B. It is possibly one of the most moving, wonderful, descriptive books I have ever read. In this story, the main character, Heidi, is living with her mentally disabled mother and her neighbor, Bernadette. Heidi is used to living in a, well, different household, and has lived that way all her life. Her mother only knows twenty-three words, which they keep a list of in the cabinet. But when Heidi’s mother starts saying a word that Bernie and Heidi don’t know, Heidi wants to learn about her mother’s past. Something about this book that intrigues me so much is that Sarah Weeks has the ability to make all her characters incredibly real. Nobody is all good or all bad. They have lives, and, if they do appear mean, there is always a reason. While digging into her mother’s past, Heidi encounters many interesting characters, all of whom are very different. There’s Georgia Sweet, the clever, pretty, body-language expert, Alice, who can talk and talk and talk without the other person getting a word in edgewise, who tricks Heidi into lying continuously, and strange, vague Mr. Hill. This story has little details that many people would overlook. In this book Heidi mentions dinosaur skin, and how nobody really knew what color it was. Heidi was reflecting on what she had just learned about her mother and states, “If truth were a crayon and it was up to me to put a wrapper around it and name its color, I know just what I would call it—dinosaur skin.” She takes a look at something nobody really stops to think about. My mom and I both read this book, and we both cried. The way Sarah Weeks describes things, through the eyes of a twelve-year- old girl, makes it moving and believable—the struggles, the excitement, the sadness, of life itself. So B. It, you may be interested to know, is what Heidi’s mother calls herself. When Heidi and her mother showed up on Bernie’s doorstep, Heidi’s mother called herself So Be It, and Bernie, thinking she had to have a proper name, changed it to So B. It. It is the kind of book that gets you hooked after reading the first page. In Sarah Weeks’s other book, called Jumping the Scratch, it is the same thing. The main character wants to find out something (the meaning of a word, or just a word in general) and will go all out to find it. As soon as you start reading it, you will too! The way it is written gets you interested with the end, and makes you just have to finish it. It is, in my opinion, a very good and tricky writing technique. My grandmother’s sister (my great aunt) is mentally disabled, so I know what it would be like to be Heidi, although it would be very different to have a mentally disabled mother. My great aunt can be extremely unpredictable, sweet one moment, throwing tantrums the next, but we love her very much all the same. She has a full vocabulary, unlike Heidi’s mother, but in many ways they are similar. So B. It teaches an important life lesson, as well as being a fantastic read just for fun. This was a spectacular book, and I hope I have interested you in it! Isabel Bartholomew, 11Salt Lake City, Utah
Book-Reviews
Domenic’s War: A Story of the Battle of Monte Cassino
Domenic’s War: A Story of the Battle of Monte Cassino, by Curtis Parkinson; Tundra Books: Toronto, 2oo6; $9.95 At the mention of war, some of the first images that come to mind are of troops firing from trenches or a plane dropping bombs. These are the experiences of soldiers; but imagine an ordinary person, a family with children perhaps, just doing ordinary, everyday things, like cleaning up the house or sitting down to breakfast. Imagine doing these things, but with shells exploding all around you, parts of your house being blown to bits. To step outside your front door is to risk death. In Domenic’s War; Curtis Parkinson has Antonio experience such a life living in a town at the foot of Monte Cassino, the mountain where stands one of the oldest monasteries in Italy, now the location of one of the fiercest and bloodiest battles of World War II. Antonio is drawing water from his well, when a misdirected shell changes his life forever, reducing his house to rubble and killing his family. While the families near Monte Cassino face such perils, those in other parts of Italy suffer from hunger and poverty. All the food the farmers produced and stored is commandeered by passing German soldiers to whom they dare not give resistance. Thirteen-year-old Domenic Luppino’s father is one of these poor farmers. His family never has enough to eat, and whatever food they do have must be carefully rationed. There is no telling what will happen from one day to the next. When it comes to war, such families are totally helpless. However, it is as easy to pity the soldiers as it is to pity the civilians. Parkinson makes his readers see the soldiers as individuals, men who have been sent by their countries to kill or be killed, but who are, nevertheless, ordinary people, many of whom have families and children of their own. When Domenic’s father and older brother go into hiding up in the hills, Domenic’s house is taken over by a company of German soldiers. Domenic and the German captain develop a rough relationship. The captain is kind to Domenic and shows him a letter from his son, Gunther. It is very sad to see how much the son misses his father and wants him home, sad to see how much the captain wishes to be home with the family he loves. The real enemies, it seems, are those who started the war. At one point in the story, a Canadian soldier tells of how he was sent to drive the Germans out of a town they had occupied and was drawn by a voice into a house that he, himself, had blown up out of sheer anger. He encounters a seventeen-year-old German soldier with his stomach ripped open. “After that,” the Canadian says, “I wasn’t mad at anyone anymore—except whoever it was that got him and me into this mess in the first place.” Parkinson leaves his reader reassured that life will go on for Domenic and Antonio and eventually the war will end. However, something like the war of Monte Cassino, that had such a strong impact on the lives of those who experienced it, will always remain in their minds. Nothing will ever be exactly the same as it was before. Nicholas Rao,12New York, New York
The Green Glass Sea
The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages; Viking Children’s Books: New York, 2006; $16.99 Suze reached in and picked up a book, riffling the pages with a thumb. The Boy Mechanic, she said, snickering. “Why do you have that?’ “They didn’t make one for girls,” Dewey replied. Have you ever done something that you really enjoyed, but you were the only one of your gender doing it? Well, know that you’re not alone, because Dewey Kerrigan, a character from The Green Glass Sea, and I feel the same way. Both Dewey and I enjoy doing what are considered boyish things. I like to run, bike, practice karate, and play basketball and soccer. Dewey likes doing things such as taking apart radios and going to the dump to get scrap hardware. In the 194os, it seems almost as if it were against the law for girls to be doing such things. In the book, Dewey is even referred to as Screwy Dewey. I suppose these thoughts and stereotypes have lessened over the years, but even now when I go to get basketball shoes, I get remarks such as, “I’m sure your brother will love these shoes.” In fact, I am an only child! Dewey is an only child, too. She obtained her love of boyish things from her father, because her mother was no longer a part of her life. Her mother abandoned Dewey and Mr. Kerrigan when Dewey was only two years old. Dewey is living with her scientist father in a secluded community called The Hill, in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The Hill is secluded because the people living there are some of the people who helped create the Manhattan Project (a.k.a. the atom bomb), which helped America win World War II. Having a father whose work was so closely related to the war meant that Dewey’s dad couldn’t share much about what was going on at work. This was a pity for Dewey because she was captivated by all the science and math involved in making the atom bomb. I can relate to this because my parents are government employees and they talk about work together and keep most of the stories concealed from me. One intriguing thing that I learned was that the creators of the atom bomb tested it out in southern New Mexico, before using it against Japan. What is left of the explosion looks like there is a… yes, you guessed it, a “green glass sea.” The story goes on to show that Dewey continues to be successful as a girl in a male-dominated world. I believe these types of stories help young people, like me, learn that we can achieve what we set our minds to do. Along the way, the story also helps us learn about history The author mixes fact with fiction in an interesting way. Ellen Klages, the author, deserves a pat on the back for this magnificent novel. She lives in my city San Francisco, so I hope to meet her someday. She is also working on the sequel to this novel entitled, White Sands, Red Menace. I truly enjoyed the story and I am certain that anyone nine or older who reads it will, too. Happy reading! Katherine Tracy, 11San Francisco, California
