The Giver

     In 1993, Lois Lowry had a book published titled The Giver (New York: Houghton Mifflin). It won the Newbery Medal, and seems to be generally credited with sparking the YA fiction trend in publishing, especially when it comes to dystopian future settings. Despite that, I enjoyed it, because it built so solidly off the work of Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451, George Orwell in 1984 and Aldous Huxley in Brave New World. 

     Jonas is eleven years old, and he has a sister named Lily. Each family unit in their Community has only two children as required by law, and everyone is color blind. There is no weather as we know it, nor hills or valleys. Music doesn't exist, and neither do emotions. There is no war, or hunger, or conflict. Instead, everything relies on Sameness, genetically-engineered conformity. (Though this doesn't always work out....some people have blue eyes, and his friend Fiona has red hair. "Life will find a way," as the characters in Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park and Lost World say.) He is looking forward to turning twelve, where the Elders will assign him the job he will work for the rest of his life.
     He is assigned to be the new Receiver; the person tasked with living with all the known memories of things that once were - battles(we see flashbacks of the Civil War), pain, love and happiness. The previous Receiver, who Jonas calls "The Giver," wishes to train someone new to take over this burden of handling the weight of the world's experiences. Through this training, he becomes able to comprehend concepts like hunting, war, starvation and anger. Also, through a glimpse of a family gathering at Christmas, love.
     This is a big problem, because his family unit has been taking care of an unnecessary baby named Gabe, who will soon have to be Released: killed by lethal injection and left alone to perish. And that can't happen. So Jonas and the Giver decide that he should escape; with the Giver staying behind to help the Community's citizens deal with the influx of memories that will wash over them once Jonas disappears. (The Giver knows this is needed because of the way the last Receiver-in-training reacted; she couldn't handle it and fell apart. The memories caused a large panic throughout the Community.)
     Jonas and Gabe escape into the strangeness that is Elsewhere; eventually coming to hills, seeing things like trees, and experiencing coldness and snow. The ending is ambiguous; either they escape to the safety of a little village, or they die of hypothermia like Hans Christian Andersen's Little Match Girl.

     There is a definite sense throughout the book that the current state of affairs is wrong, in some concrete, definable way. There isn't much detail given about how things got to this current state, but there is enough detail for the setting to feel believable. The third-person limited narration also feels authentic, and the tone is realistic, instead of being idealized like later dystopian-YA protagonists.  .

Yo, Sacramento!

     From the minds behind Yo, Millard Fillmore! (Will Cleveland, Mark Alvarez and Tate Nation) comes the follow-up about state capitals, Yo, Sacramento! (New York: Scholastic,1994).

     Did you know that in the Green Mountains, a gigantic varmint is shaving away ground with his mountain peeler? (Montpelier, Vermont) That the Concorde is sometimes ridden by a nude hamster? (Concord, New Hampshire) Or that the rich lion listens to his collar radio inside his comfy den of fur? (Denver, Colorado) The historical information is right there again on the left-hand pages across from the cartoon, along with important details like state size(by square miles), post office abbreviation, the official bird, tree and flower of each state, as well as the date it entered(or reentered) the Union. And there's nifty trivia in the margins.
     This book also contains helpful quizzes to make sure the information sticks, just like its predecessor. And the states are grouped by region, which is interesting(though confusing, how those regions were decided on). The Jeopardy!-style quiz section is back, in addition to a name-that-state-outline page(which is no problem at all if you read Laurie Keller's Scrambled States of America.)

     This book is hilarious, and incredibly useful. (Seriously, how else would you know that the capital of Kentucky is Frankfort, or the capital of Pennsylvania is Harrisburg?) Check it out ASAP, especially if you have kids.

#Wesley

Yo, Millard Fillmore!

     Written by Will Cleveland and Mark Alvarez, and illustrated by Tate Nation, Yo, Millard Fillmore! (Brookfield, Connecticut: Millbrook Press, 1993) is an instantly-useful and highly entertaining way to memorize, in order, all the presidents from 1 to 42(43, 44 and 45 came after publication) through bizarre images and terrific cartoons.
     Cleveland was on a road trip with his family, the car coated in the heavy silence of boredom, when he suddenly had a great idea: Why not have everybody memorize the presidents? So he checked the list in an encyclopedia(this was before the internet) and over the next couple trips he, his wife and kids came up with entertaining off-the-wall images to make things more bearable. And that's how this book was born.

