one of those hideous books where the mother dies

one of those hideous books where the mother dies

by Sonya Sones

 

Bibliography

Sones, Sonya. one of those hideous books where the mother dies. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. ISBN: 9781416907886

Plot Summary and Critical Analysis

Sonya Sones one of those hideous books where the mother dies is a novel for young readers that is written in verse.  I have read plays, short stories, and even restaurant menus written using verse, but this is the first time that I have encountered a novel written almost entirely using poetry.   I found it to be a very effective way to tell this somewhat simple, yet fantastic tale.

Written almost entirely in free, or blank, verse, the story takes us along with Ruby as she leaves her home and the only family she has ever known, her Aunt Duffy to live with her father in Los Angeles after the death of her mother.  Ruby’s quick wit and insecurity is apparent from the beginning and becomes very clear in the poem I love to Read which takes place as she’s on the plane to California

But my life better not turn out

To be like one of those hideous books

Where the mother dies

And so the girl has to

Go live with her absentee father

And he turns to be

An alcoholic heroin addict

Who brutally beats her

And sexually molests her

Thereby causing her to become

A bulimic ax murderer

Ruby, in the sarcastic way that she handles the stress of unfamiliar and frightening situations, shows a crackerjack sense of humor and the insecurity, fear and doubt that it hides.

The plot of novel is somewhat fantastic.  Though simple in concept, the fact that Ruby goes from living with her mother to live with her father, whom she doesn’t remember ever meeting, who happens to be a very famous movie star is the stuff of which fantasies are made.  It is to Ms Sone’s credit that she keeps the story grounded in the feelings and emotions of her characters.

Ruby’s been told by her mother nothing more than that her father left her before Ruby was born, but Ruby knows, through her Aunt Duffy’s actions who her father really is and every year Aunt Ruby would surreptitiously take Ruby to one of her father’s movies.  On the first such trip as young child, Ruby believes that she is actually going to meet her father and when she sees that he is only on the screen she runs out of the theater in tears.  Comforted by her beloved Aunt Duffy she returns to the theater and watched the movie and her father becomes, to her, the characters that he plays.

Also troubling Ruby’s emotions is the fact that she has to leave her best friend and her first real boyfriend behind as she moves to California.  Her emails to these two, and to her deceased mother, are some of the few non-verse parts of the book give the reader a glimpse into the Ruby that often times seems to hide behind the poems.  In the poems, though she seems to strive for honesty, the character of Ruby can hide behind wordplay, metaphor, and structure, where the real Ruby doesn’t have those things.  She is most real in these passages, which is not to say that the poems don’t reveal a great deal about her.

The story bounces back and forth between her old home and her new, as Ruby continues to hold onto the past, onto her old boyfriend and her best friend, and continues to resent the fact that she has to live with the father she never knew.  It is in the middle to late passages that we start to see the real Ruby emerge as she meets one disappointment after another, and equally ignores one opportunity after another.  In these poems, Ruby loses her best friend and boyfriend when they “betray” Ruby and become a couple, moving on in a way which Ruby is still unable.

It is only through this event that Ruby is able to begin, reluctantly, to accept that the life she is now living is her new life.  The poems are quite effective at conveying the changing of emotions and acceptance of life.  Although the betrayal, causes her to lash out at her father, who has been trying so hard to bond with her, she soon begins to realize that he does love her, but still her animosity doesn’t go away.  Bit by bit and poem by poem in this late section of the book we can see Ruby’s façade start to crack.

By bonding first with Max, her father’s assistant, she is able to grow somewhat closer to her father.  But it takes a dream, followed by an earthquake for the real truth about her father to be revealed.  In the aftermath of her breakup, and her growing fondness of her father, Ruby dreams that her mother calls her and they just chat about little things until her dream mother tells her to get out of the house.  Half-dreaming, half-awake Ruby does walk out of the house and finds herself standing in front the a tree where a young boy and recently been killed in an accident.  Soon her father follows her out and finds her there and holds as, for the first time in a long time, Ruby’s tears begin to flow and she feels tremor run through them.  Now, Ruby fully awake realized that an earthquake is occurring and she and her father hold fast to one another.  Soon, Max come out, see that they are safe and dissolves into tears and hugs them both as they all begin to cry.

The closeness of the moment, beautifully portrayed in the poetry allows her father to tell her the whole truth about himself and his relationship with her mother.  The secret is not really a surprise to the reader who will have figured it out about halfway through the book, but it’s a revelation to Ruby who has been too wrapped up in her own feelings to see what was in front of her.

