Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes

Crutcher, Chris. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes. New York City: Greenwillow Books, 1993.

Chubby Eric Calhoune has always felt like he was on the outside. He finds a kindred spirit in Sarah Byrnes (who prefers her whole name), who was scarred in a mysterious accident when she was very young. Feeling like outcasts, the two begin to write an underground newspaper Crispy Pork Rinds as a way to get their feelings out. Friends since middle school, Eric (often called Mobe) and Sarah find themselves at a crossroads during their senior year. After being recruited to the swim team, the formerly rotund Eric has started to slim down, begins building a relationship with a girl and finds tension growing between he and Sarah. Suddenly, during a class one day Sarah quits talking, going catatonic. Her doctors encourage Eric to talk to her, maybe to jog her out of her comatose state, which Eric does with loyalty. Eventually, Eric finds out that Sarah is faking her silence because she is terrified of her father, who was the one that scarred her. After an altercation with her psychotic father in which Eric is injured, Mr. Byrnes is captured and Sarah is finally safe with a new family.

Crutcher writes this work around a theme that is typical of this genre; Sarah Byrnes is having a crisis and her friend is trying to solve it. Most striking about the work is that though it sounds formulaic, the way Crutcher presents the characters and plots the story creates a world inside of a world. Using vivid imagery, the author brings us inside the school, swim practice and Sarah’s hospital room without missing a beat. Descriptive sentences like, “my frozen hair hugging my head like a bicycle helmet and my breath shooting from my mouth like exhaust from a truck,” bring the reader into the story and its atmosphere. The quick language and comical situations round out the oft-heavy story line, breaking up some of the truly grave and profound obstacles the characters face. Contributing to the fullness of the story is the addition of positive adults, like Eric’s swim coach and his mother’s boyfriend. These adults intervene when necessary, are encouraging, involved and are a stark contrast to the villainous Mr. Byrnes. Such a juxtaposition of characters and actions make the lesson within the novel less preachy and more substantial.

Eric and Sarah are categorized within their high school, but are revealed to be more than the characterization given to them by their peers. The same consideration of being more than what is seen is not given to every character in the story, however. In a controversial class which the main and secondary characters share, many of the Christians in the class are portrayed as ultra-conservative, duplicitous and humorless. Kirkus Reviews also point out this bias by saying Crutcher “doesn’t always play fair in developing his themes – all the conservative Christians are dupes or hypocrites.” Should Crutcher have developed some opposites to these one-sided Christians, like he has with the adults in the story, it would seem less like he was attempting to make a point in his writing. In a work where not everything is as it seems, having typical, flat antagonists does not match with the rest of the story.

Book cover found on: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/c/chris-crutcher/staying-fat-for-sarah-brynes.htm

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You

Carter, Ally. I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have To Kill You. New York City: Hyperion, 2006.

Cammie Morgan is not a regular sophomore. In fact, she is far from it. Enrolled at what appears to be an elite all-girls boarding school, Cammie is studying to be a spy at the Gallagher Academy, an super secret school for girls with genius IQ’s. Mrs. Morgan (a former spy) works at the school as the headmaster, so Cammie is able to learn the ins-and-out of the school – which include a LOT of secret passageways. Cammie, along with the rest of her sophomore class, are finally entering the class they have been waiting for, Covert Operations, the class that teaches you how to really work out in the field as a spy. A new professor, handsome Joe Solomon, has taken over the class and takes the girls out for their first mission. Cammie and her friends Bex and Liz are teamed up to trail one of the most paranoid teachers at the school. Losing sight of her companions, Cammie happens to run into Josh, a townie who captures Cammie’s eye. When the excursion is over, Cammie, Liz and Bex decide to take their experience beyond the classroom and investigate Josh secretly. One problem though: Cammie ends up falling for their target. After a few weeks of leading a double life, Cammie finds herself wanting to tell the truth to Josh and begins feels the weight of such a secret on her back.

