Home » Posts tagged "grief in fiction" (Page 13)

Musings: I Kill the Mockingbird by Paul Acampora


I Kill the Mockingbird by Paul Acampora
Square Fish, 2015
ISBN-13: 978-1250068088
Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition

I will preface this by saying it is not horror. It is, however, an amazing middle school/YA title that book lovers of all ages ought to know about, and I personally loved it.

I Kill the Mockingbird  examines the effects of hope, love, grief, and literature on the lives of three teenagers who decide to become literary saboteurs as a tribute to their recently deceased English teacher, Fat Bob, who intended to assign just one book(his favorite) as summer reading: To Kill a Mockingbird. Lucy, Michael, and Elena are best friends and book lovers looking forward to summer reading, but as school lets out, the other students are unenthusiastic. Lucy devises a plan to get people reading To Kill a Mockingbird, and enlists Michael and Elena to help. The three of them decide to secretly create and publicize a conspiracy to make it impossible to find a copy of the book, traveling by bus to libraries and bookstores to hide all copies of To Kill a Mockingbird, and leaving flyers behind that advertise a website they’ve built to create buzz about their conspiracy. Taking advantage of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media channels, their little conspiracy rockets out of control as they build a following all over the country, with copycats hiding the book in other communities and demand for copies of To Kill a Mockingbird rising. Lucy’s summer also involves more personal grief, uncertainty, and growth, as she deals with her feelings when her mother returns home after a protracted and nearly fatal battle with cancer and considers whether she’s willing to risk her friendship with Michael by taking it a step further.

It’s wonderful to see how the lives and families of these three friends are so integrated and familiar with each other, and to see how independent and motivated these kids are, in a world where relationships seem to be fragmented by distance, overscheduling, and social media. And as a book lover, and someone who really believes in getting people (and especially kids) engaged in reading, this was an absolute joy to me. While the plot is well-paced, and the book is a quick read, books, reading, and discussions of the ideas in books (and especially in To Kill a Mockingbird) also have a major role. However, while these are integral, they are not didactic– exactly the kind of thing you would hope to see in the lives of book-loving teens and their families. Near the end of the book there is also a really fascinating part where the characters debate whether burning books, even library rejects, is ever acceptable. The practical application of this is never tested, though, leaving us to struggle with our own answer to that question.

The characters were complicated and enjoyable, the plot was original, and the story of these three teens as they grow and change, and change the world, during the summer between the end of middle school and the beginning of high school, just lifted my heart. I Kill the Mockingbird is a thoughtful, funny, sad, and inspiring book that offers no easy answers, and just might make you crack open a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird yourself.

As a final note, the publisher suggests this as an appropriate book for ages 10-14. On its own, I agree that this is appropriate for this age group, and would include older teens as well. However, I can see this book inspiring kids to try To Kill a Mockingbird, and some 10 year olds are still in fourth grade. Even Fat Bob, the eighth grade teacher in this book, suggests that it can be best read and understood after eighth grade. I suggest that discussion of this would be warranted with elementary aged children interested in taking this further.

Posted on January 14, 2017 by , Reply

Book Review: The Fisherman by John Langan

The Fisherman by John Langan

Word Horde Books, 2016

ISBN-13: 978-1939905215

Availability: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

Imagine, if you will, a dark tale co-written by Peter Straub and Thomas Ligotti, filtered through the whimsical sensibilities of Neil Gaiman, and spoken to a friend over beers at a campfire. If that description conjures up something tantalizing to you, John Langan’s The Fisherman might just be what you’re looking for this year. Intriguing and unique, it almost begs to be read on the porch, with feet up and a drink in hand..

 

The Fisherman is a novel about a pair of widowers attempting to find purpose in their lives. Both suffer from guilt and damaged psyches after the deaths of their wives, and each seeks a way to get back on track.

 

The pair begin fishing, a peaceful, solitary sport that allows plenty of time for introspection and bonding between them. One suggests an ideal spot– Dutchman’s Creek– a place not found on any map, and rife with local legend.  The men discover the complex story through the owner of a diner.

 

At the creek, they discover Der Fisher, also known as The Fisherman. He offers redemption to both men, but at a price. What ensues is a conflict between wits, souls, and cosmic forces, that will shake the reader free of any preconceived notion of what to expect.

 

The Fisherman is meant to be experienced as a journey, like a raft ride down a mysterious river. The story is deeply layered, and Langan keeps readers engaged while skillfully leading them through labyrinthine passages. Langan’s smart, smooth tale-spinning succeeds on all levels, and will likely find audiences in places reaching far beyond the horror crowd. Highly recommended

 

Reviewed by David Simms

 


Posted on September 13, 2016 by , Reply

Book Review: The Snake and the Ghost by Tim Jackson

The Snake and the Ghost by Tim Jackson

HaggusArts Publications, 2016

ISBN-13: 978-0-9968544-0-5

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

 

The Snake and the Ghost is a self-published picture book about Haggus, a snake who takes a bully’s dare to visit a “haunted” house. The reality is that the “ghosts” are the human residents of the house, who scream and swat at him with a broom. Looking in a mirror, he is terrified by his own reflection, realizes that the “ghosts” must be afraid of him, and decides to try talking to them. He then encounters an actual ghost– the grandmother of the little boy who lives in the house– and she can understand him, and confides in him. Haggus then slips away and paints a picture of the grandmother and the little boy, using his tail. Then he is engulfed in darkness and disappears, as the boy’s father scoops him into a sack. The author ends by reassuring the reader that Haggus does eventually return to his family.

Jackson wrote with the intent of creating a spooky tale of a snake wanting an adventure, and the atmospheric, black and white illustrations, done in charcoal, evoke the immediate reaction from the reader that this is going to be creepy (some of these unfortunately lost some of their impact for me, as Haggus is cartoonishly depicted in comparison to the otherwise muted images). However, the central and most essential part of the story is the conversation between the ghost and the snake. Despite my own quibble with the ability of a snake and a ghost to communicate with each other in spoken English, this is the most genuine and heartfelt part of the book, with the grandmother explaining the humans’ fear of both snakes and ghosts, and sharing her grief with Haggus in a way that makes him look past his own wants to help her reconnect with her grandson. While Jackson may have been aiming for a dark and spooky  adventure story, the way he portrays grief and love in this part of the story is what really touches the reader, and the darkness and shading of the images really bring that out. The adventure is incidental.

While the book has a professional look and terrific illustrations, the author really needed a copy editor. The biggest issue is that there are awkward changes in verb tense, and there are also occasional errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar. While most of these won’t impair understanding for the reader, they bothered me, and the lack of copy editing in a book that otherwise was clearly designed with care is really surprising.

Jackson strikes me as an author with potential, who needs the help of an editor to tighten and present his story. If he puts as much effort into his writing as he does into design and illustration, he’ll do great things. In the meantime, The Snake and the Ghost , with its focus on grief and love, has an immediate use as bibliotherapy for older children and adults dealing with grief, particularly over the death of a family member. It very much reached my own daughter, and I highly recommend it for this purpose. Beyond this audience, at its existing price point as a hardcover (and the Kindle edition can’t possibly reproduce the illustrations with the same impact), this book will mainly have appeal to individuals and libraries in his area, as part of a collection of local authors. With Halloween approaching, local libraries in the Louisville area may want to track down the author for a reading. Appropriate for ages 9 and up.

Highly recommended for bibliotherapy collections on grief.

 

 


Posted on August 25, 2016 by , Reply
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