Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: To Stay Alive
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://skilabrown.com/
CITY:
STATE: IN
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
WRITER NOTE: Category B was upgraded to Category A to compensate for downgraded categories in other accompanying assignments.
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: no2014038628
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/no2014038628
HEADING: Brown, Skila
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008 140321n| azannaabn |n aaa c
010 __ |a no2014038628
035 __ |a (OCoLC)oca09713323
040 __ |a ICrlF |b eng |e rda |c ICrlF |d MnMN |d DLC
053 _0 |a PS3602.R722875
100 1_ |a Brown, Skila
370 __ |e Indiana |f Kentucky |f Tennessee |f Guatemala
372 __ |a Writing
374 __ |a Author
375 __ |a female
377 __ |a eng
670 __ |a Brown, Skila. Caminar, 2014 : |b t.p. (Skila Brown)
670 __ |a Her website, Mar. 20, 2014 |b (She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She grew up in Kentucky and Tennessee, lived for a bit in Guatemala, and now resides with her family in Indiana.)
PERSONAL
Married; children: three sons.
EDUCATION:Vermont College of Fine Arts, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Worked as kindergarten and primary schoolteacher; trainer at a bank.
AVOCATIONS:Quilting, reading.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Skila Brown (her given name is pronounced Sky-la) has worked as a kindergarten and elementary schoolteacher. She is also the mother of three sons through international adoption. She and her husband made multiple trips to Guatemala, and Brown lived in the country for awhile. It was a far cry from her childhood homes in Kentucky and Tennessee and her current home in Indiana. Brown was deeply moved by the horrors of the decades-long Guatemalan civil war and the lasting toll it exacted from innocent villagers, mostly Mayan and often children, caught between guerrilla rebels and government soldiers, with nowhere to run.
Caminar
Brown decided to tell the story of one such child in Caminar. At the time of her writing, she was working on a master of fine arts degree for which she immersed herself in a sea of children’s books, including stories in verse. It dawned on her that poetry offered a unique opportunity to teach children the truth about the dark side of important historical events in a sensitive and positive manner.
Caminar is the story of a young boy named Carlos who is forced to grow up ahead of schedule. In 1981 the soldiers come to his village and warn of nearby “Communist” guerrillas, whose presence must be reported to the government. The rebels come and go, passing through the village to hide in the surrounding jungle. The boy’s wary mother warns him: if trouble comes, run and hide, steal away to grandma’s mountain village to warn her; don’t wait for me. The soldiers return. Carlos hides in the jungle, feeling somewhat like a coward. He begins his journey to grandma’s village.
Carlos encounters a small group of rebels, including a boy not much older than he is. He learns that his entire village has been massacred. He is the only survivor. His feelings of cowardice are amplified by guilt, but he knows he can still survive in the jungle he knows so well. Redemption is possible, if Carlos can reach his destination and save another village from destruction.
Reviewers who approached Caminar with skepticism at the controversial content—and the poetic construction—expressed surprise. Among them was School Library Journal contributor Elizabeth Bird, who called Caminar “a beautifully wrought, delicately written novel that makes the unthinkable palatable to the young.” She pointed out: “To write this book [Brown] had to walk a tricky path. Reveal too much horror and the book is inappropriate for its intended age bracket. Reveal too little and you’re accused of sugarcoating history.”
Caitlin Augusta reported in Voice of Youth Advocates: “Brown conveys the fear and violence … without overwhelming readers.” A commentator in Kirkus Reviews suggested that “at times, stylistic decisions … appear to trump content” but characterized Caminar as “a moving introduction to a subject seldom covered in fiction for youth.” In a starred review in Horn Book, Kathleen T. Horning cited “exquisitely crafted poems” that coalesce into “an unusually fine verse novel.”
Slickety Quick
Brown’s poetry takes a lighter tone in Slickety Quick: Poems about Sharks. This picture book introduces children to more than a dozen species, some familiar and others not so much, some quite fearsome and others almost cartoonish in appearance. The variations of shark appearance and behavior enable the author to employ equally diverse styles and even whimsical shapes.
In a guest post at the Cynsations blog, Brown referred to a picture book semester she attended at the Vermont College of Fine Arts: “I started to see really fast what makes a certain one good. I really liked the ones that were centered around a theme, with varied types of poetry and bonus little nonfiction facts sprinkled on top.” Brown added: “It was fun to research shark breeds and learn about sharks I’d never heard of before … and it was really fun to try my hand at writing all different types of poems.” She continued: “Not all of the experimenting worked. But every bit of it was fun.”
Reviewers conveyed amusement at what Horn Book contributor Kitty Flynn described as “verses almost as varied as the sharks themselves.” The imaginatively constructed verses are augmented by snippets of straightforward information, but “well-crafted poems … range from playful to ominous,” reported a Publishers Weekly commentator. Playful would yield to ominous in Brown’s next outing.
To Stay Alive
Brown’s acclaimed verse rendition of a grisly historical odyssey is the topic of To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party. Once again she uses the comforting rhythm of poetry to tell a story that might otherwise be overpowering to a sensitive young audience. Her narrator is a nineteen-year-old girl who actually survived that deadly winter of 1846 and documented her experience in letters written later in life. In the introduction to her Horn Book interview of the author, Flynn summarized: “Brown’s poems evoke the physical and mental challenges of the journey, the extremes of climate and geography, and the survival of the human spirit.”
In that interview, the author implied that she was so inspired by a podcast about the westward journey that she “wouldn’t be able to let this story idea go.” She even retraced Mary Ann’s journey, from her family home in Lacon, Illinois; through the Sierra Nevada that claimed so many lives; to the cemetery in Visalia, California, where Mary Ann was finally laid to rest in 1891. Brown began to create the poems idly, in no particular order, until she realized that she was actually assembling the bones of a book. The poems eventually fell into place, almost like journal entries, beginning when Mary Ann is filled with happy anticipation of the trek to what her family—parents and eight siblings—perceived as a veritable promised land.
