Water Street

Water Street

By Patricia Reilly Giff

 

 

Bibliography:

Reilly Giff, Patricia. Water Street. New York: Yearling, 2006.  ISBN:  978-0440419211

Plot Summary and Critical Analysis:

Water Street by Patricia Reilly Giff is a coming of age tale set in 1875 Brooklyn against the backdrop of the construction of The Brooklyn Bridge.  Bird Mallon, a young girl who wants to become a healer/midwife like her mother is excited that there is a vacant apartment upstairs in her building and she hopes that another girl will move in and be her friend.

Instead Thomas Neary and his constantly drunk father move into the apartment with a view of the rising towers of the bridge being built to connect Brooklyn to Manhattan previously connected only by a Ferry that would get stuck in the frozen water of the East River during winter.  Bird’s father works at the construction site, as did her brother Hughie, until Hughie became ill with Caisson disease, or decompression sickness, from working deep underwater on the bridge caissons.

Thomas, a boy without a mother, who has moved frequently because his father is often drunk and can’t hold a job wants to write.  That’s all he wants.  Everything else pales compared to his desire to create new places and situation to which he can escape.  Though Bird wished for a girl to move in, she and Thomas become great friends as he shows her the job of reading and she shows him the joy of family, even when it’s messy and complicated. 

Thomas, Bird, and the other characters are vividly drawn, each with his or her own problems, hopes and desires.  Bird’s sister Annie believes that she is plain and will never find happiness and start a family of her own, her brother Hughie, who can no longer work, is angry and participates in illegal fight matches, and her mother Nory, the healer is training Bird to be a healer one day herself.

All of the characters are relatable and their problems: self-esteem, economic anger, poverty, and just growing up will resonate with children reading the book.  Their problems are not unique to the place and time of the setting of the book, but they are made more urgent because of the time and place.

The history in book is presented accurately as Thomas and Bird discuss the bridge and how it came into being.  Their conversations contain actual facts about the bridge and its construction.  Water Street and Brooklyn become a separate character in the book with Giff’s vivid descriptions of the sounds, sights and smells of the street having a life of their own outside of Thomas and Bird and her family.

The setting and historical information are integrated seamlessly into the book and serve to move the story along, never overwhelming the reader or the story itself.  The characters live in this time and place, but the story is about the people rather than the location and time period.

The story reflects the attitudes and thoughts of the time.  Poverty is seen as a given, especially among immigrant families such as Bird’s and yet poverty is never allowed to overwhelm the love and concern that the family has for each other and comes to have for Thomas.  Bird is industrious, works very hard at her mother’s side caring for the sick until she sees something disturbing and fears she’ll never be able to be brave enough to confront the suffering of others and to be of help.  Thomas longs for a family and doesn’t know why he doesn’t have a mother until late in the story, a revelation that changes Thomas’ attitude about his father, his mother, and his relationship with the Mallon family.

As the year covered in the story comes to an end, Thomas has grown and prospered at his new school and has become the Valedictorian, while Bird has confronted her fears and realizes that she can be a healer and help ease the suffering of others.   Giff weaves all of these changes into a lovely little look at the lives of two families, one whole, one broken, who come together over the love of their children, and as is the dream of every immigrant family, both Thomas and Bird grow up to have greater opportunities than did their parents because their parents were willing to sacrifice for them to have those opportunities.

Perhaps everything is wrapped up package that is slightly too tidy, and yet still resonates with emotion.  More than the story of Thomas and Bird, more than the story of Water Street, more than the story of the building of the bridge, this is a story about the immigrant experience in America with all of its opportunities and obstacles, and is wonderfully drawn by Ms Griff.

Review Excerpts:

This heartwarming novel continues the saga begun in Nory Ryans Song (Delacorte, 2000) and Maggies Door (Random, 2003). With the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge as background, the story is told from the alternating perspectives of Bridget (Bird) Mallon and Thomas Neary, from the time that they are nearly 13 until they are 14. Bird is the youngest child of Nory and Sean Mallon, who came from Ireland to Brooklyn to escape the poverty and hopelessness of the potato famine. Thomas moves with his father into the tenement where the Mallons live. Mr. Neary spends most of his time at a neighborhood pub, and where the boy’s mother is remains a mystery for much of the book. A strong friendship develops between the young teens. The creation of the bridge looms as a dream that parallels the dreams of the characters. Bird, a bright, sensitive girl, wants to follow in her mother’s path and become a healer, but she discovers that the road is not without obstacles. Thomas dreams of becoming a writer and of having a family like the Mallons. Though the plot is somewhat predictable and the likable characters are a bit stereotyped, Giff masterfully integrates the historical material and presents a vivid picture of the immigrant struggle in the 1870s. – School Library Journal

