The New York Times reviews Celine by Brock Cole

By LYNN FREED
Published: April 15, 1990

CELINE
By Brock Cole.
216 pp. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
$13.95. (Ages 12 and up)
Here's a rare pleasure: Brock Cole's ''Celine'' is a novel that doesn't set out deliberately to instruct, uplift, comfort, amuse or expand the horizons of those readers known, perhaps condescendingly, as ''young adults.'' Yet it manages to accomplish all this and much more simply by telling a fine story about an unforgettable character.
Celine Morienval is a 16-year-old artist living in a Chicago loft with her 22-year-old stepmother, Catherine. Her own mother lives on a yacht in Antigua. And her father, in the blithe, masculine hope that his new wife and his daughter will grow to love each other, has gone off on an extended lecture tour of Europe, leaving Celine with an injunction to ''show a little maturity.''
''Really,'' Celine says, ''it's hard not to be offended. If I was any more mature, I'd have Alzheimer's disease.''
We get her point. From the start, she finds herself both player and observer in all sorts of dramas and intrigues. As such, she provides not only a sort of wacky foil to the goings-on around her but also a straight eye and a clear voice in the face of a whole gamut of contemporary issues, problems and shibboleths.

There's Jake Barker, for instance, her neighbor's child, who, despite his mother's claim that there isn't anyone she'd rather spend time with, winds up on Celine's hands for most of the novel. Jake's parents are splitting up. He visits a counselor once a week. ''I've never actually been to a psychologist myself,'' Celine muses, ''but I've heard it all somewhere or another. All about how much his parents both love him, and how they weren't separating from him but just from each other. They would always love him and the important thing is that it isn't his fault. . . . But that isn't the way it is at all. His parents don't like their lives anymore, and they're willing to chop the kid up a bit to change things. That's the truth, isn't it? If they really loved him so much, they wouldn't get a divorce.''
At school, Celine is trying to graduate a year early. One can't blame her; she clearly doesn't fit in. But she has to pass swimming first, and she has a phobia about water. And there's a paper on Holden Caulfield to rewrite, with Jake landed on her for the weekend. Then there's Catherine, from Paterson, N.J., who talks in an English accent and goes on about Derr-i-da, watching Celine hopefully for signs of deconstruction. No such luck.

Schooled, the book that wishes it were Stargirl

Gordon Korman's Schooled (2007) features a kid who has been homeschooled navigating his way through 8th grade in a public middle school; Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl (2000) has a 10th grade protagonist who has been homeschooled and is in a public high school for the first time.  The ages and genders may be different, but the plots are similar: outsider hippy kid enters the mainstream for the first time, failing miserably at fitting in.  At first rejected by the kids, then embraced by kids and becoming influential.  Stargirl outshines Schooled by far.  Schooled''s main character, Capricorn Anderson, has been raised on a commune by his grandmother.  Except that they are the only two people living there.  The commune that Capricorn's grandmother founded has long been disbanded, and Capricorn's parents are both dead.  Yet throughout the book, Capricorn refers to his home as "the community."  Schooled is filled with so many of these types of details that I found them to be distracting and false-sounding.  Capricorn is given a checkbook by the school principal, in order to write checks for things such as the vendors for the Halloween dance.  Capricorn ends up writing checks willy-nilly to charities, giving generously.  He also uses one check at a jewelry store; the unbelievability of a jewelry store accepting a check from a 13 year old boy with no identification and the name of his middle school on the check made me pause. While Schooled is a sweet story, even a page-turner at some points, I found the incongruity of the "facts" of the story to make the book much weaker than it would have been had Korman tightened up some of these details.



While Schooled treats Capricorn like he has been raised on another planet ("What's a Starbuck?" he asks), Stargirl treats Stargirl Caraway as just different.  She is here, she is part of this world, but she is just doing it her own way.  A much more believable book, Stargirl presents its heroine as contemporary, yet utterly unique.  While Capricorn Anderson seems to have time-traveled from the 1960s (although born in 1994), Stargirl Caraway is just straight out of central casting as a non-conformist.  Stargirl is a more thought-provoking story about how people react to an outsider, and it completely captures the Icarian highs and lows of the laws of the teenage social world with a sparkly magical realism.  Both titles have been on middle school summer reading lists in recent years --- read both and see if you agree with my analysis!

