The great beast tipped with an army of acid claws it sported a color blue so deep you could fall in and no one would see you sink. It’s favorite kind of prey were the ones with the sanded wooden sides— the ones that bobbed up and down and were filled with goods. The beast lurked just beside that snow capped mountain the only home it ever knew. The beast never stayed still. It liked to roar and attack and spray its poison mist and drag a soul or two d o w n but deep d o w n it hurt a growing pain that radiated like the rays of the sun that The beast hated so much. Maybe The beast ate too much. Everyone has bellyaches.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Four Books and the Meaning of Normal: A Review of Out of My Heart, Wonder, The Thing About Georgie, and Freak the Mighty
Four novels, Out of My Heart by Sharon M. Draper, Wonder by R.J. Palacio, The Thing About Georgie by Lisa Graff, and Freak The Mighty by Rodman Philbrick, all include and think about characters who are different. For once, we are told that heroes don’t have to be perfect. We don’t have to use outcasts as props to make a hero look good – we don’t need to make them out to be helpless victims that need to be protected. They can be the main characters and the heroes, not just supportive characters lurking in the background. With characters we don’t usually see as main protagonists, these books are about acceptance, belonging, and being different. Out of My Heart by Sharon M. Draper circles around a girl named Melody, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. In this sequel to Out of My Mind, Melody goes to summer camp for kids with disabilities. At camp, she plays balloon ball, swims, paints, rides a horse, and even goes on a zip-line, things she thought she’d never do before. Her counselor is kind, and all around her Melody sees walkers, wheelchairs, and much more. And most importantly, she makes friends. And though nobody can be exactly the same as her, she’s finally found people that accept her, and a place where she belongs. In Wonder by R.J. Palacio, Auggie is a boy with cleft palate and other facial differences that make him an outcast. People either think Auggie is a freak and that he’s disgusting or a poor child with a disability who needs pity. For these reasons, Auggie has been homeschooled by his protective parents who watch him constantly. But Auggie’s finally going to middle school, and though he tries to prove to others that he’s “normal,” nobody accepts him anyway. Friends can change to enemies quickly, and then back. People aren’t good or bad, they’re complicated, and this makes things confusing for Auggie. But through his troubles and challenges, he finds a group that lets him just be himself, not a category, and he decides not to be “normal.” Because why try to fit in when you can just be yourself with the right people? The Thing About Georgie by Lisa Graff is about a boy named Georgie who has dwarfism. Georgie’s middle name is Washington, and his idol is the founding father George Washington. But when he gets paired with Jeanie the Meanie for a history project, he is having trouble cooperating with her. She isn’t nice to him, and she signs him up for the school play about American presidents, but to play Abraham Lincoln! Abraham Lincoln was the tallest American president, and all of a sudden Georgie feels very, very short. On top of it all, his parents are going to have a baby, and Georgie is not excited to soon see his sibling outgrow him year by year and be able to do all the things that Georgie can’t. And Georgie’s friend Andy seems to be more involved with the new kid, Russ, than him. So, overall, Georgie’s problems are big. But when Georgie realizes that Jeanie the Meanie isn’t so bad and begins to resolve his problems with Andy, Georgie finds that he doesn’t have to be big to do big things, and that love doesn’t depend on size. True friends don’t care about what you look like. They appreciate you no matter what. In Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick, Max is a boy who is tall for his age, in a special class at school, and thinks of himself as “stupid.” But Max discovers that he’s not stupid at all – he’s very smart, it’s just just nobody has realized it yet. When “Freak” – or Kevin, a former acquaintance of Max’s – moves into the neighborhood, Max learns that with Kevin’s imaginative, smart brain and Max’s large body, they can become “Freak the Mighty.” Together they go on rescue missions and adventures; they seem to be able to go anywhere they want to go. But Kevin isn’t fine, and neither is Max. Kevin’s health condition isn’t easy to deal with, and Max has problems with his father. But Max and Kevin are always there for each other. When many people say “disability” or “different,” they also say “how unfortunate.” They don’t see people like Melody, Auggie, Georgie, Max, and Kevin as individuals, they see them as nothing but handicaps. But Out of my Mind, Wonder, The Thing About Georgie, and Freak the Mighty allow us to see people who happen to have disabilities or are otherwise different for who they truly are: funny, intelligent, and caring friends who follow their own paths.
Book Club Report: A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat
An update from our thirty-fifth Book Club meeting! This month we discussed A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat, a suspenseful and moving novel set in a magical version of Thailand. The book follows Pong, who is born in Namwon prison, because his mom was imprisoned for stealing. He escapes the prison, and hides in a monastery, where he is guided spiritually by the wise Father Cham. But, he’s still in danger! Nok, the daughter of the warden of Namwon prison, is determined to capture Pong and bring him to justice, hoping that doing so will help her gain glory and acceptance. Pong flees Nok, back to Chattana, a beautiful, but very crowded and unequal city, which floats on canals and is lit by colorful magical lights, all controlled by the Governor. There, he reunites with his old best friend from prison, Somkit, and gets involved in a community made up of the city’s poorest people, who are organizing to make their city a fairer place. Pong has to decide whether to join in on the organizing, or whether he should flee Chattana (and Nok, who is still hunting him down), while he can still escape. This book had so much drama and suspense, so many larger-than-life characters, and so many interesting and important themes to talk about. Students joined us from all over the country, hailing from different states, and in different grades of school. We had a lively discussion. Everyone agreed that they enjoyed the book, and talked about their different favorite characters. Some people loved Pong, for his fierce sense of justice, others loved Ampai, for her courageous organizing, some loved Father Cham, for his gentle wisdom, and one person’s favorite character was Nok, who has such impressive fighting skills and changes so much over the course of the book. Next we got into a discussion about the major themes of the book: justice, law, right, wrong, prison, punishment. We talked about the unfair way that children are punished for their parents’ crimes in Chattana, and that prison tattoos prevent people from finding work, even after they have served their sentences. We discussed different proverbs that are said in the society in the novel, such as “Light only shines on the worthy,” and “the tree drops its fruit straight down,” and how we disagreed with these proverbs. One student mentioned that although it would be very nice if good people always had good things happen to them, and vice versa, this is not how the world works, and so it is not fair to say that if someone is poor or otherwise struggling, it must because they are a bad person. Finally, we discussed Father Cham’s unique teaching style, where he guides his students to come to their own conclusions. This brought us nicely into our creative writing time. Students had two prompts to choose from: they could write a scene in which they have a dialogue with Father Cham, or another wise mentor figure, and ask them for advice. Or they could make up a fictional scene of a character living in the Mud House (the tenement community where Pong and his friends live), and describe what a day in the life is like. After we had some individual writing time, those who wanted to shared their writing. It was a treat to hear the things people had written, especially the wise advice of Father Cham. See you again next month, where we will be reading A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck. Our Next Book: A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck Book Club Meeting May 28th, 2022