Continuing the Irish American immigration story begun in Nory Ryan's Song (2000) and Maggie's Door (2003), Giff's new novel, set in 1875, is about the next generation. Nory and Sean's daughter, Bridget ("Bird"), 13, befriends a lonely boy, Thomas, who lives upstairs with his father in Brooklyn. From their tenement windows they can see the building of the bridge and the structure's great towers. Bird's dad has a job there, and the construction is both fact and metaphor. Bird would like to be a nurse-midwife like Mama, but the work is sometimes hard and scary. The story is told from the alternating viewpoints of Bird and Thomas; Bird's loving family takes Thomas in, and the two young people help each other at school and on the street. The happily-ever-after ending never denies the harsh struggle; the memory of what drove them from the Old Country is always there, as is the mantra "We have to better ourselves." A poignant immigration story of friendship, work, and the meaning of home. – Booklist

Connections:

Have student’s discuss the American Immigrant experience, especially the Irish-American immigrant experience and the Potato Famine in Ireland.

Have student’s build a scale model of the Brooklyn Bridge with its grand towers and long spans.

Read and discuss midwifery, or healing, as practiced by Bird’s mother Nory.  What was the purpose of such healers and why did immigrants often use them instead of physicians.

Discuss the process of writing and have students write their own short stories set in the past, making sure to emphasize accuracy, research, and story above all else.

Dead End in Norvelt

Dead End in Norvelt

By Jack Gantos

 

 

Bibliography:

Gantos, Jack. Dead End in Norvelt. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2011.  ISBN:  978-037437993

Summary and Critical Analysis:

Jack Gantos’ Dead End in Norvelt is the touching and laugh-out-loud funny story of a boy named Jack Gantos growing up in the small town of Norvelt, Pennsylvania.  Norvelt, a real town founded during the New Deal as a place for displaced workers to be able to have their own home and land to farm, is the place where the author grew up, and by giving the protagonist his name, he creates a world that, although fictional, evokes a sense of a real slice-of-life.  The story is set in the summer of 1962, as the original members of the social experiment that was Norvelt are quickly dying off and most of the ideals of the town have been discarded.  Using history as theme and backdrop, the author creates a world where things are rapidly changing, a theme that surely resonates today.

The original settlers of Norvelt are dying, and with them, so is the town and the ideals on which it was founded.  Jack has constant nosebleeds, but can’t get the problem fixed because the doctor wants money now instead of working for trade like was the practice for so long after the town was founded.  Jack’s mother laments this, but wants to stay while his father wants nothing more than to move away to Florida and to a new life and, representatively, the future.  At the same time, Jack’s father, an eccentric like many in the town, insists on building a bomb shelter to protect the family from feared Russian bombs, and builds an airplane so that they family can escape if a never-coming Russian invasion were to happen.

But the heart of the book is the relationship that develops between young Jack and old Mrs. Volcker.  "Grounded for life," Jack’s only outlet is to help Mrs. Volcker write obituaries for the town’s original residents as they die off one by one.  Mrs. Volcker always adds in a history lesson to each obituary, always reminding the reader about the sacrifices and fights that those who came before had to pursue in the name of progress and equality.  These historical lessons are supplemented by the books that Mrs. Volcker loans Jack for helping her write the obituaries.  However, the historical facts only add to the story and to the sense that history passing Norvelt by.  The reader is not overwhelmed with facts, but is shown how the past affects the future.

A great deal happens in this novel, and to try and recap the plot would be a disservice to the brilliant way that the author is able to parallel current events with historical events.  It’s not giving too much away to say that the book involves the passing of an era, and of the people of that era, and that, the gore of Jack’s incessant nosebleeds included, there is something sinister going on in town which our protagonist discovers through the course of the book.

In a New York Times Review of the book, the reviewer states that “Jack Gantos has a way with boys, or a good memory of being one.”  He also has a memory and sense of history and the joys its discovery can have for a young person, as shown in Jacks fascination with the books of history he reads from Mrs. Volcker’s bookshelf.  The author’s style is straightforward, breezy, and, at times just plain funny, even when dealing with the more serious aspects of the story.  His use of “fake cussing” by the kids in the book with phrases such as “Cheese-us-Crust,” or “Cheesus,” or even “good grief” sound right for the time and for the characters.  Gantos uses humor, history, political philosophy, a realistic portrayal of kids, and a more caricatured view of adults to weave together an engaging, enlightening, and thoroughly enjoyable story that is, when deeply examined, a very political tale.

