When the Whistle Blows

If I could get a bunch of boys ages ten and older and my Dad to read one book of fiction and then be a fly on a wall while they talked it over, it would be When the Whistle Blows by Fran Cannon Slayton.

Slayton’s book, a 2012 Virginia Readers Choice nominee for middle school books, is touching and funny and sweet and mischievous and sentimental and much more. The story, told in vignettes, relates Jimmy Cannon’s life from 1942-1948 in a rural West Virginia railroad town. Each story is set on All Hollow’s Eve which happens to be Jimmy’s father’s birthday, the annual meeting of an Irish secret society, every kid’s favorite holiday for spookiness and pranks….and another significant event that you’ll have to discover when you read the book.

The more Jimmy’s world stays the same, the more change we see in the six Halloweens of his adolescence. We witness the decline of steam engine dominance in West Virginia and the US and our modern life coming down the tracks in a way we wish we could slow up a bit.

As an adult reader, I love the concept of When the Whistle Blows. Slayton’s stories are from her father and grandfather. We feel her become a part of their world in a way most men of those times did not allow women folk to do. I feel similarly to my Dad and grandfathers. I can never be fully part of their world….but the stories they’ve given me of their lives and times allow me a presence that I cherish.

The very best description of When the Whistle Blows is given in a youtube video by the author in her own words on her terrific website. Take a look!

http://www.francannonslayton.com/Home.html

Slayton, F. When the Whistle Blows. New York: Philomel. 2009. Print.

Another great feature in the edition of the book that I read is the Other Books You May Enjoy list inside the front cover….books similar in “feel” to When the Whistle Blows

Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko (I loved this book)
The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had by Kristen Levine (wonderful story)
The Desperado Who Stole Baseball by John H. Ritter
The Last Newspaper Boy in America by Sue Corbett
The Liberation of Gabriel King by K.L. Going
A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck
The Schwa Was Here by Neal Schusterman
A Season of Gifts by Richard Peck
Sticks by Joan Bauer
A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck

Pop

Truth: I didn’t get around to making dinner because of football—the TV wasn’t even on. If you know me, you know this is weird. I’m the kind of gal that would rather cozy up to an old episode of Lawrence Welk than a football game but Gordon Korman’s YA novel, Pop kept me in the game and I read through to the end of the story, hungry children all around me, and no mom that made dinner. OOOOPS! Thank heavens for cereal and a large jar of peanut butter.

The Story:
Marcus Johnson is a pretty good football player from Kansas, uprooted the summer before his junior year of high school to a school that has just celebrated a perfect, undefeated season. Marcus wants on the team….but why would the team want to mess with perfection and take Marcus on…especially as Quarterback? They already have a star quarterback who led the team to its undefeated status.

The lonely situation of being new kid in town and wannabe for the school team leave Marcus with a lot of time alone…which leads him to Three Alarm Park to practice his passes. One day Charlie shows up and Marcus begins practice sessions like he’s never known. Charlie, is a man in his fifties but unbelievably good at passing, tackling, running, jumping—all things football. He loves to hear the “pop” of a good tackle. Charlie is so good, that at school practice, a super-conditioned Marcus gains the attention and respect of stand-off-ish players and the head coach.

Marcus wonders what’s up with this old man, Charlie. Who is he, why is he so good at football and why does he keep showing up to run drills with a kid he doesn’t know and refuses to call by the right name? Why do town shop keepers let Charlie just take stuff without paying? Why does Charlie pull weird sophomoric pranks that Marcus gets in trouble for and not own up to them? Answers to these questions have to do with being a small town hero, NFL retiree and Alzheimer’s disease...perhaps not in that order or in the ways a reader might expect.

For lovers of the game, Pop delivers complex football story, strategy and “game think”. Pop is also a page turner! There is drama in this book that keeps the reader hanging on for a resolution and just when there is resolution, a surprise ending keeps one turning until the very last page.