     We start with a washing machine big enough to wash a ton of clothes. (Washington, of course, but you have to start everything somewhere.) And from there we get escaping mad suns (Madison), a minivan coated with hair (Van Buren), great ants (Grant) coming out of toilets and more. There are helpful quizzes to review your newfound knowledge every five Presidents or so, which solidifies the information while disguising it as a game, which of course is the best method for teaching something so that it'll stick. Skimming the pages, this will take about twenty minutes to finish, and you'd be surprised at how useful it is for knowing the answers to Jeopardy! questions. If you have more than twenty minutes to spend, then there is a short biographical sketch of each President, along with the years he served and his birth-to-death timespan.
     After the cartoons are finished, there's a Jeopardy!-style quiz section to make sure you paid attention to the biographical information, and some memory tricks for remembering years served and which number each guy was. (For every President from John Tyler [10] to William McKinley [25], the last two digits of their term can be figured by multiplying the president's number by four, then adding one.) Then there's a copy of the the oath of office, and the order of succession to the throne after the vice president. (The Secretary of Education is sixteenth in line, which seems pretty far back.)

     It's amazing how often I still use the memory tricks in this book to remember presidents, and capitals, especially(but that post is coming). Read it ASAP, especially if you have kids.

#Wesley

The Scrambled States of America

     Laurie Keller's Scrambled States of America (New York: Henry Holt, 1998) is one of my favorite picture books of all time. (Which is saying something, because there's a lot of really great ones out there.) This was her first book, after working several years as a Hallmark greeting-card designer.

     It's narrated by a man named Sam, who opens by telling us that he bets that we've heard it all, but that not many people know this story. Ohio and Virginia rush up, both wanting to tell this story, but Sam tells them to get back in their places. Then he begins: "It was just your basic, ordinary day in the good ol' U.S. of A., and all the states were waking up, having their first cups of morning coffee, and enjoying the beautiful sunrise." (All the states, that is, except for Kansas.) How do we know this? Well, because he tells us so: "I'M NOT FEELING HAPPY AT ALL!" he yells. His very kind best friend Nebraska asks him what's wrong. "I don't know, I just feel bored. All day long we just stand here in the middle of the country. We never GO anywhere. We never DO anything. And we NEVER meet any NEW states!" So Nebraska thinks a while, deciding that Kansas might have a point.
     So then Kansas has the idea to invite all the other states to a get-to-know-you party, they enlist their neighbors Missouri and Iowa to help plan, and "those wacky little Midwestern states planned the biggest party ever," according to Sam. (Keller throws in wonderful little background details like Nebraska's disgusted expression while licking stamps, and Iowa's uncertainty how to spell Connecticut. Guess he didn't read Yo, Millard Fillmore!)
     At the party, Tennessee drops his fork at least three times and Nevada and Mississippi fall in love. Late into the evening, Idaho and Virginia have the idea to switch places, so each can see a different part of the country. Everyone else loves this idea, and everyone quickly makes plans to swap with someone. (This works out better for some states than others. Indiana, Alabama and New York all switch places with California, for example.) But as Roy, a minor character from Peanuts, once said of Charlie Brown: "He's the type that makes a good temporary friend." The states realize this wasn't the best arrangement, as Alaska has Michigan's thumb tickling one side of him and Oklahoma's Panhandle jabbing into the other. Arizona's hair keeps getting destroyed by the waves where South Carolina used to live.
     Even faster than they made the first trip, everyone wanted very quickly to go home as soon as they could. (So in Virginia's bus, West Virginia and Ohio play Go Fish to pass the time. Colorado hikes, Indiana skateboards ) There's lot to talk about when they get home; Alaska's joke-telling skills, Minnesota explaining how awful sunburns are, and samples of food were exchanged to give to neighbors. The final two pages are filled with quick sketches of landmarks interacting, like Minnesota's 10,000 Lakes visiting the Grand Canyon. It's really entertaining, and a great way to wrap up the story.

#Wesley