Raymie Nightingale

Raymie Nightingale by Kate Di Camillo (Walker Books)

HC RRP $ 19.99

ISBN 9781406363135

Reviewed by Anastasia Gonis

Ten year-old Raymie’s father has left without saying goodbye. He has run off with another woman and she is broken at being fatherless. Her mother just sits and gazes into space. Raymie has a plan to bring her father home. If she wins the baton-twirling competition, she will be in the papers, and her dad will see her and possibly return.

There are two other girls in Ida Nee’s baton-twirling class --  Louisiana Elefante, daughter of two trapeze artists drowned at sea who lives with her eccentric grandmother. The other girl, Beverly Tapinski, is the daughter of a cop who lives in another city. All three girls have only one thing in common - their fatherlessness.

Louisiana is prone to fainting spells as she has swampy lungs. She is determined to win the competition to get the prize money to avoid being sent to the county home when her grandmother is no longer there. Beverly doesn’t care very much about anything, but she can twirl a baton.

These three girls become bound together by their mutual loss and loneliness, and all their questions that remain unanswered.

Deeply moving, philosophical and thought-provoking, Kate Di Camillo, two time recipient of the Newbery Medal, always produces spectacular work. She captures the purity of child characters’ voices and thoughts, and leaves the reader enraptured by the strength of insight and emotion that pours through her work without it being sentimental.

The Dunderheads Behind Bars

The Dunderheads Behind Bars by Paul Fleischman, illustrated by David Roberts (Walker Books)
PB RRP $16.95
ISBN 9781406344752
Reviewed by Anastasia Gonis

The Dunderheads are a cool group of kids, unconventional looking, but super-smart and resourceful. Each child has a special talent and a name associated with that talent. All together they are invincible.

School has finished for the year and the Dunderheads are glad to see the back of their teacher Miss Breakbone who hates kids. Rising star Ashley Throb-Hart, is filming in town and a call is out for extras. The Dunderheads get chosen to be in the playground scene, but so is Miss Breakbone.

A thief has been stealing expensive jewels around the area and the tyrannical Breakbone convinces her brother the Inspector, that Spider is the villain because of his climbing abilities, and Spider gets put in jail. The other Dunderheads draw up an elaborate plan to catch the real culprit but they end up in jail as well. Nothing will stop them for there’s always Einstein’s Plan B.

The illustrations by David Roberts are detailed, full of expression and movement, and highly comical. They bring Fleischman’s characters to life on the page and accentuate the text in a brilliant fashion.

This is the second Dunderheads book by Paul Fleischman who won the PEN USA Literary Award in 2010 for The Dunderheads, and the Newbery Medal for Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices. His latest picture book, the outstanding The Matchbox Diary, has just been released through Walker Books.

When my name was Keoko

When my name was Keoko by Linda Sue Park (University of Queensland Press)
PB RRP $16.95
ISBN 9 780702 249 747
Reviewed by Jo Antareau

Imagine living in a country that has been invaded by, then taken over by another. All of a sudden, you are no longer allowed to speak your language, tell stories passed down through generations, or even use the name you were born with.  Years before Gangnam Style and K-pop, this was Korea’s reality. A country occupied by the Japanese and its people forced to do whatever Japanese invaders told them to.

Written for children over 9 years, this story is based on events that the author’s parents lived through.  Both sad and funny, Linda Sue Park tells the story of Kim Sun-hee, a girl who never forgot her name even when forced to take on a Japanese name, Keoko. Park details the everyday outrages that were perpetrated on ordinary people, such as when Sun-hee’s brother Tae-yul had to give up the bicycle he painstakingly rebuilt because a Japanese soldier took a fancy to it.

The tone of the novel changes half way, as World War two commences. Koreans were expected to support Japan’s war effort by giving up their valuable possessions. Then Sun-hee’s beloved uncle disappears and although the family suspect he has joined the resistance movement, they have no way of knowing whether he is still alive.

With food and goods scarce, the families of Koreans who enlist with the Japanese army are rewarded with larger rations, older brother Tae-yul (who dreamed of being a pilot) joins up, to the outrage of the family. However Sun-hee never loses faith in him, believing he had a plan to sabotage any mission he took part in. Written in alternating viewpoints, tension mounts as Park drops hints about what Tae-yul feels he must do, and the final twist caught me by surprise.

I found this story well written and engrossing to read. American author, Linda Sue Park won the Newbery prize with her previous novel, A Single Shard.

Inside and Out and Back Again

Inside and Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai (University of Queensland Press)
PB RRP $16.95
ISBN 978 0 7022 4941 9
Reviewed by Jo Antareau

This is the story of a year in Ha’s life. Written in verse to portray her Vietnamese thoughts, this semi-autobiographical piece begins with snippets of her life in a privileged family in Saigon as a ten year old. But it is not carefree, as the family live under the shadow of their absent father, missing in combat, and a not-too-distant war.

Ha is otherwise a typical kid. She has her flaws, her conflicts with siblings. When trusted to shop for groceries in the market, she skimps on quantities in order to buy herself treats with the change. She longs for the delicious fruit of her papaya tree to ripen. But before she can enjoy them, the army marches into Saigon. The family is torn between remaining where her missing father may find them, and fleeing for safety. They eventually cram into a crowded boat headed for the US, abandoning the life they knew.

Moving to America turns her life upside-down, hence the title. Lai portrays the culture shock sensitively and with humour. The family are sponsored by a man who wears a cowboy hat but has no horse. The first Asians encountered by most in the small town in Alabama, the family meet both generosity and cruelty. Ha is confused by the smell and colour of her first hot dog, unlike any food she has ever experienced.

Sensitively written while avoiding any self pity, Lai writes of Ha’s humiliation, school ground bullying and her ultimate triumph. She is a survivor, not a victim.

As an adult, I found her literary style excellent, and her portrayal of a childhood in Vietnam and subsequent displacement, compelling. Comparisons to Amy Tan are inevitable.

This story of resilience is Lai’s first book, and won the 2011 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature in the US, and was a 2012 Newbery Honor book.

A Single Shard

 A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park (UQP)

PB RRP $16.95

ISBN 9780702239373
Reviewed by Jo Burnell

A Single Shard won the Newbery Award for the Most Distinguished Contribution to American Literature for Children in 2002. Fancy words for a simple tale that will touch the hearts of all who hear or read it.

Linda Sue Park has woven historical facts from 12th century Korea and Korean Celadon pottery with unlikely heroes. The result is a warm, enticing tale for all.

Tree Ear was orphaned as a toddler. Monks asked Crane Man, homeless, disabled and living under a bridge, to mind the child as they searched unsuccessfully for relatives. When they return ready to take the child to a nearby monastery, Tree Ear would not be parted from Crane Man.

So began the pair's happy struggle for survival under the bridge. Together they eked out a simple but honourable existence on the edge of starvation, adhering to Crane Man's philosophy: 'there are many ways to garner a meal, but stealing and begging make a man no better than a dog'.

A Single Shard is the tale of how, amid this fight for survival, ten year old Tree Ear's hopes and dreams of being a Celadon Potter rise and fall in a village filled with potters. Tree Ear's longing collides with the cantankerous Min, Master Potter, and his kind-hearted wife.

Join Tree Ear as his efforts to be a trustworthy assistant are met with obstacles and resistance. I could't put the book down as I cheered him on, only to find him fall once more. Tree Ear is not the sort to give up easily, but the peaks of tiny triumphs wrestled time and again with difficulties and tragedy.

Will Tree Ear ever reach his dream? A Single Shard touched me to my core, revealing my own real life fears and hopes. Sometimes life blocks us on our journey to fulfilment, or does it?