Unmissable US children’s author
Sharon Creech is a US author with a fully deserved international reputation. Her best known novel, Walk Two Moons, from back in 1984, won the Newbury Medal. It would unhesitatingly go onto my list of greatest children’s books and is one of those that I hope that every child will encounter sometime during their growing years (and come back to later, as well). It is not one jot less fine, moving or memorable a read now than when it was written.
She went on to become the first ever American author to win the UK’s prestigious Carnegie Medal in 2002, for Ruby Holler. With now more than twenty stand-alone titles to her name, many quite individual in character, it is inevitable that some will be more to some readers’ taste than others. However she is a truly fine writer and everything she crafts carries her own distinctive mark of quality. Yet, despite her reputation, she is not always as prominent in British homes and classrooms, as I think her writing merits. A couple of brand new UK editions make this a great time to catch up.
A good feeling about Sharon Creech
Sharon Creech generally writes feel-good books. Even when they genuinely and realistically treat of children with issues, as they often do, they are basically warm-hearted. But, you see, the thing about feel-good books is that they make you feel good. And surely that’s a very good thing. Sometimes we seem to think that to be really great a book has to put us through the emotional wringer, fling us hard into the face of life’s many unpleasant realities. And, yes, we do I suppose need some books like that. But we should not scorn books that make us feel good. Feel-good books can be a wonderful tonic for those feeling low and a security for those feeling vulnerable.
‘When she was feeling as if everything was dark and scary and putrid, Dallas would paint word pictures that would fly into her mind and scatter the dark scary things.’ (Ruby Holler, p 196)
And feeling good about life, about our selves, often puts us in a stronger position to try to do something about those bad things. Feel-good is only a problem if writers leave us wallowing in saccharine sweetness, and Sharon Creech never does that.
Just out: One Time
Illustration: Jori van der Linde
A lot to teach
Way back when I was a young teacher, I was very influenced by a little book from the early 1960s, a short discourse about her experience in the classroom by Margaret Langdon, called Let the Children Write. I found it very relevant then and actually believe it still has much of value to say, even though the school context described now seems somewhat old fashioned.*
That book was brought strongly back to mind because Sharon Creech’s latest, One Time, also paints a wonderful picture of how much good can be done by a sensitive teacher who understands that children need to be freed to write rather than constrained to do so. Even though this book is more about prose writing rather than poetry, in this respect it has a close link to her earlier title, Love that Dog. (See below.) It also makes it at least a distant cousin of another wonderful work of children’s fiction about inspirational teaching, Mrs Bixby’s Last Day, by John David Anderson. (Reviewed here March 2019.)
A lot to learn
One Time is a quiet, gentle book. It contains no rollercoaster adventures, no dastardly villains, no magical superpowers. It is a book about a young person and her everyday experiences. Yet through a simple, relatively uneventful narrative it explores life and in a deeply affecting way. It explores people and the way they affect each other, and how some people and some relationships become part of what you are. It explores who we are and what we can become all the more meaningfully for doing so quietly. It uses words to explore words. It uses life to explore life. And in its gentle way, it is quite wonderful.
Themes and influences
Interestingly, in this little book, Sharon Creech draws together many themes and images from her other work. Here there is a boy who appears and then goes again, an Italian angel, a special teacher, a noisy, ramshackle family. But then perhaps, after all, it is the other way around. I will not spoil the end of this very special book by giving it away, but I think those who know this author’s work well may start to get there before she does. They will only love and value this very special book the more if they do.
May her many influences influence many others, like the reflection of moonlight on water, when each enhances the other. I feel sure they will.
Much of this story revolves around daily life in an American School. The behaviours and routines of both children and teachers will feel strange to many young U.K. readers. But dig just a little beneath the surface and the children themselves and what affects them will affect our children too.
Another recent book: Saving Winslow
Illustrations: Sarah Horne
Even by Sharon Creech standards, this relatively short book, published in the UK only a few weeks ago, is something very special. It is certainly a classic feel-good and there is, indeed, much about this story of a boy trying to raise a sickly baby donkey that could have been sentimental. But it is a deeper, richer, more sensitive story than might appear from a bland synopsis. And it is so for several reasons.
Louie
One of the principal reasons is the boy, Louie, himself, for he is a boy who responds deeply and sensitively to the world around him. He is moved equally by seeing an indigo bunting perched atop a sunflower and by observing a thin, unkempt man lying on a brown wooden bench. He is a boy awakened by strong moonlight, who needs to be reassured that it is nothing unusual. He is a boy who was born very prematurely and believes that he almost remembers the experience. He is a boy who deeply misses his older brother, recently gone off to the army, even though the two are very different in temperament.
In Louie, Sharon Creech creates a character of depth and persuasive humanity to whom the reader cannot help but be drawn.
Nora
Further riches are added in the story’s second protagonist (if you don’t count the donkey, Winslow, in this role, which, actually, you probably should). Nora is a superficially edgy, angsty girl, drawn into what becomes a three-way relationship with Louie and Winslow. Much of her back story is implied as much as stated, but nevertheless has a strong contribution to make to both the impact of the book, and the thoughtfulness that lies behind and within it.