Although the book does not cite sources, Jack does read books given to him by Mrs. Volcker, and mentions the Landmark Book Series of histories of famous events and people that began publishing in the 1950s and is still publishing books today.  One of the books he reads from Mrs. Volcker’s home is a book titled “Lost Worlds” that appears to be “The Horizon Book of Lost Worlds” by Marshall B. Davidson, a popular history book published in 1962.  In addition, the information the author provides about Norvelt, its founding and decline are well documented in other sources.

The author best sums up the theme of the book on the penultimate page when Jack and his father are dropping water balloons on people from his father’s newly built airplane and Jack remembers what it felt like when he accidentally fired his father’s rifle at the first of the book.  He remembers how scary it must have been to his mother.  He writes: “Only then I had no idea how frightening it would be if I had shot someone or just scared someone.  Now I know exactly what I was doing.  The reason you remind yourself of the stupid stuff you’ve done in the past is so you don’t do it again.  That is what Mrs. Volcker had been teaching us all these years.” 

Review Excerpts:

Gantos has a relaxed style and writes very enjoyably, peppering the pages with good jokes and eccentric characters, but it soon becomes clear that this isn't simply his reminiscence of a charming childhood; the real hero of the novel isn't Jack himself, but his home town and its values. Norvelt was a New Deal town built by the US government to house poor families and named after Eleanor Roosevelt, described by Miss Volker as "the greatest American woman who has ever lived".

Miss Volker explains the inspiration behind the town: "Jefferson believed that every American should have a house on a large enough piece of fertile property so that during hard times, when money was difficult to come by, a man and woman could always grow crops and have enough food to feed their family. Jefferson believed that the farmer was the key to America and that a well-run family farm was a model for a well-run government. Mrs. Roosevelt felt the same. And we in Norvelt keep that belief alive."

…Dead End in Norvelt is a defiantly political novel that delivers some simple moral messages: question the stories that you're told at school or in the media; "if you don't know your history you won't know the difference between truth and wishful thinking"; and, most importantly, don't forget the narratives of American life that have been neglected or deliberately buried by the dominant culture. 

The Guardian:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/29/dead-end-in-norvelt-jack-gantos-review

 

DEAD END IN NORVELT (reviewed on August 15, 2011)

An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”

The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.

Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones.

Kirkus Reviews:  http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jack-gantos/dead-end-norvelt/#review

2012 Newbery Award
2012 Scott O'Dell Award 

Connections:

Study the real Norvelt and other New Deal communities that were founded during the depression.  What was there purpose?  Were they successful?

Study the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War and its effects on people of the US and the way it shaped a generation.

Have students build their own model airplanes and discuss the reasons Jack’s father felt like the needed it. 

Discuss Eleanor Roosevelt and her influence on her husband and the cultural and political climate of the country during the depression and New Deal.

Discuss Mrs. Volcker’s idea that American history doesn’t adequately cover those who fought for progressive causes and for workers.

 

 

Breaking Stalin's Nose

Breaking Stalin’s Nose

Written by Eugene Yelchin

Narrated by Mark Turetsky

 

Bibliography:

Yelchin, Eugene. Breaking Stalin's Nose. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2011.

Audible Audio Edition:  Yelchin, Eugene, and Mark Turetsky. Breaking Stalin’s Nose Audio Edition. Prince Frederick, MD: Recorded Books, 2012.

Summary and Critical Analysis:

Sasha Zaichik is growing up in Soviet-Era Moscow while Josef Stalin is the leader of the Soviet Union.  He and his father share the largest space in a communal building that also houses several other families.  Sasha’s father is a member of the Soviet Secret Police and is feared by his neighbors.  This fear is misinterpreted by Sasha as respect.  Sasha is true believer in Communism and the book opens with him writing a letter to Stalin, telling of his admiration for the tyrant, and his desire to be Young Pioneer, the youth arm of the Communist party.  Sasha’s naiveté regarding his country and his father’s place in the hierarchy of the party is due to his age and his lack of knowledge about other countries and places.  But his world is turned upside down when his father is arrested, his aunt won’t take him in for fear of being arrested, and he accidently breaks the nose of statue of Stalin at his school. 

