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Mambo in Chinatown by Jean Kwok

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Charlie is 22 years old and has been working as a dishwasher in the same restaurant as her father for years. Beyond leaving scars and burns on her hands, it’s the kind of job she doesn’t want and knows won’t fulfill her. At the same time, she recognizes that what she’s doing matters in some ways because it’s an honorable thing to be doing alongside her father.

But when her friend tells her about a job opening as a receptionist at a dance studio, Charlie jumps at the chance. She knows it means telling a lot of lies to her father, and she knows that she wouldn’t necessarily be good at the job. It’s an important opportunity, though, to get out of the kitchen and more, it’s an opportunity to connect with the passion for dance her mother had before she died, even if she herself won’t be dancing.

Mambo in Chinatown is Jean Kwok’s sophomore novel, and it’s excellent. I read her debut Girl in Translation as part of the Outstanding Books for the College Bound (which I’ve yet to talk about in my posts about this) and when I heard her second book was coming, I knew I was in for a treat.

This is a story about an American born Chinese girl who takes a shot at a new job knowing she won’t be good at it and knowing that all of the lies she needs to construct could get her into huge trouble with her father and with the Chinatown community (it’s a very small community, she tells us, which means that any misdeeds or any movement outside of acceptable traditions and honors causes a lot of gossip). Charlie chooses to pursue the opportunity, though, and it’s not long before the people at the studio notice she’s not good at the work. It’s not for lack of trying. It’s simply that Charlie has trouble with reading and with memory, and so she’s not well-suited to keeping agendas and schedules.

Fortunately for her, a mishap also means that she’s been asked to teach a beginner dance class. Sure, her mother was a dancer — that’s part of why this job was so appealing to Charlie — but she herself has no skills whatsoever. She tells us again and again she’s the opposite of the dancers and instructors in the studio: where they are sleek, shiny, and float, she is dowdy, wearing worn-out hand-me-downs, and she’s the opposite of light on her feet. Those around her notice this, but they also see something more, which is why she’s called to teach. They believe that even with no skills or experience, she can learn enough in a couple of days to teach the basics to students who know nothing.

So she takes the chance.

Meanwhile, she’s told her father that she’s been working “with computers.” It’s a way of building an honorable lie, one which makes her look like she’s doing something that’s meaningful and good, progressing her future, but it’s not one that makes her look like she’s trying to escape or “do better than” him or others in her community.

A big component of the story is that of Charlie’s relationship with her 11-year-old sister Lisa, who is exceptionally bright and intelligent. Charlie and Lisa are very close, and when Lisa’s afforded the opportunity to test into an advanced high school, Charlie steps up to argue on Lisa’s behalf to her father, who thinks that were she to be accepted, it would be a mistake. That it would cause the family more problems than it would be worth. But as the test date gets closer, Lisa becomes more and more ill. It began with wetting the bed, then progressed to times when she’d lose all feeling in her legs. When she’d be unable to work at her Uncle’s medical practice because she was simply too sick (you did read that right — Lisa, 11, worked for her Uncle because that’s how this family needs to make ends meet and it’s a way to help a family member). Charlie’s concerned about the turn in Lisa’s health, and while her father sees no reason to move beyond Eastern medical practices for healing — led by a woman who Charlie dubs the Vision — Charlie believes Lisa needs to see a Western medical practitioner. Knowing the experience the family had with Western medicine when their mom took ill, including huge medical expenses, Charlie’s not convinced her father will listen.

And he doesn’t.

Charlie’s singular teaching experience comes with the notice that she’s losing her job. That she’s a terrible receptionist and that she can’t stay at the studio. The bright side, though, is that she’s offered more teaching opportunities because, despite her inexperience, she’s got something in her that shows maybe she’s a natural. That maybe dance is something she can get good at. Charlie’s excited and nervous — does she have the clothes? Can she get good? Why do they trust her with this when she’s proven she can’t even keep a date book right? More, how does she keep up the lies she’s told her family?

But things fall into place. She’s helped along the way by people at the studio (which, don’t think there aren’t detractors, because there certainly are) and by her own raw determination to succeed.

