Leave it to Zachary Beaver. By it, I mean all your food.

It's three-named female author writes as a teen boy, part three. Like Final Destination 3, it's much of the same, and like The Matrix 3, at the end you're just relieved it's finally over.

subtitle: and five other subplots that we'll thinly explore.

EVERYTHING'S BIGGER IN TEXAS, EVEN THESE WORDS

Imagine: the fattest boy in the world comes to your sleepy Texas town. It's 1971, and this kind of spectacle does not often come around. So, you'll plunk down two dollars to witness this human oddity. Of course you'll exploit the young man and gape at his massive volume. Then, like any good young man, you'll attempt to correct every wrong in your immediate life, except for your mommy issues. Until the very end, of course.

BIG ISSUES

Incredible timing in tiny Antler, Texas. I suppose small town life has plenty of drama. Goodness me!
Consider what our protagonist, Toby, has to deal with over his summer vacay:

1. Zachary Beaver left in trailer while his keeper leaves town to scout freak show talent. Toby faces ethical conundrum of humanizing Z.Beaver versus remaining a novelty. 
2. Zachary Beaver has never been baptized. He would have been, but his mother died. Toby attempts to grant Z.Beaver his one wish.
3. Mom leaves town to pursue a singing career in Nashville. Toby faces ethical conundrum of rejecting mother because of her selfish actions or accepting her decision and valuing her simple presence in his life, given Z.Beaver situation.
4. Best friend's brother is away fighting in Vietnam. Brother writes letters, best friend never responds. Toby faces ethical conundrum of responding to brother as best friend. 
5. Best friend's brother dies in Vietnam. Toby faces ethical conundrum of wallowing in own self-pity or supporting his best friend in this trying time. 
6. Toby's dad drops wisdom and knowledge on Toby regarding mom and best friend situations. Toby faces emotional conundrum of directing his feeling towards those people at his father. Spoiler alert: he's twelve years old. Guess what he does. 
7. Toby's crush is having boyfriend troubles and for some reason airs her frustrations to Toby. Toby faces ethical conundrum of stealing away girl and possible fatal pummeling or playing cupid with intimidating boyfriend.
8. Brother of Toby's summer employer has obvious Alzheimer's. Toby faces ethical conundrum of avoiding someone "different" (again).
9. Alcoholic bowling alley owner stuck in limbo. Toby attempts to help him find meaning in life while suppressing his own problems.
10. I become irritated with Toby for sticking his nose in everybody's business.

BIG PROBLEMS

How the hell can Toby (and Kimblerly Willis Holt) address all of these issues in a scant 227 pages? She does, but only on a surface level for most of the issues. We get developments and conclusions that lack deep insight on these issues, and the A-story falls to the wayside for much of the novel. There is symbolism that links the parallel themes, but younger readers may not make the connections. However, the realism on display regarding the family issues is well-done, evocative of the conflicting feelings children of divorce experience. The rest is meh. Toby learns to embrace people who are different. Twice! Toby learns that it's okay to be a friend to girls he wants to smooch, and deal with the rejection positively. I suppose this is a healthier outcome than burning these girls in effigy, which was my high school self-medication. So, some parts succeed, some ring hollow, but the outcome is more-or-less satisfying, as the family element is left open-ended, but the resolutions with the best friend and the forced revival of the alcoholic bowling alley guy temper that effect.

BIG SCREEN

Want to watch a lousy movie adaptation of this book? Look no further!

I haven't watched the thing, and never will. Use it to put your unruly youth to sleep, or to introduce them to the wild world of heckling poorly-made films.

After reading the book about a highly resourceful young man who has the guts and resolve to try for the girl (then fix her boyfriend problems), put up with a senile old man (then play catch with him), abandon his best friend (and then make it up to him), make peace with his resigned father and absentee mother (after dealing with abandonment issues), assist the local drunk in kicking the habit (then getting him to preside over a baptism) and help the fat kid get his one wish, do you visualize:

(A) 

Sweet, clean-cut, classic All-American boy 

(B)

Spunky, good-natured smirk of a youngster

(C)

A dim-witted version of Ralphie from A Christmas Story

The strangely correct answer is C! I'm all for breaking convention and smashing archetypes, but what an unsettling choice. Do we really need an everyman hero for the younger set? I'm so old and out of touch. Bring me my Hardy Boys novels and get off my lawn after you mow it to my satisfaction. I don't pay. 

BIG THREE

So, how did these authors do to capture the life of a teen boy? 

Speare: yeah, she did fine. 

Hinton: Winner.

Holt: About 50-50.

JB: Probably can't do better.

NEXT TIME, I YELL ABOUT

A trilogy of alternate history set during my era of expertise, the First World War. Let's just say, these books are HUGE!