Bordering on satire, the things that happen in this book are not good things, and yet, not until the very end is Sasha’s faith in Communism and his country shaken.  He believes his father’s arrest to be an obvious mistake that Stalin will surely remedy when he finds out.  Sasha is a very relatable protagonist, a young boy who loves his country and believes in the things he’s been taught.  He believes in Communism because he has been taught to believe in Communism and knows no other way of life.  Children will be able to relate to this.  It’s interesting to note that in recent “Mock Elections” in schools across the country, the way that children voted mirrored the way their parents voted in the actual election in nearly every area of the country.  This is the place from which Sasha derives his beliefs, from his father, the man he respects most in the world.

Moscow, which is vividly described in the book, is to Sasha the ideal city, run and built by Communism.  Yelchin’s description of the giant statue of Stalin that Sasha can see from the window of his apartment is chilling to a reader today, yet would seem regal and majestic to a child at the time.  Also quite accurate is his description of the communal apartment where he and his father live.  They have the largest apartment because his father is a member of the Secret Police, which brings to mind the saying that, in Communism, everyone is equal, some are just more equal than others.  Similarly, the scenes located in Sasha’s schools are an excellent example of indoctrination instead of education that was the norm in Soviet era Russia.

The themes in the book are specific to the time and place and yet remain relevant today.  Unquestioned patriotism or nationalism is shown to be a very dangerous thing in Sasha’s world just as it is at any time, even in our own time.  There is a universal theme here about the absurdity of a system that operates in secret yet claims to be of and for the people, and where even the most dedicated to the cause, such as Sasha’s teacher, can become victims of the systems they serve.  Also held up for contempt is the tyranny of the majority both in his school and in the nation.

The book is fiction, and we meet no actual people from the Soviet era though the specter of Stalin looms large over the story.  The time, place, and setting are all true to the situation that existed during this time as noted in the author’s after note, where he describes his own experiences in Soviet Russia.

Special Note:

This book is the first book that I have “read” by listening to the unabridged audio book.  I enjoyed the experience and the particulars of the story are still bright in my mind.  Mark Turetsky’s narration is quite good, if a bit calm for the nature of the situations described.  Voices are differentiated, but only slightly.  This is an audio book, but not a dramatic recreation of the book so the narration was appropriate.

I am left a bit uneasy about the situation.  Perhaps that’s because I’m so used to referring back to pages in the book to find quotations to emphasize points made in a review, something which I found almost impossible to do with this audio book.  And though I know the story, and I’ve heard the book read aloud, I still don’t feel as if I’ve actually read the book.

 

Review Excerpts:

Kirkus Reviews:  It’s the readiness of the group to create outsiders—bad ones, “unreliables,” “wreckers”—by instilling fear in everyone that chills. Not many books for such a young audience address the Stalinist era, when, between 1923 and 1953, leaving a legacy of fear for future generations. Joseph Stalin’s State Security was responsible for exiling, executing or imprisoning 20 million people. Sasha is 10 years old and is devoted to Stalin, even writing adoring letters to Comrade Stalin expressing his eagerness at becoming a Young Pioneer. But his mother has died mysteriously, his father has been imprisoned and Sasha finds he has important moral choices to make. Yelchin’s graphite illustrations are an effective complement to his prose, which unfurls in Sasha’s steady, first-person voice, and together they tell an important tale.

A story just as relevant in our world, “where innocent people face persecution and death for making a choice about what they believe to be right,” as that of Yelchin’s childhood.  August 1, 2012.

 

goodreads review:  Sasha Zaichik has known the laws of the Soviet Young Pioneers since the age of six:
The Young Pioneer is devoted to Comrade Stalin, the Communist Party, and Communism.

A Young Pioneer is a reliable comrade and always acts according to conscience.
A Young Pioneer has a right to criticize shortcomings.
But now that it is finally time to join the Young Pioneers, the day Sasha has awaited for so long, everything seems to go awry. He breaks a classmate's glasses with a snowball. He accidentally damages a bust of Stalin in the school hallway. And worst of all, his father, the best Communist he knows, was arrested just last night.

This moving story of a ten-year-old boy's world shattering is masterful in its simplicity, powerful in its message, and heartbreaking in its plausibility.  

 Connections:

Have students study the way that Soviet Citizens lived in communal living arrangement such as the one where Sasha and his father lived.

Discuss the “tyranny of the majority” and what that term means and how democracies can prevent it.

Have students study Moscow using Google Maps so that they can see some of the places in the book such as The Kremlin.

Have students write a report on Josef Stalin and his reign of terror.