Mambo in Chinatown is about how to balance the past with the present and how to honor sacred, important cultural traditions with one’s interests and passions in building and establishing a new identity and new roles in a new culture. Charlie’s forced to consider what it means to seek out her interest in dance with what it means to remain humble and remain invested in the traditions of her family and the larger Chinatown community. Kwok does an exceptional job of rendering this lesser-visited part of America in a way that’s reverent toward both sides of the story. We want to see Charlie succeed in dance, but we also see why it’s so important for her to listen to her father and why it’s so important for her to keep some of those traditions and customs as part of her life now. There’s great honor in both, and it’s about how Charlie chooses to balance both of those worlds.

One of the best lines in the book comes when she’s put in the position to attend a competition. Where she’d otherwise step back, hide from the limelight, she decides that she’s ready to go on, even when she knows it means a lot more than simply having to work hard to do well. She notes, “All my life, I’d been trying to fulfill other people’s ideas of who I was supposed to be and failing, and this was my chance to try to become who I was meant to be.”

Dance and the dance culture do an excellent job of paralleling this, too — while what we get to see in Charlie’s world appears to be cut and dry, even romanticized, she’s warned that the bigger world of dance is far from it. That competitions and the world beyond this particular studio are can be filled with one-night stands, with drugs, with drinking, and with partying in exceptionally unsafe ways. It’s not until she’s put into a position to be at a competition with a partner that she sees it. And when she does, it rattles her a bit; she’s able, though, to pull from her own personal convictions and morals to understand that while other people partake in those activities, she doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to.

There is a romance in the novel between Charlie and the student she’s paired with. While she knows it’s forbidden to be in a relationship with a student by the rules of the studio and punishable by job termination, she avoids pursuing those feelings. Fortunately, a few technicalities that work out later allow her to see where this romance could lead, and it’s a really nice and rewarding part of the read. Yes, she falls in love and yes, it’s with someone who has the same kind of feelings towards her. It’s another smart parallel to the idea of balancing the old world of tradition with the new world of opportunity.

But my favorite part of Kwok’s novel is the relationship between Charlie and her sister Lisa. The huge age difference here is crucial, as is the fact these girls don’t have a mother in their life. There are strong women who interact with them and who guide them — particularly Charlie — but it’s their reliance and love for one another that shines through. When Lisa becomes sicker and sicker, it weighs so heavily on Charlie’s mind that she does everything she can to learn as much as possible about how to help her sister. She becomes as well-versed in navigating the American medical system as possible, and the confusion, frustration, and angst it gives her is realistic. While she listens to her father’s determined stance against it and belief that only Eastern healing will work, Charlie knows that a balance of the two is what’s really needed. So when Lisa reveals something that happened to her, something that caused her to lose control of her body in really awful, hard-to-read ways, Charlie knows she has to step in and take charge of the situation, even if it means making her father angry. It’s then, of course, much more of the story unravels and Charlie’s father learns more about the true nature of his daughter’s new job…and the incredible nature of his daughter/s.

Mambo in Chinatown is an adult book but it has loads of teen appeal. Readers who love stories set in urban metropolises that aren’t about smart, rich, elite people will eat this up, as it offers a glimpse into the labor class life of Chinatown. More, readers who love stories about dance and pursuing one’s dream will find so much to appreciate in Charlie’s story. It’s a well-paced, consuming read with well-written, dynamic characters who never once feel anything less than real.

Mambo in Chinatown is available today. Review copy picked up at ALA Midwinter.

A Year in Committee Life

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As I mentioned a few times over the last year, in 2013, I served on YALSA’s Outstanding Books for the College Bound (OBCB) committee. It’s a committee that is put together every five years and it’s comprised of primarily YALSA members, but it includes a handful of academic librarians from the ACRL division, as well. Since my committee is an open committee and I don’t have to keep things secret to the grave (unlike many of the awards committees), I thought it would be worthwhile to talk about the highs and lows of the experience, as well as discuss some of the things I learned about what it means to serve on a book committee.