Dicey et al

A journey, survival, sticking together; these are all words that come to mind when one thinks about Cynthia Voigt's 1981 children's novel, Homecoming.  It's impossible not to get drawn in as the Tillerman children realize that they have been abandoned by their mentally ill mother in a mall parking lot in Connecticut and decide what their next move will be.  Lead by 13 year old Dicey, the four children travel by foot, sleep outdoors and scramble to get food in their bellies as they journey to Bridgeport to find their Aunt Cilla.  Dicey is nothing if not resourceful, and her perserverance and loyalty to her siblings is remarkable.  The second book in the Tilerman saga, titled Dicey's Song delivers more of the same, with a carefully crafted plot and skillful character development.  If you enjoy the feeling of cheering silently inside for a protagonist as you read a book, you will find these two Cynthia Voigt offerings more than satisfying.

"A glowing book...An enthralling journey to a gratifying end."THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

What we're reading right now...

While Small Steps is the sequel to Holes, it is not necessary to have read Holes to lose yourself completely in Small Steps.  This 2006 follow-up addresses class, race, gender and physical disabilities in a refreshing and thoughtful manner not often encountered in children's literature.  Armpit, our protagonist, is an African-American teenager who spent time in a juvenile dentention center for commiting a violent crime that landed two victims in the hospital.  Back at home after incarceration, Armpit has plans, his "small steps" toward  a successful and honest life. We see Armpit continually striving to do the right thing, even when others around him try to block his path.  Overcoming stereotypes and respecting others are major themes in this work and Armpit's belief in himself and his kindness towards others make this an important (but not didactic) book for middle school and older readers.

School Library Journal Review

Gr 5-8-This sequel to Holes (Farrar, 1998) focuses on Armpit, an African-American former resident of Tent D at Camp Green Lake. It's two years after his release, and the 16-year-old is still digging holes, although now getting paid for it, working for a landscaper in his hometown of Austin, TX. He's trying to turn his life around, knowing that everyone expects the worst of him and that he must take small steps to keep moving forward. When X-Ray, his friend and fellow former detainee at the juvenile detention center, comes up with a get-rich-quick scheme involving scalping tickets to a concert by teenage pop star Kaira DeLeon, Armpit fronts X-Ray the money. He takes his best friend and neighbor, Ginny, a 10-year-old with cerebral palsy, to the concert and ends up meeting Kaira, getting romantically involved, and finally becoming a hero by saving her life when her stepfather tries to kill her and frame him. Small Steps has a completely different tone than Holes. It lacks the bizarre landscape, the magical realism, the tall-tale quality, and the heavy irony. Yet, there is still much humor, social commentary, and a great deal of poignancy. Armpit's relationship with Ginny, the first person to care for him, look up to him, and give his life meaning, is a compassionate one. Like Holes, Small Steps is a story of redemption, of the triumph of the human spirit, of self-sacrifice, and of doing the right thing. Sachar is a master storyteller who creates memorable characters.

-Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc.

The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan illustrated by Peter Sis

Neftali is keenly aware of his environment including his family and things he finds and collects while exploring outside. Because he is sickly he is often confined inside and must rely on his younger sister’s description of what she sees from the window. Unfortunately for both of them their father is overbearing and determined to make them physically strong and intellectually brilliant. Naturally this leads to conflict and this conflict finally leads Neftali to leave for university in a distant city.
The story is based on poet Pablo Neruda’s life. He also had a difficult father and left his family when he went to the university. Later he became one of the most famous poets in the world. The illustrations perfectly show the details which Neftali sees and feels but in a day dreaming kind of way. The three panels at the beginning of each chapter outline the progression of events in the chapter.
Neftali cares deeply about people’s feelings and fairness. Through his story you will also gain insights into what it means to have dreams you want to pursue. The library has a biography of Neruda in the Children’s collection, and many volumes of his poetry and stories in the adult collection.
check the catalog