InLand/YA Booktalks

Booktalk: The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg

By McKena Baranowski

                  “In no other book this year were the potentials of both heart and mind in children laid out with such persuasive clarity… it’s a jubilant, unique tour de force.” John Peters, a chair of the 1997 Newberry Committee said about E.L. Konigsburg’s Newbery Medal-Winning novel, The View from Saturday.

                  The story takes place in Epiphany, New York, where Mrs. Olinski is returning to teaching ten years after a serious accident that left her paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. She is teaching sixth grade, and the story takes place in the final round of the Academic Bowl competition which pits her sixth grade team against an eighth grade team. Her team is a underdog, not only because they are sixth graders and a team of sixth graders have never won, but also because her team is made of four strange, outcast children.

                  “They called themselves The Souls. They told Mrs. Olinski that they were The Souls long before they were a team, but she told them that they were a team as soon as they became The Souls.”

                  The book is written without a concrete timeline. In present time, the reader is at the final round of the Academic Bowl. With each question the proctor asks, and a member of The Souls answers, the reader is taken back in time so we can find out how exactly they knew the answers.

                  The first question, which goes to Noah, is; “What is the meaning of the word calligraphy and from what language does it derive?” Noah recalls working with his Grandpa Nate and Grandma Sadie around the time of Izzy Diamond’s marriage to Margaret Draper. Grandpa Nate was going to play the violin and Grandma Sadie was going to design the wedding cake. Noah helped Tillie Nachman design the invitations, which they had to write in calligraphy. However, at the wedding, the best man and the wedding cake were in an unfortunate accident that left the cake maimed and the best man injured. Noah, though he did not know Izzy or Margaret well, volunteered to be the best man. Margaret Draper ends up being the grandmother of Ethan, while Izzy Diamond is the grandfather of Nadia. This is how three members of The Souls meet each other and form a bond.

                  The next question, which goes to Nadia, asks; “What is the name given to that portion of the North Atlantic Ocean that is noted for its abundance of seaweed, and what is its importance to the ecology of our planet?” During the summer, Nadia spends August with her father in Florida, where she visits her Grandpa Izzy and his fiancée Margaret. It is here that she meets Ethan for the first time. Etha, Margaret and Izzy are very excited because this summer, they get to dig up turtle eggs to ensure that they will make it to the ocean. Despite her determination to stay detached from everything that summer, she becomes very involved with the sea turtles (which is how she discovers the answer to the question) and forms a reluctant bond with Ethan.

                  The next question, which goes to Ethan, asks to explain the significance, in terms of how they are related to important women in history, of four places. “The place names are: Seneca Falls, Homer, Rochester, and Auburn.” His great, great grandmother was involved in the Feminist movement, and his knowledge about her is how he knows the answer to the Knowledge Bowl question. In his explanation of how he knows, the readers are introduced to Julian. He is the strange new kid with an accent and he is falsely accused of writing ‘cripple’ on the board while everyone is at lunch, an insult to Mrs. Olinksi. All four of the students ride the same bus, and they soon form a casual friendship. Julian then sends out an Alice in Wonderland themed invitation to Ethan, Noah and Nadia, inviting them to tea. It is at the tea party that they decide to become The Souls.

                  The next chapter, the question is to name two acronyms that have become words that are commonly used in everyday language. Julian answers, and Mrs. Olinski thinks back to how he had redeemed himself after the ‘cripple’ incident and how she had decided he was a good fourth member to their Academic Bowl team. She chose Noah right away, and then knowing that he was friends with Ethan and Nadia, chose them immediately after. It wasn’t until after she had tea with The Souls, that she realized she had to choose Julian, and not only was it the only choice, but it was the best choice.

                  There is debate on whether or not Julian’s answers; “posh and tip,” are correct, but they eventually get the points. The two teams then answer back and forth, and the final two questions ask about Lewis Carol stories, and The Souls secretly rejoice. Their first meeting together was themed around Alice in Wonderland, so they know they can answer the question. Julian, the one who sent out the invitations, answers and the competition is over. The Souls are the first team of sixth graders to ever win the Academic Bowl. The final question asked about Humpty Dumpty, and from what book it was from. After the competition, Mrs. Olinski reads the poem and realizes that she was kind of like Humpty Dumpty, but The Souls were able to put her back together again. They had restored her love of teaching.

                  “She [Mrs. Olinski] waited until they were all in their usual places, and then she asked, “Did I choose you, or did you choose me?”