Our list is done and annotated, but as of this writing, it hasn’t yet been posted to the YALSA site. As soon as it is, I’ll come back and link up to it. Spoiler: you’ll learn maybe one title we picked in this post.

OBCB’s Structure

First, a little background into how OBCB works.

Unlike many of the other committees, which focus on the books published in the past year, OBCB’s only requirement is that a book be “widely available.” There are no publication date rages, no content requirements, and no set of standard rules by which we have to follow. This means that we can include fiction and non-fiction, adult and young adult, graphic and non-graphic titles, and they can be published within any time frame. In many ways, that wide a window is amazing and freeing: anything is eligible for the list. But at the same time, that wide a window is horrifying: anything is eligible for the list.

The very first thing we did in discussion back last winter was decide how we wanted to structure the list itself. We can have up to 125 titles, and they can be hashed out in a number of different manners. We chose to keep the structure as it had been in 2009, with five categories that mirrored the liberal arts. Each member of our committee then selected two of those categories to become a member of, which meant reading and discussing titles relevant to that category (though we were able to nominate for any category). I chose personally to be a member of arts and humanities, as well as social science. My background is in psychology and writing, so those both seemed like natural fits, and both are categories I was most interested in.

Unlike many other committees, OBCB does not receive books from the publishers. It’s our job to do the searching and hunting for titles and to nominate, read, and discuss them as we do. But the very first thing we had to do was read the titles from the prior list — we treated the 125 titles from 2009 as vetted nominations. Since we each had responsibility for two categories, that amounted to 50 titles we had to read right off the bat.

I should back up a second and explain that OBCB changed this year. What used to be a two-year committee shifted into a one-year committee, a decision that, though we were able to work with, I think was a poor decision to make. It created a huge time crunch and impacted the number of nominations we received and could discuss.

The end goal of OBCB is to develop a list that exposes college bound and life long learners to a wide range of titles, stories, worlds, and experiences to excite and ignite their interests and passions. It’s not meant to be a rehashing of the Canon. Those lists are everywhere. This is instead meant to broaden their minds and thinking.

A Year of Tireless Reading


One of the biggest things I rediscovered this year is how different reading adult non-fiction is from reading YA fiction. I’ve always enjoyed adult non-fiction, but it requires an entirely different reading mindset than YA fiction — or even adult fiction — does. It’s much more intense, and I learned that I really do require engagement within the first fifty pages of a non-fiction title. If I can’t get that, I’m going to check out and feel a bit resentful about the experience. And actually, really discovering this about myself this year was immensely helpful in working on the committee because it forced me to consider whether it was me or whether it was the book causing the issue. In a couple of cases, a book I
ended up giving up on early was still a book I voted for at our final meeting because I knew it was me who didn’t love the book, not that the book wasn’t a right fit for the list.

Beyond reading the 50 titles that were already on the list, this committee required nominating books that weren’t already being considered. That meant more reading beyond the list in a variety of categories. At the first meeting we had in the summer at ALA Annual, we talked about holes we saw within our various categories that perhaps we should be looking into, which helped guide a bit of the reading. We talked about updating certain titles with fresher takes on the topic or which might simply be better presentations of the topic at hand.

I made sure not only to be reading new stuff, but I also thought a lot about the things I had read in the past which might make interesting additions to the list; though, to be fair, much of my work in nominating was not only about books I thought would be good to have on the list, but also books I thought would be good to DISCUSS in regards to the list. In other words, not everything I nominated I knew would be a slam dunk. I wanted to have some discourse. That would help suss out topical issues, as well as issues relating to putting forward fiction over non-fiction titles and so forth. I suspect other people on the committee did a bit of this as well, particularly when we reached the end of our open nomination period.

Nominations were read as they came in. Any nomination from a member of the committee, regardless of whether they were working on a particular category, was considered a vetted nomination and required no second. Any titles suggested from people outside the committee required a second to be considered, and while we had some field suggestions, there weren’t a whole lot, and most of them were indeed seconded. Again, partially because they would be good fits without question and partially because they would be worth at least bringing to the table to talk.