“Bright-eyed innocence is quickly tempered by hardships,” reported a reviewer in Publishers Weekly. Brown modulates the cadence of the poems as the girl is slowed by hunger, then revived by chance encounters with food. She struggled with the issue of cannibalism, Brown told Flynn, “but I knew I couldn’t skip over it.” Ultimately, offered Flynn in a starred Horn Book review subsequent to her author interview, the topic is treated “with somber precision, providing just enough detail to evoke the horror before moving on.” Briana Shemroske observed in her Booklist review: “Brown weaves a compelling story of suffering, sacrifice, and survival.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 15, 2014, Sarah Bean Thompson, review of Caminar, p. 79; March 1, 2016, Maggie Reagan, review of Slickety Quick: Poems about Sharks, p. 64; September 16, 2016, Briana Shemroske, review of To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party, p. 52.
Horn Book, March-April, 2014, Kathleen T. Horning, review of Caminar, p. 112; May-June, 2016, Kitty Flynn, review of Slickety Quick, p. 114; October 10, 2016, Kitty Flynn, author interview; November-December, 2016, Kitty Flynn, review of To Stay Alive, p. 70; January-February, 2017, review of To Stay Alive, p. 15.
Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2014, review of Caminar; December 15, 2015, review of Slickety Quick.
Publishers Weekly, January 13, 2014, review of Caminar, p. 70; December 21, 2015, review of Slickety Quick, p. 156; August 8, 2016, review of To Stay Alive, p. 69.
Voice of Youth Advocates, June, 2014, Caitlin Augusta, review of Caminar, p. 54.
ONLINE
Cynsations, http://cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com/ (May 3, 2016), “Skila Brown on Having Fun with Writing.”
National Public Radio Online, http://www.npr.org/ (June 21, 2015), interview of Meg Medina by Rachel Martin.
School Library Journal, http://blogs.slj.com/ (October 3, 2014), Elizabeth Bird, review of Caminar.
Skila Brown Home Page, http://skilabrown.com (April 26, 2017).
Vamos a Leer: Teaching Latin America through Literacy, https://teachinglatinamericathroughliterature.wordpress.com/ (April 29, 2017), S.L. Duncan, author profile.
About Skila
Skila Brown is the author of verse novels Caminar and To Stay Alive, as well as the picture book Slickety Quick: Poems About Sharks, all with Candlewick Press. She received an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She grew up in Kentucky and Tennessee and now lives in Indiana where she writes books for readers of all ages.
Ten fun facts about Skila:
Her first job ever was selling hot dogs from the window of a train’s caboose.
The best job she ever had was working in a church nursery. She got paid money to play with toddlers, plus all the graham crackers and apple juice she could consume.
She used to teach third grade. Then she taught kindergarten. Later she went to work in a bank teaching adults. (Which felt exactly like teaching kindergarten except she never had to tie anyone’s shoes.)
She’s lived in four different states and three different countries.
She likes to eat chocolate, make quilts and read in bed. She loves fireworks, banjo music, and reading in the shade. (She really, really likes to read.)
She never learned to ride a bike.
She has always liked making up stories. In third grade, she won a writing contest for a retelling of 101 Dalmatians. In fifth grade, she won a writing contest for an essay based on a Huey Lewis song. She didn’t win any writing contests in high school, but she was still making up stories. Her dad called this “lying about her whereabouts.”
She has three sons and a husband, so she lives surrounded by boys.
Her favorite thing in her wallet is her library card.
She is terrified of frogs and hates being tickled.
Wondering how to say her name? It’s a long i sound. Like Sky-luh. You can listen to it here.
Five questions for Skila Brown
OCTOBER 10, 2016 BY KITTY FLYNN LEAVE A COMMENT
skila_brownSkila Brown’s verse novel To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party (Candlewick, 14 years and up) tells the gripping story of the Donner Party’s doomed 1846 expedition west to California. Brown’s narrator is based on an actual member of the group: nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Graves, who was traveling with her parents and siblings.<
1. The Mary Ann Graves in your poems comes across as no-nonsense and ready for the adventure ahead, and your author’s note states that she’s a composite of your research and your imagination. Do you think the real Mary Ann would have recognized herself in your depiction?
SB: I love this question and will probably think about it for weeks to come. I wish I knew the answer. A wonderful librarian in California took the time to photocopy all the remaining letters we have that Mary Ann wrote about her ordeal. I was not surprised to find them virtually void of emotion, mostly factual, very straightforward and upfront about events. She spent most of her paper-space correcting the mistakes of the reporter who’d drafted up an account of the journey.
I want to believe she would feel honored that people are reading her story, that they would understand what she’d suffered, but I think it’s more likely that she’d feel irritated by all the details I got wrong. I’d dearly love to sit down with her and have her tell me what those were.
2. Your acknowledgements mention that you “retrace[d] the steps Mary Ann Graves took on her journey west.” What was that like?
SB: It was predictably amazing to see the river at Fort Laramie and to touch Independence Rock and, most of all, walk in the woods where her family spent the winter by the lake in Truckee. But it took me by surprise how emotional I felt walking around Lacon, Illinois, where her family lived before their journey, and sitting beside her grave in Visalia, California. I longed to linger in the cemetery. I wanted to sit under the tree by her marker and just be still and quiet and feel connected to her for more hours than I had time for. It was a really wonderful trip, something I’ll cherish and remember always.
skila-brown-at-mary-ann-gravess-grave
3. What was your writing process? Did you map out the narrative and then write the poems or did the verse drive the storytelling? And when did you incorporate all that powerful foreshadowing?
SB: I draft poems by hand and out of order. The poems came to me individually at first, before I’d thought about the story or even decided to write a book at all. It wasn’t until I had a collection of them that I started to admit that maybe I was writing a new book.