                  “And The Souls answered, “Yes!”’ (page 160)

                  I thought this book was a good read. It was definitely for a younger reading audience, and I’m pretty sure I read this book once when I was in elementary school. I was surprised that I got a little confused while I was reading, as many of the storylines overlap and characters are continually reintroduced differently. But, overall, it was a good story for young kids to read, especially kids who may be having trouble making friends. However, an adult could relate to Mrs. Olinski, so it would be a good book for a teacher to read aloud to a class, I think. 

Booktalk: Winning by Robin Brancato

By Stephanie Clawson

            “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” This is the state of mind that high school senior Gary Madden had about football until he found himself in a hospital bed suffering from a serious spinal cord injury he sustained during a game. Robin Brancato’s 1977 novel Winning is about the simultaneously hopeful and heartbreaking road to recovery experienced by Gary with the encouragement of his recently widowed English teacher, Ann Treer.

            As the story begins, Gary has already been in the hospital for nearly two weeks in a special kind of bed frame that allows him to be flipped every two hours since he cannot move on his own. There are steel tongs anchored into his skull that keep him from turning his head, which are attached to a weight that is supposed to help straighten out his spinal column. Every time the nurse flips him over from his stomach to his back or the other way, he is terrified that something will go wrong, and that his slim chance of recovery will be entirely destroyed.

            Gary is very fortunate to have a strong support system in his football teammates and coaches, friends, his girlfriend, parents, and teachers. At first people are eager to see Gary and to hear about how his recovery is going, but it’s hard for many of them to think of what else to say to him that isn’t about his current condition. No one knows whether or not he’ll ever be able to walk again or lead a normal life, and sometimes things become awkward. Many people stop coming after once or twice, but Gary is surprised by a fellow teammate, Jason Lovett, who comes several times a week just to hang out, which makes him feel more sociable. His mother tends to hover over him and baby him along, something that irritates Gary because he is always feeling helpless and pathetic. This begins to weigh heavily on his mind and quickly turns into feelings of hopelessness. He tries to remind himself of how hard everything must be on his mom and dad, but sometimes he can’t help but feeling depressed by the idea of having to live the rest of his life that way.

            In order to give him something positive and challenging to focus on while he adjusts to the limitations of his body, several teachers from Gary’s school decide to come to the hospital a few times a week to get him to continue exercising his mind. His English teacher, Ann Treer, becomes a crucial element in Gary’s recovery in the book as a young widow whose husband passed away the year before. Each chapter in the book alternates back and forth from Gary’s perspective to Ann’s, and shows how just how closely the grief of losing a loved one can parallel the tragedy of losing one’s own body to paralysis. The two form a unique trust based on their mutual feelings of heartache that allows them to confide in one another in a way that they can’t with others. Mrs. Treer helps Gary set up a way that he can keep reading or have someone else read to him, and when he is able to recover some use of his hands, she pushes him to develop that skill by writing as much as he can every day in a journal where he can put down his most personal thoughts and fears about the new life he will be living.

            Gary is eventually moved to a rehabilitation facility to learn how to perform basic tasks that will allow him to work around his disabilities and be able to take care of himself. He makes friends with his roommates and others in rehab for disabilities of all different kinds, and quickly realizes that there are many people whose limitations are even more extreme than his own. Here, he finds out that recovery has as much to do with pushing himself physically as it does with adopting an optimistic attitude and restraint from falling into the depression that comes so easily.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Treer continues to push Gary in challenging his mind, and finds that by helping someone else who needs her, she is able to find something meaningful in her own life again. However, even as Gary has found many things to look forward to, he still finds himself suffering from debilitating fears of uselessness and purposelessness. These fears are often fed by stories his roommates tell him, and by what happens to those who allow their disabilities to ruin their lives forever or who take their own lives to get away from the physical and psychological torture. By the end of the novel, Gary has to choose how he is going to let the limitations of his body affect the rest of his life, and whether or not he can find a new purpose to live for.

This would be a great book to recommend to a teenager who is going through any kind of grieving process, whether it is something like Gary’s or Mrs. Treer’s, or even something a little different. I think it could easily be taught in a classroom setting because although the premise of this novel is quite intense and could have made for a really depressing read, Robin Brancato manages the heaviness well. The story keeps up a pace that would make it easy for young readers to follow, and a tone that allows the reader to understand the feeling of hopelessness that Gary experiences without having to carry it with them when they put the book down.