Five to six people sat on each of the category lists, and when a book received a fair number of “no” marks on our spreadsheet, others were free to ignore it. Titles which received “maybe” and “yes” marks were made into priorities on the sheet. This helped in whittling down reading work and helping toward seeing what was and wasn’t working so far.

In terms of take aways from the reading portion of the committee experience, the biggest was learning how to schedule reading time into my daily life. It meant skipping out on fun reading at times for a committee read and it meant becoming very judicious in my use of the 50-page rule. Sometimes I knew a book wouldn’t be a go and other times, I knew at 50 pages it was a strong contender so I could make the choice in either case to stop or keep pushing forward.

Committee Discussion


One thing that was kind of a surprise for me was how little we discussed titles throughout the year. Most people were so focused on reading that discussion fell to the wayside. And while that was understandable in some cases, at other times I had a really hard time putting an idea or discussion point out and hearing silence. More than anything, it made me worry what meetings at Midwinter would look like, when we were scheduled for hours and hours of time in the same room to hash out what our lists would look like.

With so little discussion, it was difficult to talk about how we wanted our lists to ultimately look. Did we want a lot of fiction or non-fiction? Did we need balance? What were we missing and what did we have too much of?

Fortunately, those things worked themselves out at the meetings. And even when books were hard to acquire, there were reasons for it, and members of the committee did a great job talking about why a book that might not be in 500 libraries still needs to be considered (while “widely available” is our only criteria for this committee, some formats, like graphic novels, are by their nature LESS widely available than novels are).

Midwinter Decision Making


What you really probably want to know are the dirty details of how these meetings go down, and I’m happy to provide a glimpse into some stuff because if I learned anything about this experience, it’s that committee work is committee work and follows its own set of rules and standards which are not rules nor standards. Instead, it’s about the discussion at the table, about impassioned case making, and at times, it IS about bargain making. No, money is never exchanged and favors aren’t granted, but sometimes, you have to give up something in order to get something else, and whatever energy you put into something is what you walk away from it with. In other words, just because a book is not on a list doesn’t mean it wasn’t passionately discussed, debated, and considered.

It doesn’t necessarily mean the books on the list are of a better quality or standard than others. It means a few things: it filled a nice hole in the list, it added to the diversity of the list, or it had a passionate champion or two who fought to get that book on the list. Sometimes, we had multiple books that explored a certain topic, and for the sake of having a list that was expansive, we decided to pick only one book of the many on that topic to be on the final list.

In my committee, not everyone was able to read all of the books (much of this has to do with the cutting of a year off our charge, I think), but that didn’t mean people who didn’t read the book didn’t have a chance to vote for or against the book. That came down to how a discussion emerged and played out. There was at least one book I was never able to get — a graphic novel — that a fellow member of my committee made an excellent case for and thus convinced me to give it a yes.

There is a drawback, though, to people not all having read the books: when two people on a committee of six have read a title and four have not, and your loyalties are divided, it’s tough to champion it or argue against it. One book, which I’d nominated for literature and languages (a category I was not on), had two readers on it. One loved the book and one did not. The book ultimately didn’t end up on their list. But since it was a book I felt passionately about, as did another member of the committee, when the entirety of our group met later in the week, I brought it up for discussion again, and between the two of us, we rallied enough support to get it placed on the arts and humanities list. Conversely, a title nominated for social science that had two supporters, one person who didn’t support it, and three people who hadn’t read it ended up having the most heated discussion — and ultimately did not end up on any list.

Which is to reiterate that a book not on the list isn’t a book overlooked. It may have been discussed quite passionately but because of simply how the committee process works, it may not have had a home on the list.

And frankly at times, you simply have to give up on a title because it wasn’t read by enough members of the committee and you aren’t passionate enough to go the extra mile for it. Fortunately, many of the books that that happened to are already on other book lists and earned honors. We were able to talk about this in many situations, particularly on titles which appeared on previous iterations of the OBCB list, during our discussions.

