Oh, wait, that's the wrong Criss Cross.
Re: The Newbery Award Winning Book --
Good stuff!
I liked the sketches, photos and other visuals that were sprinkled in the story—not enough to be considered an illustrated novel, but they added another dimension. And you know those kids, always doodling on stuff.
I forgot about the wishing-on-a-star scene at the beginning until near the end. I liked the circular structure and found the ending to be satisfying, albeit unlikely. With all the narrative voices I thought some could have been more developed but the characters were well drawn. Some too perky at times.
Must read Perkins's other non-picturebook book, All Alone in the Universe.
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uh huh, uh huh
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Ok, sorry it has taken me so long to post. I think it is because I enjoyed Criss Cross, but was a bit underwhelmed by it. I thought that it tried a bit too hard to get too many different symbols and allusions into the text, and as a result it felt a bit clever-clever and not as deeply true as I think Perkins wanted it to be (e.g. the Bottom references with whatshisname almost turning into a donkey seemed a bit pretentious to me, but if the whole book had had Midsummer Night's Dream imagery running through it, I'd have been more convinced it was an organic part of the whole).
I liked the characters a lot, and I liked the fluidity of the relationships and the open-ended conclusion. I did have trouble placing the kids in a particular age-bracket, though -- their voices seemed both too naive and too sophisticated to be -- what, 15 or so? But actually, I take that back. 15 is a naive, sophisticated age.
Overall I liked the writing, but not nearly as much as I loved All Alone in the Universe, which in my book is a simpler, more believable text that doesn't seem to want to break with conventions quite so much. I kind of felt like Perkins wanted to prove she was writing an unusual book, and her presence as an author intruded on my reading in that sense.
Good book though. :-) Just not perfect.
I can't believe I almost didn't read this book. It's just the kind of book I'd love. It's quiet and unassuming. It's beautiful in a completely ordinary way. Not much happens, but everything shifts.
I love the way it's written, a third person account of the characters' inner monologues. The narrator states what they feel without commenting on it. (A sharp contrast from the last book I read, in which it was obvious the author wanted the reader to feel a certain way about what he was describing.)
I think what I enjoyed the most was that the characters seemed like normal kids, not dealing with peer pressure, not trying to save the world, and not having an unlikely adventure. They were just living their mundane lives. And yet they did something I think few people (except Meera) do enough: they noticed the world around them, and took part in it. I think my favorite exmple of this is when Hector goes to the drainage ditch (ravine), and really observes it. And when he sees the litter in action, he takes it upon himself to dispose of it, rather than thinking it's somebody else's job.
I totally didn't get the symbolism and allusions you're talking about. What? Donkey?
Hmmm. Well, I finally finished this, and I have to say I'm a bit underwhelmed, too. It's a fine novel. Just fine. I liked how Perkins was trying to be different -- the chapter in two columns, the chapter in haiku -- but I felt similarly to Meera, in that it felt like Perkins was trying to do too much and be too clever clever and prove she's really writing an unusual book. A lot of that just seemed thrown in to be different, instead of being "an organic part to the whole" (M's expression).
I also found the shift in perspectives a little disconcerting. Maybe I'm just used to have a steady narrative and all those terms I learned way back when: first-person omniscient, third-person omniscient, whatever whatever. I didn't love being in Debbie's mind and then in the same paragraph, in the very next sentence, all of a sudden being in Hector's mind. It jostled me, startled me, made me have to think about where I was.
I, like Erica, liked that the kids were just plain ordinary kids, doing ordinary things, living an ordinary life. It was very refreshing. I think they were more sophisticated than naive, all of them awfully introspective, but figuring out life at that age is certainly a tough task. (Still is, really.) I did like the characters, liked the people.
I started reading All Alone in the Universe in a used bookstore the other day. Is that narrator the same Debbie as in this story? Is this story considered a sequel? And it seems that that book takes place a few decades ago. Was this book supposed to, too? I didn't get that feeling. It just felt normally contemporary. Lenny's truck seemed old, but that could be present day no problem.
Anyway, I think I'll stick with my original conclusion: This book was fine. I'm very surprised it won the Newbery, but I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it. I just wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it. I'd just tell someone it's fine.
On another note, I'm going to shamelessly plug my new flickr photos. I'm going to try to be good about uploading stuff, and I just did a bunch of housekeeping with some old photos in my computer. There are some Simmons photos in there, at the beginning of the photostream, if you dare to take a look!
E., there’s a whole section at the fair where the jock-whose-name-I-forget is hovering between turning into a good person and a bad person (basically) and each obnoxious thing he does is described as making him more donkey-like. And there are references to Bottom in a Midsummer Night’s Dream in that section. I’m so glad you liked it, and I think you’d love All Alone in the Universe.
M, does the other book have the same characters?
Is the book deserving of the Newbery?
I'd say nah.
No, I think it's just a coincidence that there are two Debbies. Maybe she had a best friend named Debbie when she was younger or something.
And deserving of the Newbery? I dunno. I don't think I read enough books last year to really compare it to the rest of the field. And honestly, a lot of clunkers win Newbery awards. "A Gathering of Days"? Yaaaawn.
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