[LM_NET] Richie's Picks: AS SIMPLE AS IT SEEMS

[Richie Partington <BudNotBuddy@AOL.COM>]

Richie's Picks: AS SIMPLE AS IT SEEMS by  Sarah Weeks, HarperCollins/Laura 
Geringer, June 2010, 192p., ISBN:  978-0-06-084663-3; Libr. ISBN: 
978-0-06-084664-0  

"The children felt with
their fingers for the quick beat of the bird's 
heart in its breast.  But there was no heart 
beating.  That was how they knew it was  dead."
-- Margaret Wise Brown, THE DEAD BIRD (1938)
 
"Angels fall like rain
and love is all of heaven away"
-- Psychedelic Furs, "The Ghost in You"
 
"'Look here, Verbie,' she said.  'See how some of the  berries on this bush 
are plump and juicy?'  She reached out and barely  touched a ripe berry, 
which was all it took to separate it from its nub.   It rolled into her open 
palm and she held it out to me.  'You can tell just  by looking at it how 
sweet this one will taste.'
"I took the berry from her and slipped it into my mouth.   It was soft and 
full of juice.  'Now look at these other berries,' she  said.  'They're 
growing right alongside the sweet ones on the very same  bush, but for some 
reason they turned out small and bitter; like hard little  fists full of seeds.' 
 She touched a small, dark purple berry with her  fingertip but it held 
tightly to its nub.  
"'Those are the Uncle Mikes, aren't they?' I  said.
"My mother put her arm around me, resting her cheek on the top  of my head.
"'Everyone was put here on this earth for a reason, Sugarpea,'  she said.  
'Even Mike Colter.'
"'Was he really as bad as everybody says he was?' I  asked.
"'Yes,' she said.  'But there must have been a little bit  of good in him 
too, otherwise--'"
 
Verbena Ellen Colter's parents find it necessary to explain to  her in the 
middle of fifth grade -- years after she'd had that  never-finished 
conversation with her mother -- that she is actually the  biological daughter of 
her 
paternal uncle, Mike Colter, and Mike's alcoholic  wife, Grace Kincaid.  
When Verbena was born -- suffering from  fetal alcohol syndrome -- her 
biological father was already in prison for  murder.  (He is still there.)  
 
Verbie quickly comes to the conclusion, upon learning the  facts of her 
birth, that the way she has recently begun feeling: being  grouchy, losing her 
temper, feeling self-conscious, and crying for no reason at  all, is the 
result of her having Mike Colter's blood running though her  veins, that "the 
real me had finally decided to show up," and that she is  destined to 
similarly become a hard fist full of seeds.  And when her long-time best buddy 
Annie gets a new friend and  disappears for the summer, things look even worse.  
 
But then a boy with his own set of problems -- including  being nicknamed 
Pooch by one of his mother's boyfriends -- appears with his  mother to spend 
part of the summer in the house they've rented down  the road.  It is a 
house that has not been lived in since before Verbena  was born -- the house 
where young Tracy Allen lived with her family  before drowning all those years 
ago in nearby Bonner's  Lake.
 
"'Does being dead make everyone grumpy, or were you like this  before you 
were a ghost?'"
 
In AS SIMPLE AS IT SEEMS master storyteller Sarah  Weeks brings together a 
girl, a boy, a lake, a boat, a ghost story, a  town band, and a three-legged 
dog.  The coming of age tale that  results is repeatedly laugh-out-loud 
funny.  But it also is very  revealing.  I can still vividly recall how, when 
my sister was in  fifth grade, she would, seemingly without warning, storm 
out of the house and  take refuge under an overturned rowboat stored in the  
backyard.
 
Now that all makes a lot more sense.   

 


Richie  Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks _http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/) 
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
Moderator  _http://groups.yahoo.com/middle_school_lit/_ 
(http://groups.yahoo.com/middle_school_lit/) 
Moderator  _http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EcolIt/_ 
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EcolIt/)   
_http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/people/faculty/partingtonr/partingtonr.php_ 
(http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/people/faculty/partingtonr/partingtonr.php) 

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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