Richie's Picks: KALEIDOSCOPE EYES by Jen Bryant, Knopf, May 2009, 272p.,
ISBN: 978-0-375-84048-7
"Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the twenty seven
eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the
back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog. And then at twenty seven
eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph
on the back of each one and began to cry, 'cause Obie came to the
realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn't
nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn't going to look at the
twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and
a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be
used as evidence against us. And we was fined $50 and had to pick up the
garbage in the snow, but that's not what I came to tell you about.
"Came to talk about the draft."
-- Arlo Guthrie, "Alice's Restaurant"
The draft ended a couple of months before I turned eighteen. I didn't
come near having to make the decision between what I saw -- given my beliefs
-- as my two real choices: going to Canada or going to jail.
On my mother's side of the family, I have four older male cousins who each
were of draft age during the height of the Vietnam War. None of the four
had to serve a day. Nor did they have to resort to the alternatives I was
considering for myself.
Each of these four cousins were from white suburban middle class families
headed by fathers who served in WWII. When my uncles returned from their
war and started making babies, it was not in their game plans that their
offspring would get out of high school and get shipped off to another war.
It is my belief that if every single American family in the same
circumstances as my cousins' families had been forced without exception to have
their sons go to Vietnam as soon as they turned eighteen, then those white
middle class families across America would have forced an end to the Vietnam
War within months of the 1968 Tet Offensive -- if not sooner.
In KALEIDOSCOPE EYES, a free verse novel about friendships and treasure
hunts set in 1968, the Draft is arguably not the central issue of the story.
Yet, its impact is far more important than anything else that goes on in
the story; it's the elephant in the room.
Rather than having characters rail about the Draft, Jen Bryant provides
just enough information to hint at the inequities surrounding who did and did
not get shipped off to that misguided war and to spark recognition of how
the inevitable and devastating impact of a war reaches deep into the
typical American community.
KALEIDOSCOPE EYES is a coming-of-age tale about thirteen year-old Lyza
Bradley, who is best friends with the tall, quiet, and thoughtful black boy,
Malcolm Dupree, and the small, hyperactive white girl, Carolann Mott. In a
dysfunctional family where her mother has deserted them and her father has
buried himself in his teaching career, it is Lyza's two friends along with
-- surprisingly -- the older, hippie sister she has such a poor opinion of,
who will be there for Lyza.
The treasure hunt (and related geology lesson) at the center of the story
involves the mysterious set of maps left in an envelope for Lyza by her
beloved grandfather when he dies. Gramps was a career Navy navigator who has
taught Lyza his skills, and has also sought to share his sense of adventure
-- if only on paper:
"'Where shall we sail today, Lyza?' he'd ask,
and I'd reply, 'Australia!' or 'Jamaica!'
and, using a compass and a ruler,
we'd plot our course across the water
just me and him together,
a real adventure.
Once, Gramps showed me photos of when,
years earlier, he'd tried to sail
alone
from Florida to Maine,
with just his maps, a compass, a radio, and a two-week
supply of water and food.
He didn't make it. The Coast Guard rescued him,
a big storm having blown his boat
onto the rocks of the Massachusetts coast.
'Weren't you scared?' I asked him.
"Terrified--almost the whole time,' Gramps answered.
'But,' he added, 'I'd never felt more alive.'"
When Lyza finds the puzzle pieces for Gramps' final and unfinished
adventure -- searching for a pirate treasure lost centuries ago -- it is the
support and assistance of her friends that permits Lyza to grow beyond the
confines of her family problems and seek the solution to the puzzle.
But irregardless of what happens with the three friends and their
adventure, at the end of the story it is the fresh gravestones down the street,
the
boy in town with blown-off legs, and Malcolm's brother somewhere deep in
the jungles of Vietnam who are the real story here -- the story of 1968 in
America. And that, by itself, makes KALEIDOSCOPE EYES a book well worth
owning.
"So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here
and sing it when it does.
Here it comes."
I have two kids of draft age right now: a daughter who is eighteen and a
son who is seventeen and a half. But I don't care if it is this year or
twenty years down the line -- you won't find me supporting any war unless I am
ready to literally sacrifice my own children's lives to it.
Don't hold your breath waiting for that.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks _http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/)
_http://www.librarything.com/profile/richiespicks_
(http://www.librarything.com/profile/richiespicks)
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
Moderator _http://groups.yahoo.com/middle_school_lit/_
(http://groups.yahoo.com/middle_school_lit/)
_http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks_ (http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks)
FTC NOTICE: Richie receives free books from lots of publishers who hope he
will Pick their books. You can figure that any review was written after
reading and dog-earring a free copy received. Richie retains these review
copies for his rereading pleasure and for use in his booktalks at schools
and libraries.
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