Simply splendid
And then there is this highly experienced author’s incredibly skilful use of language. Never heavy or pretentious, in fact apparently very simple, it draws the reader in with vivid and visceral effectiveness, so that you live so many moments of this touching story with its characters. Never more so than when Louie has to give regular injections to the sick little donkey. You feel the needle in the animal’s flesh just as vividly as you experience the young boy’s trepidation about performing the procedure.
This is a book that can please at many levels, from a totally endearing story of a boy’s attachment to a young animal, to an deeply human exploration of separation and loss, common experience dealt with in an individual way. It is another book that as a teacher I would have just loved to share with a class (Y4 or Y5 perhaps?) and one which I believe would lead them into deeper understanding of both literature and life, in the kindest, the most generous of ways. It is a true little gem of a book. Saying something simply is not at all the same as saying something simple.
Nappies?
Sarah Horne’s illustrations are delightful, and will undoubtedly add to the appeal of the book for many, although they relate more to the superficial charm of the characters that to their rich depths.
It is relatively rare for an American book to be re-edited for a UK audience (although I think the reverse is rather more common) but this one seems to have been. Perversely, I found it rather disconcerting for American children to be talking about the baby donkey wearing ‘nappies’ rather than ‘diapers’. Nevertheless we should be grateful to Guppy Books for bringing us this big little treasure.
Too good to miss: The Great Unexpected
Illustrations: Zdenko Basic
‘How is it you can be close friends with a person, deeply close friends, closer than sisters maybe, and then one day you want that person to disappear off the face of the earth?’ (p 97)
One of the things that impresses me so much about Sharon Creech is that she has written so many different books; not simply that there are so many, but that they are all so very different. Almost all her novels being stand alone, it is hard to say she writes a particular style, or particular type, yet she certainly has a signature. And that signature involves a set of characteristic qualities, the most significant of which is her outstanding skill as a storyteller. In this particular respect she reminds me of the UK’s own Geraldine McCaughrean.
I love many of Sharon Creech’s titles, but if I had to perform the rather silly task of selecting a favourite, it would probably be this one.
The Great Unexpected is something of a book of two halves. Further it is a book of two halves in more ways than one, if that makes sense. Firstly it is a split narrative, split between a story of two ‘adopted’ orphans in a small US town, ‘Blackbird Tree and it’s cocoon of protection and its people rooted to that small patch of earth.’ (p 153). The other part of the narrative concerns an elderly woman and her companion living through the same period in an Irish country mansion, known as Rooks Orchard. Both parts of the tale evoke a great deal of mystery and intrigue, in their different ways, without initially appearing to have any connection with each other.
The other way the story splits for me is that its first half is a quite simply feast of delightful entertainment. The two principal protagonists of the main Blackbird Tree narrative are young girls of contrasting character: quiet, thoughtful Naomi and loquacious, emotional Lizzie. Their lifelong friendship (thus far) is thrown into some disarray when an unknown but charming and good looking boy, Finn, literally falls out of a tree in front of them. The relationship and the way it is explored is a joy, their banter, is constant amusement, and Sharon Creech exploits their small-town naïveté as a vehicle for no little wit of her own. Only rarely do books make me guffaw aloud, but this one did.
In contrast, the later part of the book, introduces much more genuine pathos and the dark mystery of the narrative threads real sadness through the lives of characters the reader has come to invest in emotionally.
Yet this is most certainly not a book of two separate halves. Quite the reverse. It is a book where the separate elements are cleverly and quite beautifully woven together. In fact connections are very much at its heart and the way they are made the essence of its greatness.
And perhaps, after all, I should have said it is a book of three halves. For just when Ireland and the ‘New World’ come together in what promises to be as sweet an ending as might be found in one of Eva Ibbotson’s more sugary romances, things slip again and in creeps just a hint of magic, the magic of ‘Old Ireland’. Two worlds remain, perhaps, more connected that one might think, but are they the Old World and the New, or are they the mundane world and that of faery?
It is a book that asks possibly one of the most important questions of all: ‘What is “real”?’ (p 188)
Oh, and it manages a strong shout out for feminism too!
Well worth a catch up: Ruby Holler
UK cover. US cover
‘“How do we know who we are?” (Dallas) asked Florida. “How do we know what we will be?” . . .
“We might be big and clumsy and stupid like we are now,” she said, “or maybe we’ll get some brains and turn into geniuses or something. How the crawly crud should I know?”’ (p 44)
I am not sure if this title, first published in 2002, actually counts as recent (I suppose it depends on how old you are), but it is the book that won the UK Carnegie Medal, and is possibly one of the most feel-good of all Sharon Creech’s novels, as well as being one of the most appealing . So I am going to include it anyway.
