Inside Out And Back Again

One of my New Year's resolutions was to make time every week to read more books, which I tend not to do when I'm fully absorbed in my own writing. Being a finalist for this year's South Carolina Children's Book Awards, (it's still thrilling to say that), and seeing so many titles on the list that intrigue me, I'm determined to read most of them before the winner is announced in March of 2013.

While I usually don’t gravitate toward novels told in verse like Inside Out And Back Again, Thanhha Lai--the first-time author of this National Book Award winner--composes such beautiful, vivid prose, I feel as if I could taste the papaya tree fruit  “middle sweet, between a mango and a pear,” and feel the warm breezes of Saigon just before South Vietnam crumbled.

Told by 10-year-old Ha, who navigates her place in a community left cautious, frightened, and rationed at the cusp of Vietnam War, Ha feels helpless both as a child, and as a girl in a culture favoring boys like her 3 older brothers. Ha’s bursts of random thoughts riddle the calendar of the novel (which begins and ends with Tet, the first day of the Vietnamese Lunar New Year), like sharp staccato notes on a keyboard. Her two anchors are the papaya tree that has grown serendipitously in the yard from discarded seeds, and her beloved mother.

The family manages to escape just before Saigon falls, and journey by boat to become refugees. Finally ending up in America, the tone and pace abruptly changes, and Ha’s disappointment with her new world is palpable. As Ha pronounces: “No one would believe me but at times I would choose wartime in Saigon over peacetime in Alabama.”  

I preferred hearing about Ha's life on the run (I suppose I was hoping things would then get better for them in America, somehow). Yet the language of the book is so unexpectedly stunning, I spent the day away from my writing and read it in one sitting. 

I won’t soon forget my favorite line in the book where Ha writes about her mother: ”She’s wrong, but I still love being near her even more than I love my papaya tree. I will give her its first fruit.”

BOOKS & AUTHORS: FOCUSING ON THE SOUTH CAROLINA CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARD

ONE BOOK AT A TIME

I was just talking about the power of state book awards with Rich, and how once your novel gets on a list, people start seeing the book differently. They take notice. And it feels good to be noticed, doesn't it?

 I mean, I’ve been noticing the nominees on South Carolina’s Children’s Book Award list since Little Joe became a finalist. I want to read them all. 

Many of the titles I’d heard of, but most of them I’d hadn’t. And that’s a shame. 

So, since it’ll be 11 months until we find out who the winner is (the kids choose), I’ve decided to read as many as I can and let you know about them. First up: Because of Terupt by Rob Buyea. (For a full list of the nominees, read here.)

Mr. Terupt’s the kind of person every teacher aspires to be and any fifth grader would want mentoring them in class. I never had a Mr. Terupt, though I did have teachers enthusiastic enough about their subjects for me to glean insight on work ethic and passion--not to mention my penchant for shoes. (My first grade teacher wore a different pair of patent leather pumps each day to match the color of her dress, and I’ve been wearing shiny shoes ever since.)

But Mr. Terupt is different—he’s concerned with drawing out the most from his students and having them build a community within class walls where it’s safe, nurturing and fun—in other words, an environment that fosters learning.

  

We find all this all out not from Mr. Terupt, but through 7 very different student narratives. As an author, I admire Rob (who's taught 3^rd and 4^th graders) for attempting and keeping so many voices going consistently—imagine writing about 7 main characters, and in first person! (Lots of continuity checking and revisions, I’m sure.) Mr. Terupt becomes the catalyst for their words, feelings and changing perceptions, and I really like that idea in a book. Tension builds as each narrator hints about the fateful day when a snowball changes everything and Mr. Terupt becomes the focus, bringing them all even closer.

Rob’s already written the much anticipated sequel to Because of Terupt, so we’ll find out more about the mysterious background behind the inspirational teacher.

Though Sidney Poitier in To Sir, With Love will always be my favorite fictitious teacher of all time, I have a soft spot for Because of Terupt. Rob’s book came out the same year Little Joe did and we were both featured in Random House’s It’s a First spotlight, along with Clare Vanderpool’s Moon Over Manifest. Sound familiar? Clare’s first novel won the Newbery!