Ms Sones closes the novel with a lovely poem of resolution for Ruby:

I’m lying in the grass,

In the middle Dad’s palm forest,

With my arms cradling my head,

Staring up at the graceful trees

The fronds are fringed with fiery red,

Bobbing and dancing in the soft breeze,

Swishing and swaying

Like headless hula girls.

It’s funny.

I can remember hating palm trees.

I can even remember hating Coolifornia.

I just can’t remember

 

Why.

Ms Sones takes Ruby and the reader on a journey of self-discovery and self-realization that is both moving and affective.  A lot of reality, a little fantasy, and a realization that things aren’t always what they seem are the rewards for taking the journey.  The use of verse to tell the story, at first, added a sense of unreality to the story during my reading.  As the book progressed and the poetry became more complicated and intimate, the poems had the opposite effect.  I felt, by the end as if I were in Ruby’s mind, rather than just an observer. 

Review Excerpts

Amazon.com Editorial Review: Ruby has turned her grief into anger at her father: because he divorced her mother before she was born, because she has had to leave her best friend Lizzie and her boyfriend Ray to come to Los Angeles to live with him, and because he is Whip Logan, a very famous and rich movie star. She turns a cold shoulder to all his gentle and persistent attempts to relate to her, sneers at the glamour of his Beverly Hills mansion and famous friends, and spends most of her time writing desperate emails to Lizzie and Ray, and her dead mother, from her Dream Bedroom. The friendship of Max, Whip's live-in assistant/personal trainer, is some comfort, and Ruby has a harder and harder time keeping her sneer as Whip ups the ante, from rides in his classic vintage cars, to shopping trips for anything she wants, to weekends in Las Vegas and Catalina and a party where Eminem is the guest of honor. But an earthquake leads to a surprising revelation that changes everything for Ruby, in an enormously satisfying ending.

School Library Journal:  In one- to two-page breezy poetic prose-style entries, 15-year-old Ruby Milliken describes her flight from Boston to California and her gradual adjustment to life with her estranged movie-star father following her mother's death. E-mails to her best friend, her boyfriend, and her mother ("in heaven") and outpourings of her innermost thoughts display her overwhelming unhappiness and feelings of isolation, loss, and grief ("…most days,/I wander around Lakewood feeling invisible./Like I'm just a speck of dust/floating in the air/that can only be seen/when a shaft of light hits it"). Ruby's affable personality is evident in her humorous quips and clever wordplays. Her depth of character is revealed through her honest admissions, poignant revelations, and sensitive insights. This is not just another one of those gimmicky novels written in poetry. It's solid and well written, and Sones has a lot to say about the importance of carefully assessing people and situations and about opening the door to one's own happiness. Despite several predictable particulars of plot, Ruby's story is gripping, enjoyable, and memorable.

Connections

Use this book to discuss types of literature written in verse, such as the plays of Shakespeare.

Ask readers how they would feel if they had to move across the country and leave all of their friends behind

Use the book to discuss deeper issues of parental loss.  Since this book if for children 12 and up, I believe a discussion about death and its meaning would be appropriate.

As with all poetry or verse, have students read some of their favorite passages aloud.

Ask the readers what they think of Ruby.  Do they indentify with her or do they think she’s spoiled and whiny.

Use the story as part of a larger discussion of poetry and its different forms and uses.

Bronx Masquerade

Bronx Masquerade

By Nikki Grimes

 

Bibliography

Grimes, Nikki. Bronx Masquerade. New York: Dial Books, 2002. ISBN: 0803725698

Plot Summary and Critical Analysis

When Wesley “Bad Boy” Boone is assigned an essay on the poetry of The Harlem Renaissance, he instead brings in a poem that he has written, which his teacher, Mr. Wards asks him to read to the class.  This is the beginning of what will become open-mike Fridays in Mr. Ward’s English class.  The stories of the 18 young people are told in 18 different voices through both poetry and prose by Nikki Grimes.  There is also a Greek chorus of sorts, in the person of Tyrone Bittings, who believes that there is no future for him or for black people until the poems of his classmates, and then his own poems, give him hope and power over his own destiny.

Each poem is preceded by first person narrative giving us a window into the, often, difficult lives of the characters. This is followed by a poem written by the character and read in class.  Tyrone’s first poem, written in a rap style, talks about the dangers of everyday life, ends on a hopeful note when he writes:

Still you can chill and celebrate

All that’s great about life, like music

And the tick-tick-tick of time

Which is equal parts yours and mine

To make of the world what we will

But first say no to coke and smoke.

