Dicey's Song (1983)

 

This book started out with two strikes against it.  It is numbers 2 in a "cycle" and it was in the teen section of the library. I don't have anything against the teen zone per se, but I think the Newbery target audience is not teens. I am happy to say, though, that Dicey's Song did not strike out.  :)

 

We learn enough about book one that we know 13-year-old Dicey and her 3 siblings, James, Maybeth and Sammy, were abandoned by their mother and that they made their way on their own a couple hundred miles to their grandmother's farm.  Gram took them in and the story begins about when school starts in the fall.

 

The Tillermans are a quirky family.  Most of the people in Gram's little town think she is a bit crazy. Dicey and her siblings are prickly as well.  Their mother had never married and people in the town they came from had taunted them for that.  Add to that their mother had a nervous breakdown and was basically catatonic in a hospital bed in Boston and you see that the children could very well have troubles.

 

Dicey gets a job helping at a local grocery store cleaning and helping the owner, Millie, with odd jobs around the store.  Dicey feels responsible for the younger kids and wants to contribute to the upkeep as their Gram doesn't have enough to care for them. 

 

The story tells of trouble in school, making friends, learning to look past people's differences, holding on to family.  It was really quite good. I would recommend it for older elementary and middle school age kids.

 

Favorite quotes:

"The sadness of Momma lost to them, maybe forever, was something Dicey carried around deep inside her all the time, and maybe that explained her edginess. Dicey wasn't used to carrying sadness around. She was used to seeing trouble and doing something about it. She just didn't know anything to do about Momma." (p. 21)

 

Gram to Dicey. "But I'll tell you something else, too. Something I've learned, the hard way...You've got to hold on. Hold on to people. They can get away from you. It's not always going to be fun, but if you don't--hold on--then you lose them." (p. 88)

 

Dicey to her friend Mina. "If you think about it, everybody has something--wrong about them. I mean, some flaw, or something you just don't like. But some people, it doesn't seem to matter so much. You know there're things wrong, but it's just part of them and you like them." (p. 193)

 

When Dicey and Gram went to see Momma in Boston for the last time before she died, Gram took care of everything.  On the way home, on the train, Dicey found out that Gram had never left Maryland before that. She said, " 'Gram, but you know how to do everything.'

'I knew how to do nothing. I just did everything. There's a difference. You should know that.'" (p. 231)

 

Dicey trying to figure out what she should do. "The confusion was like a windy storm. And then she smiled to herself, because she had a suspicion that the confusion wasn't a storm that would blow itself out, it was going to be a permanent condition...She might as well try to like it, she thought, since it wasn't gong to go away." (p. 246)

 

Voigt, Cynthia. Dicey's Song. Atheneum, 1982.

A Visit to William Blake's Inn--Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers (1982)

This is a fun little book of poems about an imaginary inn run by William Blake, the late 18th-early 19th century British poet, painter and printmaker. The author, Nancy Willard, says in her introduction that she was inspired by William Blake's illustrated books of poetry--Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience.

The inn is staffed by fanciful animals.  Dragons bake the bread. A bear is a bed. There are rabbits and mice and a tiger too.

A few lines caught my fancy.  "rather a wish that only flew when I climbed in and found it true." (p. 16)

After taking some animals on a walk in the Milky Way,
"The rat was sullen. He grumbled
he ought to have stayed in his bed.
'What's gathered by fools in heaven
will never endure,' he said.

"Blake gave silver stars to the rabbit
and golden stars to the cat
and emerald stars to the tiger and me
but a handful of dirt to the rat." (p. 33)

And finally, "Blake's advice to travelers, 'He whose face gives no light will never become a star.'" (p. 44)

This would be a fun read with younger children.  The illustrations by Alice and Martin Provensen are very fun and add to the poetry. Although poetry is not my favorite genre, I am going to check out William Blake's aforementioned works.

Willard, Nancy. A Visit to William Blake's Inn. Harcourt Brace & Company, 1981.

Jacob Have I Loved (1981)

I definitely have more to say about Jacob Have I Loved. Just as in the Bible story there are twins, Louise and Caroline, and like the story of Esau and Jacob, Louise the older sister feels that all her parents interest and care is for the younger Caroline. Caroline was the sickly baby, the sensitive and delicate child. The talented young woman.  Louise was strong, tom-boyish. Told in the first person, Louise says of Caroline and her parents, "She was so sure, so present, so easy, so light and gold, while I was all gray and shadow.  I was not ugly or monstrous.  That might have been better. Monsters always command attention, if only for their freakishness.  My parents would have wrung their hands and tried to make it up to me, as parents will with a handicapped or especially ugly child...But I had never caused my parents 'a minute's worry.' Didn't they realize that I needed their worry to assure myself that I was worth something?" (p. 39)

Growing up on a small island in Chesapeake Bay, Louise feels trapped.  Trapped by the water surrounding her, by her family, by expectations. Her mother had come to the island as a teacher and then met and married her father who was a fisherman.  Louise feels that her mother threw her life away in staying on the island.

There is a lot that happens in this book--war abroad, storms, crazy grandmother to deal with, boys, coming of age. In the end, Louise argues at her mother. (I say Louise argues at her mother because her mother refuses to be drawn in and replies lovingly.)

 "What do you want us to do for you, Louise?'
"Let me go. Let me leave!"
"Of course you may leave. You never said before you wanted to leave...I chose the island. I chose to leave my own people and build a life for myself somewhere else. I certainly wouldn't deny you that same choice. But, oh, Louise, we will miss you, your father and I."
"Will you really. As much as you miss Caroline?"
"More," she said, reaching up and ever so lightly smoothing my hair with her fingertips.
I did not press her to explain. I was too grateful for that one word that allowed me at last to leave the island and begin to build myself as a soul, separate from the long, long shadow of my twin. (228-229)

This is a serious book with lots of anger issues on Louise's part. She does end up in a good place and happy off the island. I would like to see the author write this story from another character's point of view as it would be interesting to see how the other characters view themselves and Louise. I would not recommend this book for elementary aged children.  Good for middle school kids.

Paterson, Katherine. Jacob Have I Loved. Harper & Row, 1980.

A Gathering of Days (1980)

Aaarrggghh!! I got on to post about the 1982 and 1983 books and found that I had forgotten to write about '80 and '81!! And now it has been probably 3 months since I read them. Well...

A Gathering of Days by Joan W. Blos, takes us back to New England of the 1830s.  It is the journal of Catherine Cabot Hall, age 13, and tells of her life from 1830-1832.  It is a slow-moving book, but well-written and sweet.  She has hard times--death of a good friend, escaped slave in the neighborhood, choices to make about helping him, the remarriage of her father.  She has good times--school, fun with friends, learning to love her new step-mother.

Blos, Joan W. A Gathering of Days. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1979.