What We Talked About


Unlike a committee like the Printz, Morris, or Non-fiction Award, the bulk of our discussion revolved around how a story or information was presented. It was far less about the technical aspects of the book and more about what the book itself could add to the list and what a reader would pull from it. Writing quality did matter, but it was less of a considering factor than other aspects. For arts and humanities especially, we wanted a nice array of topics that could engage and excite teen readers, and we had many discussions about relevancy and interest. Would a teen be more likely to pick up Tina Fey’s memoir or Steve Martin’s? Choosing Fey’s over Martin’s didn’t mean Martin’s was less good; it meant that it had more appeal and timeliness to it. Likewise, we knew that the Martin memoir was on the prior iteration of the list, meaning that it wasn’t going to disappear into oblivion.

There were a number of titles I read this year that I found problematic or didn’t like. Other people had similar reactions to titles, too, and we brought those biases to the table. What was nice was being able to acknowledge them and yet, look into what the book itself may bring to the list and to other readers. A number of well-written social science books were ones that we as committee members — and adults who have been through college, as well as graduate school — enjoyed but when we thought about how today’s 15 or 17 year old may read the book, we realized it wouldn’t be as worthwhile to them as it would be to us. And the same thing in reverse: something we found juvenile may have been discussed through the lens of how it would be perfect for those younger readers.

What I loved most, I think, was listening to what other people had to say about books I’d nominated and had feelings about. Some of those feelings were strong, but not all of them were. In one case, I’d nominated two books that traversed similar territory and said in discussion we needed ONE on the list and my feelings were not strong on which one. Other people, though, had VERY strong feelings on one over the other, and I loved hearing the what and why of those thoughts.

In many ways, what I love about our list is that it highlights a lot of titles not found in other places. I love that we literally have something for every kind of reader. There’s something for more reluctant readers who want to be inspired and those who are very high-achieving students looking to satisfy and round out their reading a bit more. There are graphic novels, YA novels, adult novels, and non-fiction that spans all of those categories.

So You Want To Be On A Committee?


Before rounding out the post on my experience on the committee, I thought it’d be worthwhile to talk about a few things that anyone who wants to be on a selection committee should know. I found myself frustrated many times this year, for many different reasons, but in the end, it ended up being a worthwhile and fulfilling experience that makes me really hungry for the chance to serve on the Printz in 2016 (was that a nice way to remind you to vote when the elections open next month if you’re a YALSA member?).

  • Be prepared to read. You will reads HUNDREDS of books. That is not exaggerating. One of the comments many committee members made was they didn’t realize how much reading it was. It is a LOT of reading. You will essentially read a book a day during the week. If you don’t read during the week, prepare to read a few books over a weekend. When you’re in the holiday season when everything is stressful in general, know you’ll have massive piles of books to read still. There aren’t really “breaks.”
  • Be prepared to talk. I’ll say one of the disappointments I had this year was how little we talked during the year. I wanted more conversation. I craved more discussion. But it didn’t work that way. It ended up being a lot of discussion AT ALA, which for the purposes of the committee, was perfectly fine. My point is, though, you need to be prepared to talk. Have notes, have thoughts, be passionate about what you love and strong about what you don’t love in equal measure. Be able to articulate that. 
  • Know you’ll win some good wins and lose some hard losses. There is one victory on committee I am going to feel good about forever. There are plenty of losses I’ll be sad about not winning. But that’s the way it goes. When you work on a committee with people who have opinions and different experience and varied backgrounds, that’s how it goes. But man that one great victory felt great. 
  • Be willing to take chances. I nominated a few books this year that I thought didn’t stand a chance. Or there were some I nominated not having read them and having no idea how or where they’d fit. Guess what? Some of those chances ended up being excellent fits. It takes speaking up and following a professional hunch to put something to the table, and the chance can pay off well. 
  • Get excited about it. Because if you can’t be excited about what you’re going to produce, why bother? And when your product is out there, do you know how nice it is to talk about it? Because I know I plan on talking about this list for a while. I’ve already made purchases for my own collection of things I didn’t have, and I’m eager to promote these titles with my teens, as well as with adult readers looking for “something good” to read. 