Say not to police brutality

And causing fatality.

Say no to race hate.

Don’t underestimate the power of love.

But most of all

Take two poems

And call me

In the morning.

Even at this early stage of the book, Tyrone is moved by the artistic expression of his friend. Wesley.  The simple act of creation and performance has instilled in this character a sense of possibility and hope, which will only grow as the book progresses.

Chankara Troupe who comes to school sporting what she calls a “Johnny-mark” named after the guy who smacked her the night before.  In her prose section she talks about how she threw him out when he pushed her to have sex and hit her.  Her poem, written in free verse concerns coming downstairs in the middle of the night to find her sister, bruised and limping from a beating she had taken from her boyfriend.  The poem is about how she won’t let herself be treated like her sister.

“He’ll never do it again,”

She swears

But he will, because

She’ll let him.

Now, me?

I’ve got no use

For lame excuses

Or imitation love

That packs

A punch.

 

Raul Ramirez, a painter who uses Mr. Ward’s desk to do his artwork writes about growing up Puerto Rican in the Bronx and about how he wants to smash the stereotypes writing in his prose section “we are not all banditos like they show on TV, munching cuchfritos and sipping beer through chipped teeth.  Instead, he wants to paint the beauty of “los ninos” and his Mami and the way his friends turn a street into dance floor.  His poem is about throwing out the old stereotypes but keeping the mask

Why make it easy for you to choose whether I am Zorro or el bandito when I am neither, he writes in his “Z” shaped poem.

Diondra is a tall girl and everyone expects her to be into sports, but she isn’t.  “I’m an artist, like Raul. The difference is, I don’t tell anybody.  I refuse to give them new reasons to laugh at me.”

Her poem, “if”  written in a more traditional four line stanza rhyming scheme is lovely and moving.

If I dipped my brush in starlight

Painted a ribbon of night

On your windowsill

Would you still laugh?

Her insecurity is in full display, and her urge to convey her talent is powerful.  This is one of my favorite poems in the book.  It doesn’t have a sophisticated form, and the content is simple, yet powerful, but the fear of rejection is powerful and out there for all to see.

As the open-mike Friday’s continue and more of the student’s are emboldened to share their poems, we meet and learn about Devon Hope, a star basketball player who wants to be so much more; Lupe Algarin, a daydreamer, who thinks that having a baby will fill the hole in her life and give her someone that will love her.

We meet Gloria, who is already a single mother and learn the folly of Lupe’s dream.  She views her youth as over now as she writes in her poem “Message to a Friend”

The crashing sound

Of years lost

Shattered in her ears,

And new fears emerged

From the looking glass

Sometimes I wonder

If she’ll ever sing again.

Janelle Battle is overweight, and suffers the teasing and taunts of her classmates, but opens up in her poem and finds some acceptance; the Anglo girl who transferred in from a rich neighborhood after her mother died feels alone rather than unique, but find she has the death of a mother in common with Porscha Johnson, an African-American girl who also lost her mother.  There are far too many characters to detail every one, but the need for acceptance and love and happiness, or even just survival runs through each story and each poem.

The way that Nikkie Grimes is able to capture the voices, in poetry and prose, of so many different characters is wonderful, the Prose-Poetry format that she uses is extremely effective in showing the way that the poems come from the lives of the poets.  Using Tyrone as a wrap-around narrator is very effective in showing, in microcosm, the positive changes in attitude, self-esteem, and general life outlook of all of the characters.  As Tyrone progresses through the book from someone who see no hope for a brighter future, to a young man who has learned through writing and performing poetry and getting to know his classmate through poetry, that his future is his to build, the same progression can be seen in many of the characters.

Self expression, in the form of poetry and the performance of poetry transforms the lives of the young characters in a way that is quite beautiful and moving.  Ms Grimes is positing here that, through art, through self-expression, through creation, and learning to understand one another, we can become the master’s of our own fates.  That this lesson is learned in Bronx classroom, where the odds are stacked against the characters from the start, is nothing short of spectacular.

Her major accomplishment in this book is making those who are not in the same situation as the characters see and understand that message as well.  My high school days were spent in a small North Texas, 99% white high school, and yet through the stories and poetry, I was able to relate directly to the universal aspects of the human experience. 

As a high school student, the love of poetry and literature transformed my life, and led me from my graduating class of 31 to the 50,000 student campus of The University of Texas, where this small-town boy grew to love poetry even more.  If a message that poetry and literature and love can transform lives can appeal to fictional group of Bronx high school students and to 1980’s Texas teen, then the appeal is pretty close to universal. 