Pop is a nominee for the 2012 VA Readers’ Choice Award for middle school. I think it’s got potential. However, this book is a true YA story. The mindset is high school. One of the cheerleaders in the book has the “hots” for Marcus and that’s described in appropriate older teen terms. Many sixth graders could read through that and not blink an eye….but there are plenty of sixth graders who would shy away from that kind of story. There’s nothing over the top to worry to worry about. There’s one super short make-out scene that wouldn’t even cause a blush. It’s just that the voice of the characters and feel of the story is truly YA.

I loved Pop and am so glad I can now recommend a football book to kids who love the game.

Korman talks about Pop and how the story came to be in this short video: http://www.harperteen.com/books/Pop-Gordon-Korman/?isbn=9780061742286

Gordon Korman is one of those super-writers for young people. He’s got over fifty successful published books under his belt and there’s no sign of him slowing down. His website is fun, fascinating and full of cool information. The official Gordon Korman website is at: http://www.gordonkorman.com/



Korman, G. Pop. New York: Balzer & Bray, 2009. Print.

Does My Head Look Big In This?

OK, back to our regularly scheduled programming…..no going off on creative writing tangents based on personal angst. Although, I’m just about to leave India in Eat, Pray, Love….and well, that’s just a whole discussion and then some I’d love to have with someone right there! I really should join a book club one of these days.


Does My Head Look Big In This? Is a wonderful Young Adult novel by Randa Abdel-Fateh. This is the first book that I can remember reading where the heroine is a young Muslim woman. As a middle school teacher-librarian this is important to me….and I hope important to more young women of all backgrounds because we don’t often get to see female Muslim heroines unless they are depicted in extreme circumstances.

Amal is a feisty, smart, argumentative, ambitious young girl who at the age of seventeen decides to take her faith seriously by wearing a hijab, Muslim female head covering, in her average teenage life in Melbourne, Australia. Although she knows that she will face some questionable looks, negative remarks, sterotyping and possibly racism, it’s important to Amal to be authentic in her identity as a Muslim, Palestinian-Australian girl. Amal makes many discoveries in her new life under the veil….some of them she expected….many of them surprises. By the end of the novel, readers are satisfied that Amal has grown as a person and as a Muslim through her experience...."all this time I've been walking around thinking of become pious because I've made the difficult decision to wear the hijab......But what's the good of being true to your religion on the outside, if you don't change what's on the inside, where it really counts." (333)

What I especially enjoyed in this story is that by seeing the world through Amal’s eyes, under her hijab, are the many layers of being Muslim and of Middle Eastern descent. As our heroine struggles with her new visibility, she becomes sometimes a willing and many times an unwilling representative of her religion and culture to her peers. It’s a lot to go through when also dealing with boy crushes, make-up, keeping up with Cosmo, sleepovers, pimples and studying for tests at school! Amal teaches us that Islam has many aspects and that its doctrines are not what we think we know from our media. She also learns much about what it means to be Australian when viewed by so many of her compatriots as an outsider.

Throughout her typical, busy Junior Year, Amal, carefully thinks about how wearing hijab might or might not be part of the experience. We learn that being a teenage Muslim girl is a lot like being a teenage girl of any religious background….and that’s cool.

Does My Head Look Big In This? is Abdel-Fattah’s first book. It’s won several awards including: Australian Book of the Year Award 2006, Notable Book of the Children’s Book Council 2006, on the long list of books considered for the UK Galaxy Book Awards 2006 and on the short list of books considered for the UK Grampian Children’s Book Awards 2006. This author has written several more books about identity issues for Muslims and specifically Palestinians. More about Abdel-Fattah can be learned at her very informative website: http://www.randaabdelfattah.com/novel.asp?ID=6&title=Does%20My%20Head%20Look%20Big%20In%20This

Abdel-Fattah, R. Does My Head Look Big In This? New York: Orchard Books, 2005. Print.