What’s To Come 

Over the next few weeks, I plan on blogging more about the list. Since I couldn’t talk about the books we were considering or why we were considering them throughout the year (though obviously, I reviewed some), I think I’d like to talk about some of the titles that deserve some further recognition. I loved the non-fiction we pulled together on our lists, and while I generally love non-fiction, it’s rare I talk about it here.

Likewise, I plan on talking about how to use this list a little more. I hope that by talking about it, it’ll inspire other readers to check it out and promote it further. There’s so much here, and it’s perfect for dipping and out of when looking for something to read.

I’d love, too, to hear from those who use OBCB or who plan on using the list about why and how they do. I’m exceptionally proud of this product and it’ll hold a life not just for the five years between now and when it’s updated again, but it’ll hold a life long after. While some topics may fade out of the spotlight in areas like social science or science especially, they aren’t dead by any means. These are still great books with great appeal and use for readers seeking to be engaged, inspired, and excited by reading.



Field Notes: The Hole We’re in by Gabrielle Zevin

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A new feature I want to try out is “Field Notes.” The goal is to provide a review, a target audience, and some of the themes and issues in the book without giving a full-out review.

First up: Gabrielle Zevin’s The Hole We’re In. You know her name from the teen lit arena, including hits like Elsewhere and Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac. This is her first foray into adult novels.

This is a mega-contemporary book featuring a family spending too much money, lying to cover up, the Iraq war,
post-traumatic stress disorder, popular culture, and the way we learn lessons from our past and inform our future.

Time periods change in this book, from the 1990s, to 2006, to 2012, and even further in the future.

The book’s tone reminded me a bit of a Jane Smiley novel, but I found the writing itself more friendly. Some of the tone in the novel was reminiscent, too, of Douglas Coupland, particularly when it came to the working world and to living life.

The Hole We’re In will appeal to those with an interest in family drama and contemporary situations. I’ve read other reviews mention the terrible cover, but I LOVE it. It perfectly suits George and Roger and the facade.

Writing here is sparse, and we only get glimpses into the characters. Years often pass with little action; this is realistically portrayed.

Zevin’s attempt at adult fiction is well-done and worth the read. It will withstand the test of time, despite the contemporary situations. Though there are a lot of “issues” at work here, it works. It never feels forced or punishing as many can.

When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead

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If you haven’t heard of this book before, you might believe that it’s a teen romance from the title. Do not let the title fool you. It has a very small romance in it, but it is mostly peripheral, and this story is about something entirely different.

There is so much involved in this 197-page book that it’s hard to know what to mention in this review and what to leave out. Miranda lives in New York City with her mom. It’s 1979, Miranda is twelve years old, and she’s been receiving mysterious notes from a stranger that discuss things that will happen in Miranda’s future. And then those things come to pass, like the fact that Miranda’s mom becomes a contestant on the game show $20,000 Pyramid. Within this time-travel mystery, the book also touches upon class, race, friendship, bullying, homelessness, and so many other issues. Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time is a recurrent theme, and any kid who loves that book (as so many did in 1979 and so many do now) will also love the many references to it here.

When You Reach Me starts a bit slow. Miranda doesn’t receive the first note until page 60, and before that happens, I wasn’t sure where the book was heading. Once the first note hit, however, I was hooked.

The book benefits from short, snappy chapters (2-3 pages each) with interesting titles deliberately mimicking the game show (Things That Go Missing; Things That Sneak Up on You; Things That Turn Pink). (For those of us who haven’t ever watched the $20,000 Pyramid, the second round involves one contestant trying to get her partner to guess the category of the words she recites. For example, she might say “Lever, Handle, Hair,” and the answer would be “Things you pull.”)

I think young fans of genre fiction, particularly mysteries and science fiction, will find a lot to like in this book. It has those mystery and sci-fi elements, but it really is something unique that makes it stand out from these genres. At times Miranda’s voice seems a bit too mature, but for the most part she is engaging and seems like a twelve year old. If a young reader makes it to page 60, he or she will not be able to stop until reaching the end. The end is really spectacular, perhaps not as surprising to an adult as it might be to a child, but beautifully written and just challenging enough to require some thought after the last page is turned but also be understandable for its intended audience.