Grimes work is poetic, in the prose and poetry sections of the book.  The language of the book moved with the natural rhythms of young life and love and heartbreak and triumph and the relationship between the stories and the poems was executed with clarity but without obviousness.

I was moved by this book and I highly recommend it to those who would seek to use literature to enrich lives in the classroom, in the library, or at home.

Review Excerpts

School Library Journal: …flowing, rhythmic portrait of the diversity and individuality of teen characters in a classroom in Anywhere, U.S.A. Each teen's story is told by combining his or her poetry with snippets of narration. Readers meet Tyrone, an aspiring songwriter who sees no use for school; Lupe, who thinks that becoming a mother would give her the love she lacks in her life; and Janelle, who is struggling with her body image. As their stories unfold and intertwine with those of their classmates, readers are able to observe changes in them and watch the group evolve into a more cohesive unit.

Booklist:  Tyrone Bittings doesn't believe in a future: "Life is cold . . . What I've got is right here, right now, with my homeys." But an English-class open mike changes everything. Grimes' first novel since Jazmin's Notebook (1998) comprises brief monologues in the voices of students and their poems. Funny and painful, awkward and abstract, the poems talk about race, abuse, parental love, neglect, death, and body image ("Don't any of these girls like the way they look?" asks Tyrone). Most of all, they try to reveal the individuals beyond the stereotypes.

Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner

Connections

This book is ideal for having students perform.  Have each student take a character, read aloud the prose and the poetry section for that character and have them explain what they think the character is saying about their lives.

Have the entire class perform the book as a play

Discuss the challenges of growing up in an inner-city school district

Ask students which character they most relate to and why.

Ask how they feel about Tyrone and his role in the book.

Have students write poems of their own to perform in class.

Jazz

Jazz

Poems by Walter Dean Myers

Illustrated by Christopher Myers

Bibliography

Walter Dean Myers, Illustrated by Christopher Myers, “JAZZ”, (New York: Holiday House, 2006).  ISBN: 9780823421732

 

Summary and Critical Analysis

In the poetry collection  “Jazz”, the father and son team of poet Walter Dean Myers and illustrator Christopher Myers have created a book that sizzles and sings with the rhythm and beat of Jazz and pops with the colors and free-wheeling style of New Orleans and Mardi Gras.  Dedicated “To the children of New Orleans” this collection of poems and paintings is joy to read and delight to view.

Beginning with a two page introduction explaining the evolution of Jazz as “the blending of two musical traditions, African and European,” Myers goes on to note that African music, “with its five-tone, or pentatonic, scales and complex rhythms came to North American during the slave trade.”  He goes on to describe the way that black musicians, who as slaves were forbidden to learn to read and write, learned to play “by ear” and thus were more inclined to improvisation.  To solve the problem of musical illiteracy, the musicians began to use European chord structures as the basis of their music, knowing that, within that chord framework, “a player could stray from the melody as originally composed and still make music that sounded as if it belonged to the same composition.”

The main body of the book, written to reflect differing style of jazz, and the culture of Jazz and New Orleans contains poems that move with the rhythm of jazz at the same time they speak to the heart and soul of the music.

The opening poem, entitled “Jazz,” is set on the right side of a two page painting showing a shirtless black man playing drums, and a more modern black man intently listening.  With its sky blue background and yellow and white words, the Myers duo lays out the foundation of jazz music.  This short poem sets the tone for the rest of the book.

 

Jazz

Start with Rhythm

Start with the heart

Drumming in tongues

Along the Nile

A Black man’s drum speaks

LOVE

Start with

Rhythm

Start with

the HEART

Work songs

Gospel

Triumph

Despair

Voices

Lifted

From the soul

This poem, about the heart of Jazz being based in rhythm, heart, and soul is echoed throughout the book in different ways.  In the poem “Louie, Louie, How You Play So Sweet?” Myers writes, presumably about, presumably Louis Armstrong repeating the refrain, “What have you heard, down on Bourbon Street?” as the source of the inspiration for the music.  The words of the poem, in purple, set against a yellow background is contrasted by the dapper figure of Louie whose background is divided between the bright yellow and the darker black and red indicating complexity to his music.

Each poem in the book, along with their individual illustrations set the tone for the type and style of music about which the poem is written. “OH, MISS KITTY” ,  is written in the cadence and style of a blues song with white and yellow words on a purple background across from a painting of a man playing a bass that dwarfs him in scale illustrates the cadence of the poem and the thumping bass lines of the blues, which are beautifully represented.