Foreshadowing happens, I think, in my subconscious. I was reading about how the expedition members stretched out food over the winter and how empty their stomachs were — all that was in my head as I wrote about the wagons, for example, at the start of the journey. It seemed natural to compare the empty wagons to empty stomachs in that moment. I’m definitely someone who thinks about the ending of a book in every scene I write. Beginnings are hard for me! But endings I often write early on in the process.
brown_to-stay-alive4. You’ve written another intense verse novel, Caminar (Candlewick, 11–14 years)…and a tongue-in-cheeky nonfiction picture book about sharks, Slickety Quick: Poems About Sharks (Candlewick, 5–8 years). How do your subjects find you?
SB: Oh, I like the way you put that! Because they really do seem to find me and not the other way around. I have a long list of fantastic story ideas I’ve dreamed up over the years, and sometimes I even start writing a few of them. But there’s nothing like, for example, stumbling upon a podcast about families journeying west and the horrific events that happened along the way, and finding myself first interested in, then curious about, and then quickly (and scarily!) obsessed with learning more. And knowing all the while that I <
5. The more horrific parts of the Donner Party’s ordeal come toward the end of the novel; those poems are brief and quietly compassionate. How did writing those pieces affect you?
SB: To be honest, I didn’t want to write about the cannibalism. I think it’s often sensationalized, and it was never the most intriguing part of the story to me. Nor did I think it was the most difficult thing that they experienced. But I knew I couldn’t skip over it. I wanted to tell that part with as few dramatics as I could.
Writing this novel was emotionally and physically very hard for me. While I was immersed in the research and filling up notebooks with poems, I’d often wander down into the kitchen to fix lunch for my children and open up the pantry and just stare. It felt so wrong to see how easy it was for me to feed them, while I was living with the reality of Mary Ann’s mother stuck in that cabin, herself starving, and watching her children get thinner and weaker, listening to them ask for more food. It was hard for me to eat during the winter when I began this book, and often hard to sleep. This one definitely took a lot of out of me. Survival stories are so difficult because we know the ending can never be happily-ever-after. As an author, I can only hope the reader walks away from this book feeling what I’ve felt — admiration for Mary Ann Graves and a shared sense of hope in the darkest of circumstances.
No date: Downloaded by sketchwriter for additional background.
Caminar by Skila Brown is the selection for the LAII’s Vamos a Leer book group meeting held on January 12, 2015. The following information comprises a standards-based educator’s guide that the LAII has produced to support using to support using Caminar in the classroom. The standards are not included here, but are included with each section of the lesson plans in the PDF. The complete guide is available for download at no cost: Vamos a Leer Educator’s Guide: Caminar.
To read our thoughts on the novel, see our book review.
BOOK SUMMARY
Carlos knows that when the soldiers arrive with warnings about the Communist rebels, it is time to be a man and defend the village, keep everyone safe. But Mama tells him not yet — he’s still her quiet moonfaced boy. The soldiers laugh at the villagers, and before they move on, a neighbor is found dangling from a tree, a sign on his neck: Communist. Mama tells Carlos to run and hide, then try to find her. . . . Numb and alone, he must join a band of guerillas as they trek to the top of the mountain where Carlos’s abuela lives. Will he be in time, and brave enough, to warn them about the soldiers? What will he do then? A novel in verse inspired by actual events during Guatemala’s civil war, Caminar is the moving story of a boy who loses nearly everything before discovering who he really is.
AWARDS & RECOGNITIONS
A Junior Library Guild selection
ALSC Notables Nominee
YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Nominee
AUTHOR’S CORNER
Skila Brown is the author of Caminar. Her first completed novel, Brown worked on Caminar while she completed her MFA at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. The book is about the tragic experience of a young boy from Guatemala whose community is massacred. In an interview with S.L. Duncan, Brown said, “I was inspired to write this book after many trips to Guatemala and much reading about its history, specifically the conflict that occurred there just a few decades ago. What happened there was tragic, and I was upset that it was something I’d known nothing about…I wanted to make sure more people knew about what happened.”
The book is written in free verse poetry form, and as an added element Brown plays around with the form, shape and word placement of the poems to invoke deeper meaning. The simplified writing helps make this tragic story accessible to young readers. She describes the process in an interview with Smack Dab in the Middle: “This story lived in my head for a long time and was trying desperately to come out, but I wasn’t listening. I was also unsure how to tell it really. And then I started writing down some poems and realizing maybe verse was the way to go. Telling the story through poems felt like it allowed a place for things unspoken, that it gave the reader some space to absorb and make sense of the violence in the story.”
After writing the novel, Brown spent time in Guatemala, where she continued to revise it. One of the most challenging aspects was making a decision about language and whether to include an indigenous language. So as to not confuse the English-speaking reader, she settled for using Spanish. Caminar thus features terms in Spanish, as Brown has brilliantly and carefully dispersed them throughout the poems. She also includes a glossary at the end of the book.
Brown now resides with her husband and three sons in Indiana. She has two upcoming publications: With The End In Sight, another novel in verse, about Mary Ann Graves, one of the survivors of the ill-fated Donner party, and her family’s wagon train journey from Illinois to the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1846 (Fall 2015); and Slickety Quick, a picture book blend of poetry and non-fiction, all about sharks (Spring 2016).
Sketchwriter provided additional background information.
May 3, 2016
Tuesday, May 03, 2016
Guest Post: Skila Brown on Having Fun With Writing
By Skila Brown
for Cynthia Leitich Smith's Cynsations
Skila Brown is the author of verse novels Caminar and To Stay Alive, as well as the picture book Slickety Quick: Poems About Sharks, all with Candlewick Press.
She received an M.F.A. from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She grew up in Kentucky and Tennessee and now lives in Indiana where she writes books for readers of all ages.
