It was interesting this month that both of our books spoke to the importance of story. We began with our picture book, Watercress, by Andrea Wang; illustrated by Jason Chin. We all loved the "breathtakingly beautiful" poetic writing and the perfectly executed illustrations, using Chinese art techniques and brushes, of this first-person story of a young girl whose parents are immigrants from China. She describes the annoyance she feels when her parents stop the car on a family trip to pick watercress growing by the side of the road, and then her refusal to eat it later because it reminds her of "hand-me-down clothes and roadside trash-heap furniture." The importance of story comes to the fore when her mother shows an old family picture, showing famine years ago in China, and ultimately our heroine comes to the realization that her mother's younger brother had died because of it, and her outlook on everything changes. We loved the way it depicted an example of the immigrant experience, of struggling, of yearning for a land long ago left, and of a young girl being ashamed because she isn't "American enough." We felt that it was an excellent read-aloud that students with immigrant parents could relate to, and that would give non-immigrant kids an understanding of what it felt like to be different. We also related to the universal shame of being economically needy, and wanting to be able to just buy things at the store rather than obtain them by other means. We also thought that it would encourage all readers (and listeners) -- especially youngsters -- to seek out and hear and ultimately tell -- the stories of their own families.
Stories were also the emphasis in The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera; the title of which actually means 'the last storyteller.' We had a variety of reactions to this dystopian novel, which starts in the year 2061, when Earth is threatened with total destruction by a giant comet, and goes on for seemingly hundreds of years, as Petra a 13-year-old and her younger brother Javier and scientist parents are among those chosen to begin/create life on Sagan, a new planet. We all agreed that the book was too long, and the plot somewhat convoluted as we learned that everyone's memories of Earth had been technologically removed...everyone except Petra, who continued to remember her life on earth as well as her time spent with her beloved grandma (abuelita, or Lita) who made her very aware of her ancient culture thru the vehicle of storytelling. We liked the relationship Petra had had with her 'Lita' and her desire to not only remember her past on earth, but to share her stories with other children in her midst to help them remember their families also. There are so many more details to this story, too numerous to recount here -- which is mostly why it needed editing -- and why we had mixed feelings about the book. One reader absolutely loved it, and said it brought her to tears when Petra's brother was found and made the ultimate sacrifice so that all could live, and she felt that middle schoolers today would "eat it up" given the kinds of stories they are 'into' these day about alternate universes -- online and in books and movies. Although the rest of us all found parts that we liked, we were mostly not fans of dystopian fiction. A couple of readers felt that some of the things that happened to many of the characters were just 'too horrible', and one reader felt that most of the tropes of this sci-fi fantasy had been done before -- that there was nothing new here. Others had a hard time getting thru the whole book (but did!) and felt that there were just too many details to remember and that it wasn't particularly engaging. Our bottom-line conclusion was that there will be plenty of young readers (and -- obviously adults -- since it is a Newbery Award winner) who will love it, and others, like those in our group, for whom it just isn't their 'cup of tea.'
