Schwartz and Wade2008
Ages: 10-14
I discovered and fell in love with Polly Horvath's writing in Everything on a Waffle. After reading everything she's written before and since, one thing is for sure. Her work is artful writing, no matter the topic. Take a couple of sentences like these,
"I pray for a hundred adventures. And maybe, I think, if I pray all the time unceasingly as Nellie is telling us we should, as I walk to town and help my mother shuck oysters, as I make baskets from reeds and sweep the floors or weed the vegetable garden, as I sit mooning over the movement of the wind and lying on my back, lost in the thoughtlessness of doing nothing, then there might be a response."
(*pause* to fully appreciate this sentence)
This book is set by the sea, about the daughter of a poet searching for meaning in her life through the adventures she experiences one summer. The adventures range from extraordinary to quietly profound. The narrative reads like rolling waves. Still, the characteristic, quirky humor is stirred in, giving that most wonderful of make-you-laugh-and-cry-in-the-same-paragraph reading experiences.
"I pray for a hundred adventures. And maybe, I think, if I pray all the time unceasingly as Nellie is telling us we should, as I walk to town and help my mother shuck oysters, as I make baskets from reeds and sweep the floors or weed the vegetable garden, as I sit mooning over the movement of the wind and lying on my back, lost in the thoughtlessness of doing nothing, then there might be a response."
(*pause* to fully appreciate this sentence)
This book is set by the sea, about the daughter of a poet searching for meaning in her life through the adventures she experiences one summer. The adventures range from extraordinary to quietly profound. The narrative reads like rolling waves. Still, the characteristic, quirky humor is stirred in, giving that most wonderful of make-you-laugh-and-cry-in-the-same-paragraph reading experiences.
Some have quibbled about plot structure and the all-important arc. I think the character IS the plot, and the tension between the outrageous and the poetic create an arc of self-discovery. In the end, poetry (love) wins. How do we live with the outrageousness of life without letting our egos get in the way of love? I want to read this to my children and ask them if they think Mrs. Gourd deserved what she got. Is justice merely a more dignified word for revenge?
Jane, the protagonist, says, "More often than not, when my mother sits on the porch steps now, we are totally silent. I think we are memorizing the sound of the waves."
Don't you want to read a book where people talk like this? And tell a story you recognize as your very own? And is in the form of a prose poem to boot? Polly Horvath must love our crazy world. This book is an ode to the ocean, a love song to life.
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