We all reach a point when writing doesn’t feel very fun. Maybe because we’ve read too many rejection letters. Or maybe because we’ve revised so much we can’t recognize our story. Or maybe because we’re under a deadline and the pressure to finish takes away all the enjoyment.
But remember why we started doing this? It wasn’t because we wanted to get rich quick. (Ha!) Or because it was the only job we could do. Or because anyone was making us write. It was because it was fun.
The art of creating story was fun. We became writers because we like telling stories—we like making up details, researching history and narrating events. All of that was fun.
Six years ago, I got serious about becoming a writer and applied to an MFA program. When I got a call from the admissions office saying, “Hey – we’re doing this intensive picture book semester and we have room for one more student. Would you like to try it?”
I thought, That could be fun. And I soon found myself immersed.
Six months of reading almost nothing but picture books. Dozens of picture books. Hundreds of picture books. Rhyming ones, silly ones, concept books, fairy tales. Biographies, bedtime stories, wordless books and—poetry.
The thing about sitting down at the library and reading through a knee-high stack of poetry books is that after reading a dozen, two dozen, <>
I should try to do that, I thought. Being enrolled in a class that expected me to produce many picture book drafts in a short period of time didn’t let me dwell on whether it was a good idea or not. It just demanded that I try it out. That I play with it.
And I did. <
I spent a lot of time on YouTube watching sharks swim and thinking about their rhythm and shape and how that would feed into a poem. It was fun to learn new stuff. <
To challenge myself to make sure the next one didn’t rhyme or the next one was a concrete poem or the next one was a haiku. <
As writers we need to remember what drew us to this field to begin with and do whatever we can to find the fun again. Here are 4 quick ways you can find the fun in writing this week:
Be a spy. Go outside and find an animal or a plant and just sit and watch it for 10 minutes, writing down whatever comes to mind. See if you can take that and shape it into a poem when the time is up.
Play a game. Find a Mad Libs. Caption a funny photo.
Have fun with first lines. Opening sentences can be really fun to make up. Write a list of ten of them and then send the list out to your critique group. Let them vote on one that you’ll turn into a short story.
Write something that is completely out of your comfort zone. If you normally write YA contemporary, try writing a scene of a middle grade historical novel. Write the end of a story. Write in second person. Do something new and fresh that shakes it up a little in your routine.
It’s worth it to take a break from the WIP and play a little. Remembering what’s fun about writing will improve your energy level on your current project.
But that’s not why you should do it. You should do it because it’s fun
To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of
the Donner Party
The Horn Book Magazine.
93.1 (January-February 2017): p15.
COPYRIGHT 2017 The Horn Book, Inc.. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Sources, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.hbook.com/magazine/default.asp
Full Text:
To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party
written by Skila Brown; Candlewick
(Middle School, High School)
Nineteen-year-old Donner Party member Mary Ann Graves narrates the doomed nineteenth-century expedition, from its optimistic beginnings
through its day-to-day struggles to the horrific events that we remember today. Through varied, emotionally resonant verse, Brown imbues the
figures of this real-life tragedy with a compelling and relaable humanity. Review 11/16.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party." The Horn Book Magazine, Jan.-Feb. 2017, p. 15+. General
OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA476679331&it=r&asid=25e117f49c95b70157bd561e236f825f. Accessed 9 Apr.
2017.
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To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of
the Donner Party
Publishers Weekly.
263.49 (Dec. 2, 2016): p82.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party
Skila Brown. Candlewick, $17.99
ISBN 978-0-7636-7811-1
Writing in verse from the fictionalized perspective of Donner Party survivor Mary Ann Graves, Brown (Caminar) chronicles the group's ill-fated
1,900-mile westward journey to California that began in 1846. Bright-eyed innocence is quickly tempered by hardships on the trek from Illinois--
a snake bite, death, and mounting worries--as the trip becomes interminable ("There is no wagon train,/ only families moving together, passing
each other by,/ there is no help to be given/ there is only forward"). The cadence of the poems slows, becoming deliberate and labored, as Mary
Ann is overcome by exhaustion, dehydration, and starvation, then picks up with ghastly speed as she gorges on raw deer meat in the wilderness.
A wayward traveler stumbling through the brush is nearly mistaken for food, foreshadowing the party's desperate means of survival while
stranded in the mountains during a snowstorm. The gravity of the cannibalism, now synonymous with the Donner Party, is treated deftly,
conveying Mary Ann's visceral reactions without becoming steeped in grisly detail. As loss compounds loss, brevity and repetition ("I stitch ... I
stitch") intensify key moments in a harrowing, exhausting trek. Ages 10-14.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party." Publishers Weekly, 2 Dec. 2016, p. 82. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475224638&it=r&asid=d30b491ce3c835090e7b89d8d0601e12. Accessed 9 Apr.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A475224638
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To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of
the Donner Party
Kitty Flynn
The Horn Book Magazine.
92.6 (November-December 2016): p70.
COPYRIGHT 2016 The Horn Book, Inc.. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Sources, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.hbook.com/magazine/default.asp
Full Text:
* To Stay Alive:
Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party
by Skila Brown
Middle School, High School Candlewick 292 pp.
10/16 978-0-7636-7811-1 $17.99
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
In this compelling verse novel, Brown (Caminar, rev. 3/14) imagines the Donner Party's harrowing survival tale as experienced by nineteen-yearold
Mary Ann Graves, a real-life member of the expedition. Brown's depiction of Mary Ann is drawn from historical accounts; she comes across
as pragmatic, unsentimental, and ready for adventure. When her family begins its journey from Illinois to California in April 1846, Mary Ann is
energized by her father's visions of California's "fertility of soil, infinity of spring." Effectively varying meter, rhythm, and form, the poems offer
a vivid and gritty portrait of life on the trail--the dust, temperature extremes, dangers, challenges--and, for Mary Ann, a liberating sense of
freedom and possibility within the period's gender confines. Brown includes a couple of intriguing if short-lived romantic threads; Mary Ann's
plainspoken awkwardness adds another facet to her character. Readers unfamiliar with the Donner Party's doomed outcome will be on equal
footing with the protagonist; for those with a sense of what lies ahead, subtle foreshadowing contributes a dark undercurrent to the narrative. The
poems concerning starvation and cannibalism deliver the basic information<< with somber precision, providing just enough detail to evoke the
horror before moving on>> to other ordeals still to beset the survivors. A helpful map precedes the tale, and fascinating back matter (including a
photograph of Mary Ann taken thirty years after the book's events) fills in historical details and separates fact from fiction. A nuanced and
haunting portrayal of the indomitable human spirit.