Perhaps my favorite poem of the book, “GOODBYE TO OLD BOB JOHNSON” is set on two pages that neatly encompass the two halves of a New Orleans funeral parade.  The first page, with brass and drum musicians displayed against a blue back ground and its chorus of

The drums are solemn as we walk along

The banjo twangs a gospel song

Let the deacons preach and the widow cry

While a sad horn sounds a last good-bye

Good-bye to old Bob Johnson

Good-Bye

gives way to second page of the poem on a bright yellow background with illustrations of men dancing and playing music representing the second half of a traditional New Orleans Jazz Funeral, with the first word on the page being (Faster) as the sadness of the first page gives way to the celebration of life and the belief that death is not the end.  The poem uses a syncopated rhythm with repeated rhymes in the lines:

We’re stepping

And we’re hipping

And we’re dipping, too

We’re celebrating,

Syncopating

And it’s all for you.

The illustration shows a crowd that is grieving loss and celebrating the after-life with the rhythms and music that were loved in life.

The poems in the book continue, each emphasizing an aspect of jazz from “Twenty Finger Jack” with its illustration of an African-American piano player in black suit lined with red pinstripes and a yellow shirt and tie using his long fingers to make music using the piano evokes a hopping New Orleans jazz club on a sultry Saturday night.

The keyboard is jumping,

And the music’s going round

And round

Other poems such as “Be-Bop”, “Jazz Vocal”, and “Blue Creeps In” are written as other forms of jazz in both tone and rhythm, along with lush illustrations that echo each poems theme.  Of these poems, “Blue Creeps In” is the most moving.  With a double page spread with a Royal Blue background, a lone man in shadow, pictured on the left side of the painting plays a stand-up bass, while on the right side, a beautiful woman, dressed in yellow, a sadness palpable on her face reflects the loneliness that is presented in the poem.

Myers closes the book with a “Glossary of Jazz Terms” and a “Jazz Time Line” which sets out, by year, major milestones in the development of jazz and some of its greatest musicians.  These tools will be very useful in using this book as a teaching tool and as a key to understanding some of the finer points of the poetry.

In books that we have read this semester, there have been times when the text was of a higher importance than the illustrations, and books where the opposite was true.  In this beautiful book, both take center stage.  The illustrations, which are bathed in the purples, yellow, blues, and greens of New Orleans and Mardi Gras are an integral part of the effect the poems which they accompany can convey.

Likewise, the text, and the way the Myers plays with rhythm, and rhyme, and timing, always eager to improvise within set patterns has the true ring of music.  In this book, the illustrations and poems take on equal value and are perfectly complimentary.  Although each could stand on their own, combined, the illustrations and the poems create something that is greater than the sum of their parts.  As someone who always has Jazz playing in background while I study, write, paint, or draw, this book, although ostensibly a children’s book, spoke to me in a very moving way.

While younger children might not be able to grasp the intricacies of the poems, older children, and adults, especially those who love jazz will want to share these poems and paintings with others.  However, it is not necessary to grasp the deeper intricacies of the work to enjoy the book.  Children will love the colorful illustrations and the rhythm of the poems.  Read aloud, in an expressive way, they will hear the music as well.

Review Excerpts

Google Books:  From bebop to New Orleans, from ragtime to boogie, and every style in between, this collection of Walter Dean Myers's energetic and engaging poems, accompanied by Christopher Myers's bright and exhilarating paintings, celebrates different styles of the American art form, jazz. "Jazz" takes readers on a musical journey from jazz's beginnings to the present day.

Goodreads.com:  From bebop to New Orleans, from ragtime to boogie--and every style in between--this collection of energetic poems, accompanied by bright and exhilarating paintings, celebrates different styles of the American art form, jazz.

Winner of the Lee Bennett Hopkins Award Poetry Award

 

Connections:

Read and review the introduction and Glossary of Jazz Terms prior to reading the book aloud to students so that they will have a basic understanding of the terminology and history of which Myers is writing.

If you have students with musical abilities, have them attempt to set a poem to music and perform it for the class.

Discuss the history of slavery, and other contributions brought by Africans to America.

Read the book as an exploration of Mardi Gras and its history and traditions and its importance to the culture of New Orleans.

Discuss how the illustrations reflect the subject of the poems, and how the use of color is used to evoke emotion.

Ask the children what they think about the clothing in the paintings and if they think the clothing portrayed is important to the illustration.