BORING STUFF

When Zachary Beaver Came To Town

Kimberly Willis Holt

1999 Henry Holt & Company*

*I checked; they're not related.

THE SHELF OF FAME

Look! Up there! On the tabs at top! A new addition to this blog. It's my YA SHELF OF FAME. I'll periodically add to this pantheon of greatness. Feel free to vainly argue with me about the merits of qualifiers and those left out on the cold tundra of my disdain. You don't need 300 wins or 500 homers to get in, you just need to touch me. No, not there. Not there either. Stop that. I MEANT IT FIGURATIVELY.

Author 715 good books without a ghostwriter and I'll think about it, big boy. 

ARTIFACT: School Is Hell

On occasion I find amusing writing- and reading-related samples from my students. This is from a class in which my student wouldn't participate in the writing activity, so I asked him to write instead about the trials and tribulations of school. Below is his hilarious response.

Extra credit for the fancy font. 

That was A Separate Peace, this is That Was Then, This Is Now

AUTHORS WITH THREE NAMES WRITING FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF TEENAGE BOYS, PART TWO

A Separate Peace 2: Life of the Street

PARALLELS

Just about everyone on the planet has read or heard of The Outsiders, the novel by wunderkind S.E. Hinton that became the standard for raw, roughneck YA literature. She so deftly captures life of the forgotten underclass that manifests in gang culture and rebellion against societal norms that when I first read the book, I thought that SE Hinton was some kind of reformed criminal. Imagine my surprise ("a teenage girl! I must write her a love letter") and depression ("a teenage girl! I'm a teenage boy and all I do is set things on fire. I'm a failure") when I found out that Hinton was a high school student at the time she wrote The Outsiders. It's my favorite mind-blower for the middle school boys who read this book for the first time with me.

Student: Hey, I just finished this book.

Me: What did you think?

Student: It was good. I identified with Pony Boy. I feel like him sometimes.

Me: Hey, that's great. I mean, sort of. We'll talk about that later with your probation officer. But did you know that S.E. Hinton is a girl? DID I JUST BLOW YOU MIND?!?!?!

Student: No. 

Me: Oh. 

That Was Then, This Is Now is the tangential followup to that well-known novel, and while it treads much the same ground of its predecessor (and features some characters from it), the more adult approach to That Was Then, regarding how relationships change over time and experience show that Hinton took a step forward as a write in the four years after her debut. I'm more inclined to compare this novel to A Separate Peace than I am to The Outsiders. Sounds unlikely, I know. Allow me to address your (fictional) italicized concerns.

But JB, there aren't any prep school Greasers in A Separate Peace!  

True. However, let's look beyond socioeconomic status and consider the parallels of the relationships between Gene/Finny and Bryon/Mark.

But JB, Gene becomes a psycho while Bryon becomes a good person. How do you explain that, smart guy?

No need for sarcastic name-calling. You're examining their differing behaviors, without accounting for the major shift in morality that takes place. It's the most common sight in a YA novel, or any novel for that matter: someone grows/changes and it affects their relationships. Gene and Bryon both begin to see their friendships fade, one via manufactured competition, the other via, I don't know, growing up. Gene shifts morally to a dark place, as Bryon emerges from ambiguity to a strong sense of right and wrong. What transpires after these transformations is extremely similar: Gene and Bryon irreparably do in their former friends. Finny dies from the sabotaged tree limb jump (this isn't a spoiler; you should have read this book by now) and after Bryon turns him in for dealing drugs, Mark descends into a hardened, eternal hatred for Bryon. Afterwards, Gene and Bryon are forever changed.

So, you're mistaking a convention of novel-writing for a striking similarity?
Not at all.

I don't believe you.
Yeah, well, I don't feel like arguing the matter anymore.

"I FEEL MIXED UP INSIDE"

Bryon says this about 68,000 times in this book, and I'm beginning to see the limitations of Hinton books. The characters stay in this constant flux, which is a realistic bent, but the insight isn't there. That's not necessarily the point of the Hinton books, and the focus on the anger and dissonance pays off. However, Hinton nearly beats this angle into oblivion, but does enough with the M&M B-story to keep it from monotony. And where does Bryon find relief? READING BOOKS. I'm shocked.

This book can serve a language arts teacher well, given Hinton's good work with foreshadowing, dialogue, and irony. 

The end of chapter 2 features fabulous foreshadowing. At that very moment every teacher should stop and ask their readers, "what do you think is going to happen?" and solicit predictions. Great stuff.

The irony of the last sentence of the novel: "I wish I was a kid again, when I had all the answers." Oh, man. Have students evaluate that statement in the context of Bryon's transformation and relate their own personal experiences in growing up. I've never offered this book to my classes, but I just may. Besides, we can then watch the movie: 

Any movie in which Emilio Estevez is ostracized & beaten senseless is good by me.