* indicates a book that the editors believe to be an outstanding example of its genre, of books of this particular publishing season, or of the
author's body of work.
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Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Flynn, Kitty. "To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party." The Horn Book Magazine, Nov.-Dec. 2016, p. 70+.
General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA469755367&it=r&asid=c63710eda2cbf44d9bfd4f18f34faa5f. Accessed 9 Apr. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A469755367
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To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of
the Donner Party
Briana Shemroske
Booklist.
113.2 (Sept. 15, 2016): p52.
COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party. By Skila Brown. Oct. 2016.304p. Candlewick, $17.99
(9780763678111). Gr. 6-9.
Their land sold, livestock traded, and belongings bundled into groaning wagons, the Graves family has 1,900 miles to go. It's spring 1846, and
Franklin and Elizabeth Graves--along with their nine children--are headed west, trekking from their home in Lacon, Illinois, to Sutter's Fort,
California. Months into the expedition, the family merges with the Donner and Reed parties; there's strength in numbers, and the Hastings Cutoff,
a route south of the Great Salt Lake, is rumored to chop weeks from the increasingly backbreaking journey. That is, until winter falls early,
notoriously trapping the families "less than one hundred miles" from their intended destination. In this concise collection of narrative poetry,
Brown assumes the voice of 19-year-old Mary Ann Graves, nimbly straddling the unfathomably harsh realities of travel, starvation, and
bloodshed through the imagined musings of a headstrong girl entranced by quilts, birds, and the beauty of the moon. With her refreshingly varied
form and ever-earnest tone, <
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Shemroske, Briana. "To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party." Booklist, 15 Sept. 2016, p. 52. General
OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA464980931&it=r&asid=5844bba849d7335f3b713b896613df9b. Accessed 9 Apr.
2017.
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To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of
the Donner Party
Publishers Weekly.
263.32 (Aug. 8, 2016): p69.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party
Skila Brown. Candlewick, $17.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-7636-7811-1
Writing in verse from the fictionalized perspective of Donner Party survivor Mary Ann Graves, Brown (Caminar) chronicles the group's ill-fated
1,900-mile westward journey to California that began in 1846. <
a snake bite, death, and mounting worries--as the trip becomes interminable ("There is no wagon train,/only families moving together, passing
each other by,/ there is no help to be given/ there is only forward"). The cadence of the poems slows, becoming deliberate and labored, as Mary
Ann is overcome by exhaustion, dehydration, and starvation, then picks up with ghastly speed as she gorges on raw deer meat in the wilderness.
A wayward traveler stumbling through the brush is nearly mistaken for food, foreshadowing the party's desperate means of survival while
stranded in the mountains during a snowstorm. The gravity of the cannibalism, now synonymous with the Donner Party, is treated deftly,
conveying Mary Ann's visceral reactions without becoming steeped in grisly detail. As loss compounds loss, brevity and repetition ("I stitch ... I
stitch") intensify key moments in a harrowing, exhausting trek. Ages 10-14. Agent: Tina Wexler, ICM. (Oct.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party." Publishers Weekly, 8 Aug. 2016, p. 69. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA460900454&it=r&asid=39a7a225c6712f75e6e576237d404412. Accessed 9 Apr.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A460900454
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Brown, Skila. Caminar
Caitlin Augusta
Voice of Youth Advocates.
37.2 (June 2014): p54.
COPYRIGHT 2014 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC
http://www.voya.com
Full Text:
3Q * 2P * J
Brown, Skila. Caminar. Candlewick, 2014. 208p. $15.99. 978-0-7636-6516-6.
Using free verse, Brown imagines one boy's experiences in the mountain villages of Guatemala in 1981. At that time, rebels and army forces
battled for the citizens' allegiance, often through violent means. The children in Carlos's village of Chopan razz him because he always does as
his mother tells him. When the soldiers come, Carlos again obeys and flees into the jungle to hide. There he witnesses the mass extermination of
his village. Carlos journeys through the jungle on his way to another village, Patrichal, but ends up traveling with a rebel group he meets along
the way. In speaking with the rebel leader, Miguel, and a child soldier, Paco, Carlos grapples with his identity and takes his first steps toward
healing and a sense of purpose.
Brown's sparse story may not be an easy sell to teens, but it would be a solid choice for a teen poetry or world conflict school unit. The free-verse
format makes it a quick read, and many of the poems eschew imagery for succinct plot statements. When Brown's poetry does take a lyric turn,
she shares rich details, like the sounds of helicopter blades or the feel of marbles in Carlos's hand. <
Carlos's experiences<< without overwhelming readers>>, making it appropriate for most middle schoolers. While the gentle story are moves
deliberately, the dramatic conclusion gives Carlos satisfying closure, albeit in microcosm.--Caitlin Augusta.
Augusta, Caitlin
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Augusta, Caitlin. "Brown, Skila. Caminar." Voice of Youth Advocates, June 2014, p. 54. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA375949274&it=r&asid=b1dfc19f939e0a769d1df30c23e58af2. Accessed 9 Apr. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A375949274
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Brown, Skila: CAMINAR
Kirkus Reviews.