The biggest thing that will prevent this book from moving off the shelves, or at least the copy that I read, is the cover. Not the front cover, which isn’t too bad, but the back. There is no book blurb. Instead, it’s a litany of praise for Stead’s earlier book, First Light. That isn’t terribly unusual, but the book doesn’t have an inside flap. There’s no way for a tween browsing the shelves to find out what this book is about. Something like that is vital, and I’m sad that it’s missing from this copy, because I really think this book could have a fairly large audience. I can think of a half-dozen ways to pitch it: how Miranda’s friend Sal gets punched in the face for no apparent reason on the street one day, the time travel enigma, the mysterious notes…the blurb could easily grab someone.

Despite that (or because of that, really), I encourage you to give this one a try. It’s refreshing and interesting, and you could read it in an afternoon.

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

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As the school year starts picking up momentum, the writers at Stacked finally agreed on a title for our next round robin review. We have a lot of YA fiction representation, but our coverage of children’s literature is lacking at times. So, we all decided to pick up the highly discussed title, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. We keep hearing possible Newbery talk bandied about when this book is mentioned… so the contributors were intrigued!

Jennifer:

Two things really stood out for me after I read this book.

1. The setting – Fentress, Texas seems like a stereotypical little town in the middle of Central Texas. As a former resident of Austin (and a Texas native), I recognized many of the peculiar quirks so integral to Texas living – the prominence of cotton and the pecan tree, the excitement over staying at the Driskill Hotel on Congress Avenue in Austin, the constant reminders of Civil War battles, and the importance of county fairs in rural life. I especially loved the names of the Tates – 5 of the 6 Tate brothers are named after important Texas heroes of independence… and a cursory glance at my own family tree would reveal similar naming tactics for my own forebears. My mother’s family was from a small Texas town near Mexia – and again, the Calpurnia’s family stories sound very familiar when compared to the folklore of my relatives.

2. The main character – Calpurnia was inquisitive without being precocious. Obedient without being too goody-two shoes. Independent without being impractical. Towards the end, I felt like the author made Calpurnia’s distress about being a woman a little too modern in tone, but I suppose it works for a book about the dawning of the 20th century. Calpurnia also seemed very grown-up in her narrative – the book felt like it was written by her, but ten, twenty years in the future, after she attended that “university in Austin.” Her voice isn’t that of a child.

Kelly got more things right than wrong in this book. She was able to write with an authentic voice, and the reader really fell in love with so many members of the Tate family and Fentress community. I was especially partial to Travis, the tender-hearted younger brother who adored his animals.

But Kelly’s talent for writing these smaller tableaux may also be the book’s greatest weakness. This is a “small” book; very little actually happens plot-wise over the expanse of time. After reading it, I found it difficult to describe what it’s about beyond “Oh, a little girl learns about Darwin and her grandfather in turn of the century Texas.” In the end, I think that’s okay. We don’t always need overly-complicated storylines when the relationships between characters seem so real.