Boxton Creek
In some ways, this story about a pair of orphan twins, who, after a darkly difficult life, find themselves living in the wild but beautiful countryside with a caring older couple, is a strange mixture. But it is a mixture that, surprisingly, works beautifully. Florida and Dallas, though with all the closeness of twins, have interestingly contrasted characters, and their dialogue is consistently entertaining and often very funny. Mr. and Mrs. Trepid, the horrendous couple who run Boxton Creek, the children’s home where Florida and Dallas initially live, are exaggerated monsters, They might be the American cousins of The Dursleys, from Harry Potter, but are perhaps even more akin to some of the child-hating adult figures in Roald Dahl’s children’s books. Their later antics in the story, grossly amusing in their avaricious stupidity, also belong in the same, almost comic book, category. It is gleefully gratifying when they finally receive their due comeuppance,
Ruby Holler
In contrast, Sairy and Tiller, the old couple from Ruby Holler, have a warm truthfulness about them, particularly in their relationship to one another and in the poignant way they miss their grown-up children. Similarly the actual location of Ruby Holler is evocatively conjured with the sensitive pen of one who knows and loves wild places. Even if life there is a little idealised, it still feels richly and genuinely desirable.
Narratively speaking, the characters of the twins might have stretched uncomfortably between these two worlds, but thanks to skilful writing, they actually bridge them seamlessly. The book amuses and entertains just as easily as it pulls at the heart strings. Sharon Creech once again saves what could have been sugary sentiment, with both lightness and genuinely human concern. We very much feel for the twins, whether they are being berated by the dastardly Trepid, or nourished, both physically and emotionally, by the deeply caring Sairy.
Love to the loveless
In fact, there is much to learn here for teachers, social workers, parents and other carers - and of course for children too, who are the teachers, social workers and parents of the future. The story overall is an object lesson in how it is kindness and love, not meanness and punishment, that makes ‘difficult’ children better: ‘Love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be.’
It is interesting to compare this novel with Patricia Reilly Giff’s Pictures of Hollis Woods, Lauren Wolk’s Beyond the Bright Sea, and even our own Michelle Magorian’s Goodnight Mister Tom. All have themes in common as well as much individual and special to say.
Unmissable for teachers: Love that Dog
Cover: Nathan Burton
‘I don’t want to
because boys
don’t write poetry.’
For don’ts, won’ts and can’ts
If I’m going back as far as the early 2000s, then I have to mention this book too, because it is a miniature masterpiece. In a short, often amusing, but hugely effective (and affecting) story, a young boy who is initially reluctant to write poetry grows in confidence in response to an inspired and inspiring teacher. The clever narrative is told entirely through the boy’s own attempts at writing, supplemented only, at the end, with the actual poems his teacher has used as stimuli. It is an object lesson in inference as well as in the potential of poetry, yet it is gloriously accessible and renders the quite challenging poetry quoted less obscure too.
Were I still teaching upper KS2 and wanting to explore the writing of poetry (as opposed to verse) as a way of capturing experience, thoughts and feelings (which I certainly would be), then this little gem would constitute an essential resource. Inspiration for me as well as my children.
Sharon Creech later produced a follow-up, Hate that Cat. It was never going to have quite the same impact as the first book, but is also excellent.
Coming soon: Moo
We are finally back to what is indisputably a recent book in Moo.
I have several times seen this new title hailed as a successor to Love that Dog and Hate that Cat as the story is told through a mixture of prose and (largely) free form poetry. However, unlike those earlier books, Moo, is not really about the poetry itself or about writing poetry. In fact it had more to say about art, about drawing, than about poetry itself. Rather here the poetry is simply used as a storytelling medium. And how very effective are both the story and its telling.
The tale itself is one that you might call archetypal Sharon Creech. A young girl is uprooted from the city home in which she has grown up, and moved to Maine. The landscape and atmosphere of this area of New England are beautifully evoked, but much of her life suddenly changes. The process of adapting is considerably helped for her by a developing relationship with a very difficult (‘onery’) cow, not to mention the beast’s elderly and, in her way, equally difficult owner.
At heart it is a story about change. About accepting change, taking advantage of change; change in circumstances, but also change as a person. It is a most endearing story but also a gently challenging one,
The format does not make it difficult to read. In fact, quite the reverse. However, it does serve to enhance the storytelling very considerably. The poetic text adds a flow to the language and an intensity to events and their underlying emotions. It is often very funny too. Whilst I am a great enthusiast for reading aloud (to children), this particular text does need be seen, rather than heard -or at least both. Layout and typography are significant contributors.
I started this post discussing Sharon Creech as a feel-good writer, and I do not retract from that in the slightest. However, she does not draw back from the difficult issues of life, or skimp in addressing some of the challenging questions about our lives and humanity. Rather, she takes a positive, supportive line through our difficulties and weaknesses. She helps us find a way forward, with sympathy and compassion, helps us see the good in our lives, and helps us find it when it seems to be missing. Young readers everywhere should be enormously grateful to her for it. As should we all.
It appears that Moo is due to be published in the UK, again by Guppy Books, in April 2021. Look out for it. It will hopefully be in (independent) bookshops around then, and is a moo-st read. (Sorry.)
Note:
*At the time of writing there seem to be quite a few used copies of the Margaret Langdon book available fairly inexpensively from AbeBooks.