(Jan. 15, 2014):
COPYRIGHT 2014 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Brown, Skila CAMINAR Candlewick (Children's Fiction) $15.99 3, 25 ISBN: 978-0-7636-6516-6
The horrors of the Guatemalan civil war are filtered through the eyes of a boy coming of age. Set in Chop�n in 1981, this verse novel
follows the life of Carlos, old enough to feed the chickens but not old enough to wring their necks as the story opens. Carlos' family and other
villagers are introduced in early poems, including Santiago Luc who remembers "a time when there were no soldiers / driving up in jeeps, holding
/ meetings, making / laws, scattering / bullets into the trees, / hunting guerillas." On an errand for his mother when soldiers attack, Carlos makes a
series of decisions that ultimately save his life but leave him doubting his manliness and bravery. An epilogue of sorts helps tie the main narrative
to the present, and the book ends on a hopeful note. In her debut, Brown has chosen an excellent form for exploring the violence and loss of war,
but <
difficult for readers to follow and the frequent references to traditional masculinity may strike some as patriarchal, the use of Spanish is
thoughtful, as are references to local flora and fauna. The overall effect is<< a moving introduction to a subject seldom covered in fiction for youth.>>
A promising debut. (glossary, author Q&A) (Verse/historical fiction. 10-14)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Brown, Skila: CAMINAR." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Jan. 2014. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA355395815&it=r&asid=b7e74de57d4e57aca3eb5215b0c0760a. Accessed 9 Apr.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A355395815
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Brown, Skila: SLICKETY QUICK
Kirkus Reviews.
(Dec. 15, 2015):
COPYRIGHT 2015 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Brown, Skila SLICKETY QUICK Candlewick (Children's Picture Books) $16.99 3, 8 ISBN: 978-0-7636-6543-2
Fourteen sharks, each with a dedicated poem, lurk within these turquoise-watered pages. Despite their immediate reputation as fierce predators,
sharks are varied and have many different characteristics. In her picture-book debut, Brown explores not only the well-known great white and
hammerhead, but also the lesser-known deep-sea dwellers. The layout of the text frequently mimics the shark under discussion: words form the
cavernous shape of the gaping megamouth or drip down into the mustachioed-frown of the nurse shark. The cookie-cutter shark's poem spirals in
toward itself to mirror the twist of the tiny predator's bite. And well-placed spaces heighten suspense: "your slinky stripes slide around / from
below you wait. / and stalk your prey you wait." A smattering of informational text is also included for each shark. Kolar's streamlined digital
illustrations show wide jaws and toothy grimaces, but blood is never shed. Shimmering blues of the surface fall away to the murky depths of the
ocean floor. An inviting format to spark shark discussions; however, it's a shame that sources and backmatter were left adrift. (Informational
picture book/poetry. 5-8)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Brown, Skila: SLICKETY QUICK." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Dec. 2015. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA437247628&it=r&asid=ff24bb03982fb32d3ad418a7bb2f64f0. Accessed 9 Apr. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A437247628
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Caminar
Kathleen T. Horning
The Horn Book Magazine.
90.2 (March-April 2014): p112.
COPYRIGHT 2014 The Horn Book, Inc.. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Sources, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.hbook.com/magazine/default.asp
Full Text:
* Caminar
by Skila Brown
Middle School Candlewick 200 pp. 3/14 978-0-7636-6516-6 $15.99
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
"Forest sounds / all around / but on the ground / the sound / of Me / grew. Echoed. / I heard a path I could not see."<
the basis of<< an unusually fine verse novel>> set in 1981, in the middle of the Guatemalan Civil War. When the government helicopters appear over
the small village of Chopan, young Carlos obeys his mother when she tells him to go into the forest to hide. When all is quiet, he climbs down
from his tree and soon comes across a group of four guerrilla rebel soldiers, lost in the forest. They confirm his greatest fears--that Chopan was
burned to the ground, and that the people there were massacred by the government soldiers. Wracked with survivor's guilt, Carlos begins to walk-
-caminar--on a mission to reach his grandmother's village at the top of the mountain, to warn them about the helicopters. The poems, all written
from Carlos's point of view, are emotional, visceral, and lyrical. Layered and varied, some are shape poems; some can be read in more than one
way, as if written from two perspectives; and all are accessible to young readers. When Carlos first encounters Paco, the rebel soldier his own age,
their meeting is described in a poignant mirror poem. All combine to give us a chillingly memorable portrait of one child surviving violence and
loss in a time of war.
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* indicates a book that the editors believe to be an outstanding example of its genre, of books of this particular publishing season, or of the
author's body of work.
Horning, Kathleen T.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Horning, Kathleen T. "Caminar." The Horn Book Magazine, Mar.-Apr. 2014, p. 112. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA362605986&it=r&asid=c63076606f842815b6d929419a76ea47. Accessed 9 Apr.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A362605986
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Slickety Quick: Poems About Sharks
Kitty Flynn
The Horn Book Magazine.
92.3 (May-June 2016): p114.
COPYRIGHT 2016 The Horn Book, Inc.. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Sources, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.hbook.com/magazine/default.asp
Full Text:
Slickety Quick: Poems About Sharks
by Skila Brown; illus. by Bob Kolar
Primary Candlewick 32 pp.
3/16 978-0-7636-6543-2 $16.99
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Brown begins this playful and illuminating collection by taking a bite out of the most infamous of these ocean predators, the great white shark:
"you're no bully, / just a big attention hog. So / move over. Let another shark / swim to the beat." And thirteen other sharks do, each one featured
on its own double-page spread, giving the subjects plenty of room.<
wobbegong, goblin shark, and frilled shark: "Lean and / long, teeth / needle- / strong, / with foggy, / empty / eyes." Creative type placement and
size emphasize physical attributes, behavior, and/or temperament. Reflecting the poems' different moods, Kolar's dynamic digital illustrations in
blues, greens, and browns immerse readers in the underwater habitat. Brief factual asides in smaller type enhance the profiles, sometimes
dramatically so. The whimsical-looking spiral-shaped poem for the cookie-cutter shark, for example, takes on a more threatening tenor after you
learn that "they bite their prey ... then spin around, removing a hunk of flesh and leaving a cookie-shaped hole in their victim." Though lacking
documentation, this book offers an accessible and engaging appreciation of these fascinating creatures. Pair with Nicola Davies's Surprising
Sharks (rev. 1/04) ... though maybe not at the beach.