FINAL VERDICT

This book holds up on its own when compared to The Outsiders. Hinton is almost a required read for YA of all stripes, and that the book is regularly challenged in schools heightens its appeal. Make it so, number one.

BONUS!

Looks like more than a few dozen students were assigned to create a trailer for this book, and the results are on Youtube. Take a peek at a few of them and laugh your whatever off. 

NEXT TIME, I YELL ABOUT

Part three of my YA challenge. This one is set against the Vietnam War (again?!) and the entire town of Antler, Texas is thrown for a loop when the world's heaviest boy comes to town. Let's just say I'm setting a personal record for reading books with the word BEAVER in the title!

BORING STUFF

That was Then, This is Now

S.E. Hinton

1971 Viking/Penguin

Beaver Xing

Authors With Three Names: Part One

The sign of the beaver is a bear miming "Come at me, bro"

I read this book when I was, I don't know, nine years old, and I probably didn't pick up on the thematic nuances, because when you're nine, you think, "of course they're going to be friends! They're going to run around and set traps and shoot things with arrows! Holy crap, it's going to be fun! Indians are awesome!"

Now, I'm re-reading this book at, oh, let's say 29*, and it's so painfully obvious that when I was nine I was an idiot.

Not because nine-year-old JB (JB9) didn't grasp the culture gap and feelings of uselessness and isolation, nor the wonderful literal and metaphorical consequences of Matt desperately winging his rabbit at an oncoming bear**, nor the numerous inaccuracies in terminology, as pointed out in a snazzy foreword by Joseph Bruchac. JB9 didn't need to see these things. JB9's fatal mistake was to criticize the happy ending over dinner:

[Flashback to: 1990: A typical Midwestern kitchen in the summer, with fans blaring in all windows. JB9 sits at the table with with FATHER, MOTHER, and a humanoid identified by government scientists as his SISTER.  The table is set for dinner: plates, silverware, a giant salt shaker and nine pounds of butter. MOTHER scoops extra cauliflower on JB9's plate as a sadistic form of torture. FATHER cracks open a Milwaukee's Best. Years later, JB9 will be allowed to try one and puke his brains out. MOTHER leads the family in saying grace while SISTER kicks JB9 under the table.]

MOTHER: Tell me about the books you're reading.

SISTER: [unintelligible alien language spoken through mouthful of heavily-buttered bread]

FATHER nods, feigning interest.

MOTHER: And you, JB9? Here, have another beet.

JB9 [excited at the prospect of being allowed to speak]: I'm reading a great book about a kid who lives alone in the woods near some Indians. He's all by himself with no family and makes friends with an Indian boy who saved him from some bees! But I don't get why he misses his sister. [JB9 instinctively ducks as "SISTER" swings a savage arm at him] And the kid survives all by himself!

FATHER: What's your favorite part?

JB9: It's all really good. I wish I could be just like him! No family around, no cauliflower, and lots of bears!

MOTHER: That's it.

[JB spends the next five years in the basement]


*I will be 29 for the rest of my life. This was decided long ago by a haunted fortune-telling machine that infamously turned some kid into Tom Hanks. 

**It's the only part of the book I want to talk about, because it encapsulates everything about Matt's hapless situation, the European incursion into the Americas, and the beginning of Matt's transition from being afraid of nature to working within it to survive. Whoops, I just spoiled the book!

BUT I'M NOT A STRANDED 13 YEAR OLD BOY IN COLONIAL AMERICA. WHY SHOULD I CARE?

How the hell should I know. When I tried to set out on my own I was put under house arrest. 

I should (once again) note the tried-and-beaten-dead tactic of relating her story to a classic novel in order to get kids interested. In this book, it's Robinson Crusoe. Speare makes an admirable gesture in narrating the kid flipping through the boring parts to get to the action when Matt attempts to teach the Indian boy to read. I call it admirable because she essentially tells the young boys and girls who might be persuaded to read Crusoe that most of it is f@%#ing boring. And she's right! 

In recognizing Crusoe, she also turns the slave/master dynamic around in her own story, which is not lost on Matt. The themes of bridging cultural differences and equality make it worth the read. I suppose the "fat guys will enter your home, eat all your food, and steal your gun" theme has its own merit.

If your reader has whipped through Hatchet and its sequels, have them give this a try.  

NEXT TIME, I YELL ABOUT

Another three-named female author who initializes two of them. Thanks for making it easier to say your name, and making people think you might be a man! That trend is slowly giving way with the proliferation of social networking and direct author-reader interaction. Let's just say that was then...THIS IS NOW!

BORING STUFF

The Sign of the Beaver

Elizabeth George Speare

1983 Houghton Mifflin

2011 Sandpiper (Reissue)