Going Bovine

Bray, Libba. Going Bovine. New York, NY: Delacorte Press. 2009. ISBN: 9780385733977

Plot Summary:
Cameron Smith is unpopular, has a job he hates, a popular twin sister, doesn’t do very well in school and finds it hard to communicate with his parents. He finds himself in the middle of a suburban wasteland and longs to get out. Soon after the reader meets Cameron, something inside his head begins to change. He is having trouble controlling his body and keeps having visions of fire giants along the landscape of his seemingly normal hometown. After a toaster catches fire in the kitchen and Cameron has another hallucination, his parents take him to the doctor where they find out Cameron has Creutzfeldt-Jakob – or mad cow - disease. The disease is incurable and will eventually leave Cameron without any brain function.

Soon after the diagnosis, Cameron is sent to the hospital where he shares a room with Ignacio “Gonzo” Gonzales. After a visit by a “punk-rock” angel, who tells Cameron he has to search for the cure, Cameron and Gonzo embark on a road trip to find the doctor that holds the key to cure. They stop in New Orleans, where they play with a jazz legend, get taken to a commune where there is no unhappy thought allowed, find themselves in the company of a living breathing garden gnome named Balder and make a stop at an MTV-style beach house. Along the road, Cameron and Gonzo find out different things about themselves, but are always on the lookout for Dr. X and the cure. Eventually, Cameron figures out that this journey is all a figment of his imagination and that there is no cure. While Cameron of this world passes away at the end of the novel, he finds himself living in the afterlife with the punk-rock angel.

Critical Analysis:
A work of low fantasy, Going Bovine does its best to allude to the reader that not everything is as it seems in the story. Cameron has flashbacks to the “real” world during the moments that he stops to sleep on his adventure. These include moments when he sees and hears his parents, his nurse and feels some connection to his actual surroundings. Bray does an excellent job of connecting the main character’s adventures on the road trip, to stories that Cameron has shared with the reader prior to his diagnosis. For instance, his mother would regale he and his sister with Norse tales and that translates to the inclusion of the talking gnome, Balder, in the story. This consistency in thought brings continuity to the story, amid the fantastical things that are happening to Cameron.

Cameron is identifiable to many readers of the target audience of the novel. He is on the fringe, not in the inner circle, but does his best not to care. During his expedition, Cameron figures out what how self-centered he has been his whole life, bringing a new depth to his character. Prior to this discovery, Cameron is not a character the reader may particularly care about, but his journey into understanding the importance of letting other people in makes his character admirable and likable. Clearly, the theme of this work is within the growth of Cameron’s awareness that love, living and friendship are more important than he knew.

Awards and Reviews:
“[M]eandering and message-driven at times…[s]ome teens may check out before Cameron makes it to his final destination, but many will enjoy asking themselves the questions both deep and shallow that pop up along the way.” Suzanne Gordon, School Library Journal

“Bray portrays Cameron so realistically that he is every teen struggling with his or her identity. At times, readers will both love and hate Cameron as his adventures are alternately comical, nail biting, and heart wrenching.” – Laura Panter, VOYA

“This is a huge book in every way: an epic, picaresque 480-page journey; a scathingly observed social satire of the ways in which we numb ourselves to avoid the pain and risk of actually engaging with our lives; a stay-up-late-to-finish-it page-turner; and a sprawling, hilarious, and deeply moving meditation on what it is, in the end, that makes life worth living.” Claudia Mills, Ph.D., Children’s Literature

2009 - Children's Book Sense Pick
2009 - Publishers Weekly Best Children's Book of the Year
2009 - Booklist Books for Youth Editors' Choice
2010 - Michael L. Printz Award Winner
2010 - ALA Best Books for Young Adults
2010 - NCSS/CBC Notable Children's Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies
2010 - New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age

Connections:
*How does one get mad cow disease anyway? How does it affect the body? How can you prevent it? Break students into groups that answer different questions about the facts of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
*Cameron in the first chapter is very different than Cameron in the last chapter. In what ways did each character change on the trip? Compare and contrast the characters at the beginning of the journey to who they were at the end.
* What were some of the things that Cameron mentioned about his life that returned during the road trip in different ways? (Look for ways that the author included facts Cameron mentioned before the introduction of his illness into different parts of the story.)

Book Jacket found on: http://hamiltonteens.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/going-bovine-by-libba-bray/