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Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Flynn, Kitty. "Slickety Quick: Poems About Sharks." The Horn Book Magazine, May-June 2016, p. 114+. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA453290682&it=r&asid=9dde4e54c0124466146142d39d3f0f04. Accessed 9 Apr.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A453290682
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Slickety Quick: Poems about Sharks
Maggie Reagan
Booklist.
112.13 (Mar. 1, 2016): p64.
COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Slickety Quick: Poems about Sharks. By Skila Brown. Illus. by Bob Kolar. Mar. 2016. 32p. Candlewick, $16.99 (9780763665432). 597.3. Gr. 2-
4.
These concrete poems about a selection of sharks will tickle the fins of many an aspiring marine biologist. Sharks, always a high-interest topic,
are successfully showcased in this heavily visual format. First up is the usual suspect: a double-page spread featuring a great white. On the left,
the open-mouthed shark cuts through the water, the top of his fin poking above the waves. He is mimicked on the right by triangular text: "Okay. /
We get / it. You're big / and bad and mean." Of the sharks that follow, some--tiger sharks, whale sharks, bull sharks--are familiar, but others are a
rarer breed: frilled sharks, which live deep in the ocean; goblin sharks, which are pink and flat-snouted; and cookie-cutter sharks, which are
named for the circular bite marks they leave on prey. The digital illustrations, glossy and brightly colored, are just cartoonish enough to dispel any
fears young readers may have about the subject. The book ends with another favorite: a poem for two voices that features--what else?--a
hammerhead.--Maggie Reagan
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Reagan, Maggie. "Slickety Quick: Poems about Sharks." Booklist, 1 Mar. 2016, p. 64+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA447443648&it=r&asid=2f18c24c68a65db568300ada769aab06. Accessed 9 Apr.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A447443648
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Caminar
Publishers Weekly.
261.2 (Jan. 13, 2014): p70.
COPYRIGHT 2014 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Caminar
Skila Brown. Candlewick, $15.99 (208p)
ISBN 978-0-7636-6516-6
Writing in verse, Brown debuts with a tense coming-of-age story set amid the Guatemalan Civil War. Opening in 1981, it follows a timid boy
named Carlos as he wrestles with what it means to be a man after his fictional village, Chopin, is visited by government soldiers and, later, by a
band of guerillas. Brown uses concrete poetry to excellent effect, skillfully playing with spacing, structure, and repetition. One poem is a jumble
of quotations as villagers discuss the passing rebels ("'We must protect our village.' 'They have guns.' 'Dios mio.'"). In another, Carlos argues with
himself as he trudges through the forest after disaster strikes Chopan, his thoughts ("'Mama told me to run' 'Only boys run'") appearing on both
sides of a column of text that repeats "I walked." Brown offers some historical context in an opening note and a Q&A (a glossary of Spanish
words is also included), but the ambiguities and uncertainties within the story itself help align readers with Carlos and his fellow villagers, caught
in a conflict they don't under stand. Ages 10-up. Agent: Tina Wexler, ICM. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Caminar." Publishers Weekly, 13 Jan. 2014, p. 70. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA355865633&it=r&asid=7cee0caf98a10110168dbd8ea98fbba3. Accessed 9 Apr.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A355865633
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Caminar
Sarah Bean Thompson
Booklist.
110.14 (Mar. 15, 2014): p79.
COPYRIGHT 2014 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Caminar. By Skila Brown. Mar. 2014. 208p. Candlewick, $15.99 (9780763665166). Gr. 5-8.
The Guatemalan Civil War is powerfully fictionalized through the eyes of a young boy on the verge of becoming a man in this debut novel.
Carlos wants to defend his village from the Communist rebels--the group that government soldiers warn everyone away from--but his mother tells
him now is not the time. But when the village is then overrun by those same soldiers, Carlos escapes and is the only one who can run to the top of
the mountain to warn his grandmother's village about what is coming. The horrors of war force the boy to grow up quickly and discern who
exactly is to be trusted. Basing her story on true events, Brown infuses the novel with facts that will teach readers plenty about this piece of
history. Written in verse, the book takes advantage of a variety of formats and styles. This is a welcome way to increase the diversity of any
collection while providing a glimpse into a period of history unknown to most American kids. A glossary of Spanish words is included.--Sarah
Bean Thompson
Thompson, Sarah Bean
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Thompson, Sarah Bean. "Caminar." Booklist, 15 Mar. 2014, p. 79. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA363381994&it=r&asid=3aa88b448fbca54c6cace4b0f642bcc6. Accessed 9 Apr. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A363381994
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Poetry for all ages
Publishers Weekly.
262.52 (Dec. 21, 2015): p156.
COPYRIGHT 2015 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Nine books of poems tackle animals, music, everyday experiences, and more.
Guess Who, Haiku
Deanna Caswell, illus. by Bob Shea. Abrams Appleseed, $14.95 (24p) ISBN 978-1-4197-1889-2
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Caswell (Beach House) and Shea (I Will Chomp You!) combine an outdoorsy guessing game with an introduction to haiku through a chain of
guess-the-animal interactions. Each poem gets its own page ("new day on the farm/ muffled mooing announces/ a fresh pail of milk," reads the
first one), followed by the recurring question, "Can you guess who from this haiku?" A turn of the page reveals the answer, and the discovered
animal offers a new haiku for children to decode. Working in his familiar bold, graphic style, Shea offers plenty of visual clues to help readers
guess, while placing the action in a simplified barnyard setting that keeps the focus on the animals. A closing page that briefly explains the
structure and goals of haiku should prove useful to children curious about the form. Ages 3-5. Illustrator's agent: Steven Malk, Writers House.
