Richie's Picks: THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX by Mary E. Pearson, Holt, April
2008, ISBN: 0-8050-7668-9
"It's my life
Don't you forget"
-- No Doubt
"I hear Lily humming. My feet fumble like they have a will of their own,
but I try to control them so she won't hear me. I lean close to the wall and
peek into the kitchen. Her back is to me. She spends most of her time in
the kitchen preparing elaborate dishes, She used to be chief of internal
medicine at Boston University Hospital. Father was a resident under her. That
is how he met Mother. Lily gave it up. I don't know why. Now her passion is
gardening and cooking. It seems that everyone in this house is reinventing
themselves and no one is who they once were.
"When she is not in the kitchen cooking, she is out in the greenhouse
getting it in order. I can't eat her foods, and I wonder if that is part of the
reason she doesn't like me. She clanks pots and then turns on the faucet. I
make my move for the front door.
"The hinges on the heavy wooden door squeak when I exit, but she doesn't
follow. The sound blends with the clanking pots and rushing water. I have been
no farther than the front steps of the house, except for once when it was
dark and Mother took me for a short walk to Lily's greenhouse. Mother told me
from the start that I must stay close. She is afraid I will get lost.
"Lost adj. 1. No longer known. 2. Unable to find the way. 3. Ruined or
destroyed.
"I'm afraid I already am."
From the very beginning of THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX, the story of a girl
who has arisen from some sort of comatose state after nearly a year and a
half, we can tell that there is something seriously askew, some sort of intense
mystery about Jenna Fox to puzzle out.
Are the physical challenges (such as it being necessary for Jenna to consume
only tasteless "nutriments") an important clue?
"One day I couldn't walk. The next day I could. One day my right eyelid
drooped. The next it didn't. One day my tongue lay like a lump of meat in my
mouth, the next day it was articulating words that hadn't been spoken in over
a year.
"On the fifth day, when I walked out onto the veranda without stumbling,
Mother cried and said, 'It's a miracle. An absolute miracle.' "
Are the memory gaps an important clue?
Jenna recognizes from the beginning that her memory is not normal. She can
remember details of the French Revolution but cannot remember if she has ever
had a best friend. In fact, she does not even remember her parents or her
grandmother Lily. She does not remember her former life across the country in
Boston. She is frequently looking up seemingly everyday words she doesn't
know the meaning of.
Are the historical facts an important clue?
In the year since the accident, while Jenna has slept dreamlessly through
her sixteenth year, "A second woman has been elected president. A twelfth
planet has been named in the solar system. The last wild polar bear has died.
Headline news that couldn't stir me. I slept through it all." There is also
the information about the nine-point quake and its aftermath -- apparently it
took place before she was born -- that devastated southern California,
where Jenna is now living, and led to unimaginable global consequences.
Are the neighbor and what he reveals important clues?
On the first morning that Mother is away, when Jenna sneaks past Lily and
out the door, she encounters the next door neighbor.
" 'Lost?' he says.
"I look back at my house. I look at my hands. I turn them over and examine
both sides. My name is Jenna Fox. 'No,' I answer. I step forward.
"He holds out his hand. 'I'm Clayton Bender. You the new neighbor?' He
nods toward our house.
"New? What is new to him? Is a year new? 'I'm Jenna Fox. Yes, I live
over there.' I reach my hand out to him and we shake.
" 'Your hands are like ice, young lady. You still acclimating?'
"I don't know what that means, but I nod and say yes. 'I saw you from my
room. I saw you squatting. You're curious.'
"He laughs and says, 'You mean you're curious.'
" 'My grandmother thinks so.'
"He laughs again and shakes his head. I wonder if laughing is another
curious thing about him."
Things get curiouser and curiouser, beginning with Clayton Bender's
continuing on to mention his seeing Jenna's family moving in just "a couple of
weeks
ago," but then immediately drops the subject when Jenna hastily responds
that they've been there a lot longer than that.
Who or what is Jenna Fox?
That adolescence is universally a time of reinvention and fear, of feeling
lost and feeling alone makes THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX an ultimate futuristic
nightmare of a coming of age story.
" 'Pause," I blurt out. 'Back. Pause.' The disc player follows my
commands. I look closer at the still picture. 'Zoom.' The thin red line becomes
what I suspected. A scar.
"I walk to my bathroom mirror and tilt my face back. I run my fingertips up
the length of my throat. I feel. I search.
"There is no scar.
"It's been seven years since that video was filmed. Do scars disappear in
seven years?"
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com
Moderator, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks
Caldecott '09
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