Options for Fiction Reading, Part Three of Four

Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary

"Why don't you turn on the dawnzer? It gives a lee light."

Beverly Cleary has an ageless appeal. I look back on this fondly as the first chapter book I read, and before I could read it myself, I listened to it on tape until the ribbon wore out. Just last summer, I broke it out and flipped through the pages, excited for the day when Finley will press repeat on her tape player iPod, listening to Ramona play Grey Duck over and over again. The best thing about Ms. Cleary, in all of her books, is her ability to sneak in very realistic humor about children, how their worlds work, and how they view adults. What I appreciate now as an adult about these books, however, is that her characters are always spunky but never sassy, unlike all modern replicas of Ramona (I'm looking at you, Clementine).

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

"Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God."

Okay, so I have maybe mentioned this book on this blog a few times, but it's another one that just--ugh, I can't describe it in any new way. It's been reviewed a million times, and each person seems to stutter like I do, trying to find the words to do it justice. I didn't read my first Vonnegut until a few months after I graduated from high school, and even though this isn't specifically written as a young adult novel, I often wonder what effect it would have had on me if I had read it earlier. The story begins with John, the narrator, who decides to write a book on where important Americans were the day the first atomic bomb was dropped. He first interviews a fictional physicist, Felix Hoenikker, and John realizes that the scientist may have left behind a substance that could threaten life on earth.

The most fantastic thing about this book is how cyclical it is. Every chapter you read, you leave behind a certain setting for another one. Nothing is mentioned that is not brought in again for some sort of metaphor. In this book, Vonnegut (a well-known atheist) centers around the juxtaposition of religion and science, and points out the flaws in each of them through this story. So good. MUST be read.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

"I am sufficiently proud of my knowing something to be modest about my not knowing all."

I adore Russian literature. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Gogol, Chekhov, Bulgakov--I love them. Nabokov does something to me in particular, and there is a reason why Lolita, despite its slightly discomforting subject matter, is the greatest of his works. We're all familiar with the story: the self-deprecating but incredibly insightful narrator Humbert Humbert recounts with deep shame but brutal honesty how he fell in love with twelve year-old Dolores, whom he calls Lolita. The most brilliant insertion Nabakov brought into this seemingly disgusting novel was endowing Humbert, a known pedophile, with wit, charm, and a bewitchingly sophisticated prose style. Beautiful book. Just stunning. 

White Oleander by Janet Fitch

"Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In life, knowledge of poisons is essential. I've told you, nobody becomes an artist unless they have to."

I have to be honest: I glanced at this book on the library shelf for two years and ran screaming in the other direction because it had the sticker with the dreaded words on it: "Oprah's Book Club." Then when I finally read the first paragraph, three days later I realized I had finished it. Again, this is not a book for the faint of heart. It deals with murder, cruel foster homes, child/adult sexual relations, drug use, and, most intriguingly, a manipulative mother who insists her daughter grow up knowing poetry rather than basic arithmetic. This is a dark book, but the author weaves in lightness through her fresh metaphors. It's literary fiction of the highest kind. 

Astrid Magnussen is a young teenager, living with her mother Ingrid, who is an artist and poet who fights fiercely. When Ingrid's boyfriend leaves her, she exacts her revenge by poisoning him with oleander flowers. She is arrested, sent to prison, and we follow Astrid on her journey from foster home to foster home, with her mother's controlling letters serving as mileposts through the story. I re-read this every summer when the wind gets warm.

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

"There is no harm in a man's cub."

No child should grow up without reading the stories of the jungle, because every child imagines what it would be like to be raised by a pack of wolves, defeating deadly tigers, wrestling with snakes beneath the canopy of the trees, growling in the river with a bear. If Finley had been a boy, her middle name would probably have been Kipling. We all know the story: Mowgli is a man-cub who grows up away from humans under the watch of his Brothers of the Pack. Kipling pours on childhood fantasies in this book. Read it. Find an illustrated version. I think if the world was ending, this is the book I'd want tucked underneath my arm.

The final part coming soon!