I’d Tell You does a fantastic job of giving life to the school, creating the setting of the spy school and the back story of the Gallagher girls in great detail. The school is so heartily described it nearly becomes another character; secret passages and chambers, the atmosphere inside the corridors and dorm rooms gives the reader an entrance into the world in which the girls live. Cammie describes her own room as having “cool dormers and oddly shaped windows where a girl can sit with her back against the wall and listen to the thundering feet and squeals of hello.” Still other developments in the story, like the background of the academy and its esteemed alumni, round out the setting with flair. Miranda Doyle agrees with this statement in School Library Journal saying that, “the invented history of the Gallagher Girls is entertaining.” Such descriptions about the surroundings of the girls allow the reader entry into the world in which they live. By using description this way, the novel (whose premise is nearly impossible) becomes a bit more realistic and tangible to the reader.

Adding to the tangibility of the story and resounding with sincerity is the main plot line that follows Cammie falling for her target, Josh. Young readers will find that they can, to a certain extent identify with the struggles that Cammie faces when thinking about and having a relationship with Josh. While readers may not be in school to become a secret agent, they may relate with the fact that Cammie can not truly be who she is around her beau, a theme that runs throughout the story. Readers may also find the reports done by the “operatives” amusing in their self-depreciation and a nice break from the regular text. What readers may not enjoy is the lack of action: in a book about spies action is slow and suspense is non-existent. Additionally, one may find that characters are not equally developed. Macey, a new student to whom Cammie takes an instant dislike, becomes her confidant in a twist unsupported by the text. Some may find the additional characters without depth and thin.

Book cover found on: http://readingkidsbooks.blogspot.com/2007/09/id-tell-you-i-love-you-but-then-id-have.html

Dairy Queen

Murdock, Catherine Gilbert. Dairy Queen. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.

Working on a dairy farm alongside her nearly mute brother is not D.J. Schwenk’s idea of a great summer, but after her father hurt is hip, she does not have much choice in the matter. She dutifully takes care of the disintegrating farm, at the cost of failing her English class during her sophomore year, rendering her ineligible to play any sports. This is hard for D.J. to take, considering she comes from a family of jocks; her two older brothers were even town football heroes, although they never come home after a fight with their father. When the coach for the opposing team (who also happens to be a close family friend) sends over their quarterback, egotistical Brian, to work, D.J. is less than happy. After a brief confrontation and reconciliation, the two decide that D.J. should help train him for the upcoming season. Over the summer, the duo actually becomes friends and he enlightens D.J. to the fact that she is a bit of a doormat. After realizing that he may be right, she decides that going out for football is what she really wants to do. D.J. gains perspective, the ability to speak up for herself and the tenacity to go after what she wants.

The Schwenk family is not good about communicating with one another, causing several rifts between family members and making it hard for D.J. to say what she wants. Young readers may identify with this aspect of the flawed heroine, in that sometime it is hard for them to say what they are really thinking. Tense family interactions further show how the family’s communication skills (or lack thereof) have affected D.J. to her core. A quip from Brian to D.J. telling her that, “when you don’t talk, there’s a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said,” is indicative of D.J.’s reluctance to speak her mind. With a suggestion by Brian that she follows along blindly, much like the cows she tends to, D.J. begins to open her mind up to the possibility that she has the ability to do what she wants, not do what everyone else wants her to do. The reader is given a first-hand view into the journey that she takes in figuring out who she is and who she wants to become.

Most notable about the work is the fact that D.J.’s point of view and characterization is solid from beginning to end. D.J. never breaks character, saying things like "that was real nice" and never getting far from the character she actually is and was meant to be. Sometimes, when you have a novel about a character going through a change, the writer gets carried away with the metamorphosis and the character completely changes. D.J. does change and grow mentally and emotionally, but how she speaks and relates her thoughts to the reader remains the same, giving her characters' transformation more realism. In fact, her tomboy ways may appeal to a group of readers that find a lack of strong female characters like D.J. In School Library Journal, Amy Pickett is in accord with this idea saying the work may, “appeal to girls, like D.J., aren’t girly-girls but just girls, learning to be comfortable in their own skin.”

Book cover found on: http://blogs.skokielibrary.info/explorer/tag/awards/