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Book Review: The Black Pearl by Scott O’Dell

The Black Pearl by Scott O’Dell

HMH Editions for Young Readers, 2010 (reprint)

ISBN-13: 978-0547334004

Available: Paperback, Audible, Kindle edition

 

Scott O’Dell is best known as a writer of historical fiction for children, particularly for novels set  in California or Mexico. He is most well-known for his middle-grade survival story and Newbery Award-winning novel Island of the Blue Dolphins, as well as three Newbery Honor books: The King’s Fifth, Sing Down the Moon, and The Black Pearl. In addition to winning several additional awards, he also established one: The Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, which is awarded yearly to an American writer of an outstanding work of historical fiction for children. The Black Pearl, first published in 1967, is indeed a work of historical fiction– but it’s also a pretty terrifying book, with much of it devoted to a legendary sea monster, the Manta Diablo.

Sixteen year old Ramon Sandoval’s father is a pearl merchant, and has just made him a partner in the business. Ramon is eager to learn to dive for pearls, but his father has reservations. His father and the other pearl divers are large, muscled men, while Ramon is still not entirely grown. When Ramon finally convinces his father to take him on an expedition, he meets the Sevillano, a talented diver with a storehouse of outrageous stories about frightening monsters and giant pearls.

During his father’s next absence, Ramon, determined to prove himself, pays an Indian who has come to sell a pearl to teach him how to dive. He hopes to find the great pearl of the Sevillano’s stories: the Pearl of Heaven. The Indian warns Ramon of the Manta Diablo, a vengeful giant black manta ray who guards the pearls in his cave under the lagoon where the Indian dives. Despite the warning, Ramon dives into the cave, pries out a gigantic oyster, and finds an enormous black pearl.  When the Manta Diablo discovers the cave is in disarray,  it’s a race to escape home with the pearl before he is caught.  Once revealed, the pearl garners a great deal of unwanted attention from the town, but despite its size and beauty, he and his father are unable to sell it. Ramon comes to believe the pearl is cursed and that he must return it to the monster, but the Sevillano has other ideas, and they embark on a dangerous voyage by water, chased by the Manta Diablo.

The story is framed by the introduction of the Manta Diablo, a local legend used by mothers to scare their children into behaving. Ramon, while not a believer, loves this story. The Sevillano, who has been out in the ocean, makes this a more believable story, and the Indian’s dread reinforces it. None of this is enough to convince the skeptical Ramon, who is determined to find the legendary Pearl of Heaven– when it comes to legends, apparently greed and ambition outweigh fear. As the novel progresses, the Indian’s dread is infectious, and Ramon actually begins to believe that there might really be some truth to the legend. The manta’s chase and the battle with the manta up the tension, although it’s certainly possible that Ramon is more terrified of the Sevillano than he is of the manta.

While the writing is somewhat stilted and dated, and the book starts with somewhat of a slow pace, once the pearl divers enter the scene the story becomes engaging, not just because Ramon is engaged in the experience, but because it is fascinating, and something most people know little about. As the book progresses, it’s interesting to see how his relationship with both his father and the Sevillano develop. Ramon’s experiences as he learns to dive in the lagoon are immersive; O’Dell’s descriptions are gorgeously written. Ramon’s interactions with the Indian at that time start to ratchet up the suspense, especially once Ramon enters the cave of the Manta Diablo. The legendary manta of terror and its appearances in the novel, be they through story or through Ramon’s perceptions of his experience, snagged this reader from the first page, and O’Dell’s suggestion that something can be both beautiful and evil is food for thought.  Recommended for grades 4 and up.

Reader’s advisory note: Older children and teens who like this book might like The Pearl by John Steinbeck or The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.

Content note: The representation of the Indians in the book as especially superstitious and violent is a talking point you might want to cover with your child, as well as the religious motivations behind some of the actions (not being Catholic, certain children thought the Madonna referred to in the story was the American pop singer, which caused some confusion).


Cruelty to Animals: Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor and The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

  

I want to preface this by saying that there are many animal stories that are heartwarming or even funny. But there are also many animal stories written for children in which terrible things happen. Even when there is a satisfying ending, so much of what’s there is heartbreaking. The cruelty and indifference of human beings, and the trapped feelings of not just the animal but the people who love that animal can be just horrifying. These aren’t intended to be horror stories, but sometimes they feel that way.

I am not a big reader of animal stories. But in the past month I have had two really well-done ones come my way, both hitting me and my kids on a visceral level. Both of them are also Newbery Award winners, so chances are that if you have an elementary aged kid whose teacher requires that he or she read a Newbery winner, that your child might choose one of these.

Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor was the pick of the girl whose turn it was to choose a book for my kids’ second and third grade book discussion group (I don’t think I would recommend it for this age– it’s pretty intense for seven and eight year olds). One way to describe this book is as the story of a boy and his dog. But there is a lot more going on than that. Marty is an eleven year old boy living in rural West Virginia, part of a family that has to make every dollar stretch. Shiloh, a runaway dog, follows Marty home, but the dog belongs to Judd, an unpleasant man who is abusive to his dogs, and Shiloh has to be returned to him. When Shiloh runs away a second time, Marty hides the dog, but protecting the dog leads to more and more lies, and eventually Marty is found out and the dog has to be returned. Marty finally gets the dog, but only after he catches Judd hunting out of season and covers it up. Marty’s dad points out that there is no way to save every abused animal in the area, and Marty knows his dishonesty is wrong, but he does save Shiloh from Judd’s abuse. Maybe for kids it is clear cut– from my son’s account of what happened during the book group, the major thing was that the dog was saved from this horrible man, but as an adult, these things make the book even more difficult, and a very uneasy read (there are several sequels to Shiloh, which I have not read, that may explore these issues further).

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate is a recent Newbery winner that arrived as a request for review.  It has just been released in paperback and is a spotlight title in the flyer for the Scholastic Book Fair that I received last week. I had read it previously, and it is a brilliantly written book, but it was an entirely different experience reading it with my daughter. This book is based on the true story of a gorilla who was trapped in a cage in a circus-themed mall for 27 years before protesters succeeded in having him relocated to a zoo. Applegate wrote the book from Ivan’s point of view, and it is mesmerizing. The difference between reading it myself and reading it to a seven-year-old is that I have background knowledge and can step back from the story when (for example) Ivan relates how he saw his parents killed, with their hands, heads, and feet chopped off, and can see a gorilla hand ashtray in the window of one of the mall stores (I have seen both a gorilla hand ashtray and an elephant footstool in a museum collection, and it is baffling and terrible that any person would do this). For my daughter, it’s bloody, heartbreaking, and horrifying. The mall owner is neglectful, and as in Shiloh, a father and child are caught in a moral dilemma: if he reports the condition of the animals to save them,  he will lose his job working in the mall. They do finally make that difficult choice, although in this case, saving the animals means being honest, and there’s no unsolved ethical dilemma. My daughter insisted on speeding through it so she could find out what happened to Ivan, and is still processing the story. The Monster Kid was not able to handle the human cruelty in the book, however, so know your child, and expect to be discussing it with him or her.

Dylan, the original Monster Librarian, loved books where the animals terrorized humans, such as those by Guy N. Smith and James Herbert. Those REALLY aren’t my thing, but he felt that, somehow, through those books, justice was served. But as Stella, the elephant from The One and Only Ivan said,  “Humans can surprise you sometimes”. Certainly, although there is cruelty and indifference in animal stories written for children, there is also, often, kindness and love. Although it seems obvious to say that it’s best to pay close attention to what you are recommending to a child, I think that it’s worth it to remember that even when a story has a happy ending,  not all animal stories are sweetness and light. Both books are highly recommended for grades four and older, depending, of course, on the child.

Book Review: The Graveyard Book Graphic Novel, Volume One by Neil Gaiman, adapted by P. Craig Russell


 The Graveyard Book Graphic Novel, Volume 1, by Neil Gaiman, adapted by P. Craig Russell

Harper Collins, 2014

ISBN13: 9780062312556

Available: Hardback

 

So let’s say a beautiful story, the kind you never forget, isn’t good enough for you. So someone decides to translate it into a visual medium. but one artist isn’t enough. Here Russell decides to give artist teams each a chapter to create.

The Graveyard Book is awesome, and in Russell’s graphic novel adaptation of  Neil Gaiman’s Newbery Award-winning novel, other artists have distilled that exquisiteness into a new form. Sometimes the tale is exceedingly grim (it begins with a blood covered knife and a crime scene) but at its heart, it’s about choosing how to live. Not recommended for young children, but highly reommended for teens and adults.

 

Contains: Graphic violence, dark themes

Reviewed by Michele Lee

 

Editor’s Note: I think the illustrations in the original book are more shocking and leave more to the imagination than the graphic novel, which is, well, much more graphic. Either way, it’s a compelling story, with impressive artwork, and it’s pretty neat to see it adapted into another format– fans of Gaiman’s who love his comic books and graphic novels but have never encountered The Graveyard Book are being given an incredible opportunity. I do want to emphasize that, as Michele notes, because it is much more graphic and detailed, the graphic novel is not child-appropriate. Handle with care– and enjoy!