Kelly
Jacqueline Kelly can write, there’s no doubt about it. The prose is lovely, intricate, and challenging, even for the adult reader. This is a book that will require the intended audience to digest the language and the work of art that has been developed.
That said, this story really, really did not do it for me.
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate was a very slow moving story with no real problem or resolution; instead, it’s a portrait of a girl growing up in small town Texas at the turn of the twentieth century and the challenges she faces with her interest in science and her family and society’s pressures for her to be a housewife-in-training. Each chapter is a bit of a different time of year, from spring time and the summer fair to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and finally the new year.
What bothered me the entire time was that this book has been done before, and because there’s no compelling story line and no real climax nor action, I don’t think this is a memorable read other than for the language aspect. To put it bluntly, I was really bored reading this, and it took me far longer to read than it should have simply because I never felt compelled enough by it to want to read it more.
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate certainly screams traditional Newbery for me — this is the sort of book that adults think that kids should read, even if it really doesn’t seem to have a lot of kid appeal. I have a hard time envisioning 10-13 year old girls picking this one up by choice and loving it. I suspect an older audience of teens may find more success with it, but because the main character is 11, they may be turned off. Although the historical accuracy with age and maturity is solid, this will read as dated or strange for current intended audiences, I think. Moreover, this book reminds me a lot of A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly, which is a similar story set in a historical era where females had desires to be something other than what society has determined for them. Although the concept and theme are great, it is a book than languishes on the shelf.
I found the characters to be flat, particularly the ancillary characters. Callie never gave me a reason to like her nor care about her story; in fact, I wished that the story had been told from the perspective of her grandfather, who seemed a heck of a lot more interesting to me. And while the use of Texas war heroes as the names of her brothers was creative, they were all the same character to me.
Like Jennifer mentioned, this wasn’t written with the voice of a child. I think that’s precisely why I had a hard time figuring this one out. Had this book been written for adults, I think it would find so much more power and popularity. A story from the voice of Callie as an adult reflecting on her childhood could have developed her a lot more and made me care about her whys and hows. But as it is now, I just couldn’t. I don’t think that an 11-year-old reading this can possibly “get” it in any sense — they won’t have the appreciation for the language nor will they understand the importance of the historical setting nor will they get the importance of the message here. I also have a hard time thinking a lot of 11-year-olds would quite have the knowledge of Darwin and the implications of his findings that DO make this book rich.
Fortunately, for a language lover, there were long periods of just falling in love with Kelly’s word weaving. I look forward to seeing what she does in the future, even though Calpurnia Tate is one book I don’t think will make any of my personal favorite lists.

Kimberly

My main opinion about The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate can be expressed as follows: I liked it, but I’m not sure an eleven-year-old would. The book is a beautifully-written, leisurely series of vignettes about young Calpurnia in turn of the twentieth century Texas. Each chapter tells a different story about Calpurnia and her family, and Darwin’s ideas form a unifying theme that also functions as a metaphor for Calpurnia’s coming of age.

There are two main reasons why I believe the book doesn’t really work for its intended age group, and Kelly (my fellow blogger) has touched upon them both. Firstly and most prominently, Calpurnia’s voice is that of an adult. Jacqueline Kelly’s choice to write the book from the perspective of a grown Calpurnia is a baffling one to me, because it removes the reader from the thick of the emotional eleven-year-old experience. Kelly’s voice often comes across as nostalgic, and it’s hard for an eleven-year-old reader to feel nostalgic about being eleven. Calpurnia’s voice makes the book more suitable for an adult.

Secondly, and almost as importantly, there is no driving force behind the book. The individual stories are endearing and amusing, and Calpurnia’s family is lovable and usually interesting (particularly her wonderful, wish-I-were-related-to-him grandfather), but nothing really seems to be at stake here. True, at times we worry that Calpurnia will be relegated to domestic slavery like the other girls of her time, but as a reader I never felt a sense of panic, and there’s no push to find out what happens next. As someone who picked up the book knowing it was geared toward pre-teens, I was surprised at this fact, and it took me awhile to get into it as a result. Quite simply, I kept on waiting for something to happen. Once I realized that the book was not really about plot, I was able to enjoy it, but I just think younger kids need something a bit more than flowery prose to keep them interested.

Less importantly, the book is long. I know that eleven-year-olds of this generation have read the great behemoths that are the later Harry Potter books, but they started off by reading the early ones, which are much shorter. The book also seems longer because nothing really happens, and this is a problem for young readers. There’s no reason to read another chapter because there is nothing to be resolved – it’s just a day in the life.

As Jennifer mentioned, the historical details are delightful, particularly for someone who is a born-and-bred Texan as I am. I learned a bit about my own state’s history, and what’s more, I enjoyed learning it, unlike when I was force-fed such history in middle school. I do think the secondary characters were well-developed, with the exception of a few of Calpurnia’s brothers, and the book had more than a few very funny bits.

The story-within-a-chapter aspect of Calpurnia Tate reminds me a little bit of Little Women, which I loved as a girl. However, even Little Women built toward something at the end and had what could be called a climax or some sort of denouement. Calpurnia Tate just seems to end. This is not to say that it’s a bad book. I quite enjoyed it. But I do believe it will have a hard time engaging the tweens.