Authors With Three Names: Part One
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| 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
Elizabeth George Speare
1983 Houghton Mifflin
2011 Sandpiper (Reissue)
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