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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

Musings: I Want To Be A Monster When I Grow Up by M.T. Weber

I Want To Be A Monster When I Grow Up by M.T. Weber
Pint Bottle Press, 2016
ISBN-13: 978-1945005961
Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Sometimes a book comes along that really hits the mark. In my family, this picture book did exactly that, just as soon as I took it out of the box and read through it for the first time. My initial impression was that the art had an inexpert look, and the font looked like it had been printed on a dot matrix printer– a little primitive for today (a second look made me realize that the font size and darkness made the simple text much more readable than many other picture books I’ve seen, and the monsters are lovingly depicted with bright colors that make them stand out from the page). Once I started reading, though, it melted something inside me.

I Want To Be A Monster When I Grow Up is a gently affectionate, funny, and loving portrait of the relationship between Hudson, a monster-loving kid and his mother. Hudson’s joy and excitement about monsters is an accurate picture of a little boy who really loves them, and his mother, obviously a savvy mom who enjoys sharing her own love of scary stories, is able to direct his enthusiasm into positive behavior and life choices (like eating vegetables, sharing, and brushing teeth). As a mom who loves scary stories and reading aloud, and has a monster-loving 11 year old who is “too cool” to have Mom read aloud to him anymore, this couldn’t have done a better job of catching me and making me remember what it’s like to have that time of reading aloud with an excited little kid with a love of learning, and his contagious excitement of discovering for the first time something you love and want to share. I had to take it up to my own monster kid, who was already in bed, and read it to him right away. And he listened, and smiled, and I saw a little of that little boy enthusiasm again as he snuggled up to me and gave me a hug while I read aloud to him for the first time in a long time.

If you or your kids think that there is a stage where they outgrow picture books, or you reading aloud to them, I’m happy to tell you that you are wrong. There is always a time for that. Reading aloud brings us closer together, and I Want To Be A Monster When I Grow Up is a book that inspires this. For any monster-loving mom who is raising a Monster Kid, or any Monster Kid with a monster-loving mom, regardless of age, you couldn’t choose a better book. Recommended.

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski


Posted on January 7, 2017 by , 1 comment

Book Review: Only the Dead Know Burbank by Bradford Tatum

Only the Dead Know Burbank by Bradford Tatum

HarperCollins Publishers, 2016

ISBN: 9780062428752

Available:  Paperback, Kindle edition

 

Only the Dead Know Burbank starts out in post-World War I Germany, after the Spanish flu epidemic has passed. Maddy Ulm, a young woman whose mother cast a mysterious spell on her before her premature death, pulls herself out of her own grave. She discovers she cannot die, but she also cannot age, and when she eats, she tastes nothing but ash. She knows nothing of where her mother has gone; she is alone. She sets out to find…something? Someone? She’s not quite sure. She eventually meets and joins up with street performers, including Mutter, an injured soldier with a love of theatrics. Together, they perform dramatic traumas and seeming resurrections on the small stage. Then Maddy discovers film, and her love of the horrific. When Universal Pictures discovers one of her masterpieces, Maddy travels to Hollywood. There, she meets and works with some of the Hollywood greats, creating some of the most memorable images in horror history. She channels her innate knowledge of the supernatural, fear, death, and undeath into her art, but is never allowed to head the projects she loves so much. She wants more. Throughout her story, she catches glimpses of her mother, occasionally meeting with her and her father. As the story progresses, Maddy discovers more about herself, her family, and what she is capable of.

I was apprehensive about this at the beginning. Maddy’s childhood is nothing more than a mother providing for her child and surviving the only way she knew how—through sex, death, and art. Maddy was never shielded from anything happening, and was even present at times. It would be fair to say Maddy was never treated as a child. She came into the world observing the adult world through her mother, a very cold woman who withheld any kind of affection from Maddy. Dealing with her mother makes Maddy a survivor, and she develops skills that aid her through the rest of her life, leading her to become an extremely strong female character.

Mutter is another character in this story worth mentioning. Mutter, before his injury, was a German soldier who Maddy encountered briefly when her mother was entertaining the troops. Maddy feels a strong attachment to Mutter, and he acts as a protector to her, providing her with the familial love that she never experienced as a child.

The historic figures written into the story are fantastic. Cheney was given a very respectful characterization, but I think Tatum was even more sensitive to Boris Karloff. Being an avid fan of Karloff’s, I was pleased with the sensitivity and respect he gave to his characterization of one of the genre’s greatest actors. Maddy is especially drawn to him because of the kindness in the man’s eyes, and his physical stature. She was looking for someone to play the creature in Frankenstein, rejecting the director’s demand for the horrific, and instead obtaining someone with a certain sorrow in the eyes, something which Maddy herself comes to grips with along the way in her own life. Tatum clearly did his research on early horror cinema in both Berlin and Hollywood, and combined with his original approach and well-drawn characters, this is a pleasure to read. Recommended.

 

Contains: physical and psychological abuse, some sex

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

 

 

Posted on January 6, 2017 by , Reply
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