(Mar.)
Fresh Delicious: Poems from the Farmers' Market
Irene Latham, Illus. by Mique Moriuchi. Boyds Mills/Wordsong, $16.95 (40p) ISBN 978-1-62979-103-6
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[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Regardless of the season, readers can get a taste of the fruits and vegetables available at the height of summer in 21 appetizing poems. Latham
(Dear Wandering Wildebeest) includes metaphors for various foods (okra is "a mountain/ of mouse-sized/ swords/ stored in fuzzy/ sheaths"), as
well as reflections on the sensory experience of eating them; in "Peach," she writes, "When your/ baby-fuzz/ cheek/ meets my/ hopeful nose,/ the
world/ explodes/ with sweetness." Moriuchi's (The Very Best Teacher!) vibrant acrylic collages feature toylike animals enjoying lettuce, corn,
onions, and more, and she runs with the visual images that appear in Latham's poems, such as the idea of an egg carton as a treasure chest or
cucumbers as "a fleet/ of green/ submarines/ in a wicker/ sea." Half a dozen recipes cap off a lighthearted celebration of food at peak freshness.
Ages 4-8. Author's agent: Rosemary Stimola, Stimola Literary Studio. Illustrator's agency: Arena Illustration. (Mar.)
Now You See Them, Now You Don't: Poems About Creatures That Hide
David L. Harrison, illus. by Giles Laroche. Charlesbridge, $17.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-58089-610-8
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Harrison (Pirates) looks at the ways animals use camouflage to their advantage in poems divided into five sections (sea life, mammals, insects,
birds, etc.). An underlying menace present in many of the poems ("Pupils widen,/ muscles ready,/ crouches lower,/ patient, steady," reads one
about a Bengal tiger) underscores just how useful camouflage can be for predators lying in wait; Harrison's reliance on conventional rhymes can
lend a singsong quality to some of the entries, however ("Sun settles,/ shadows creep,/ a piping voice begins to peep"). Laroche's (If You Lived
Here) layered paper collages create impressive depth, texture, and detail, though the scenes can also feel somewhat static at times. A useful
closing section offers additional details about the 19 animals covered, which include ghost crabs, copperheads, polar bears, and hawks; Ages 5-9.
(Feb.)
Slickety Quick: Poems About Sharks
Skila Brown, illus. by Bob Kolar. Candlewick, $16.99 (32p) ISBN 9780-7636-6543-2
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
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Brown (Caminar) presents 14 types of sharks--wobbegongs, makos, and hammerheads, among them--in a series of<< well-crafted poems>> that <
BOOK NEWS & FEATURES
This Weekend, 'Caminar' Navigates Horrors With Poetry
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Caminar cover
Caminar
by Skila Brown
Hardcover, 208 purchase
The lengthy Guatemalan civil war is the inspiration for Skila Brown's children's novel, Caminar. The book is structured in verse, unfolding poem by poem, and it centers on a young boy named Carlos, who must learn to grow up quickly when his mother forces him out of the house. She tells him to run away so as not to get caught in the crossfire of warring government soldiers and rebels. Award-winning writer Meg Medina picked Caminar as today's Weekend Read. She tells NPR's Rachel Martin that Carlos lives with his mother in the small fictional village of Chopán. "And government soldiers arrive one day asking even the youngest child in the village to report any communist rebel hiding in the jungle, warning them that these rebels are dangerous and killers."
Interview Highlights
On what happens when the soldiers leave
The rebels do in fact appear. They walk through the village and hide in the nearby jungle, and unfortunately, this is what brings a horrible toll to all of the villagers. So these poems really tell the story of a young man surviving the slaughter of his entire village and the long walk that he takes among rebel soldiers to save his grandmother's village farther up the mountain from the same fate.
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I think that Skila did an amazing job in this novel — largely because it is telling history that we don't normally tell. We're very squeamish about what we put forth for children, right? We have ideas of what's appropriate for children and what is inappropriate, and certainly the massacre of a village we shy away from. So the first thing is I think that it's very brave to offer children world history, not just American history, not just the slice of who we are as a people, but also who our neighbors are. But the other thing that I think she did so beautifully is that she handled difficult things gently and with compassion to where the children are developmentally — meaning the readers.
So there is a scene in this book where the village is massacred, right, by the military. But she reports it in dream and in magical realism, which for me, seemed completely appropriate culturally to this book and also completely appropriate for the age level of the children reading it because this is a middle-grade novel. Although I will say that any age can read this in terms of middle grade, young adults, adults and still connect with the level of writing and the ideas about the human spirit that are in the pages.
Review of the Day: Caminar by Skila Brown
OCTOBER 3, 2014 BY ELIZABETH BIRD
Caminar
By Skila Brown
Candlewick Press
$15.99
ISBN: 978-0763665166
Ages 9-12
On shelves now
Survivor’s guilt. Not the most common theme in children’s books these days. Not unheard of certainly, but it definitely doesn’t crop up as often as, say, stories about cupcakes or plucky orphans that have to defeat evil wizards. Serious works of fiction do well when award season comes along, but that’s only because those few that garner recognition are incredibly difficult to write. I’ll confess to you that when I first encountered Caminar by Skila Brown I heard it was about a kid surviving Guatemala’s Civil War and I instantly assumed it would be boring. Seems pretty silly to say that I thought a book chock-full o’ genocide would be a snorefest, but I’ve been burned before. True, I knew that Caminar was a verse novel and that gave me hope, but would it be enough? Fortunately, when the time came to pick it up it sucked me in from the very first page. Gripping and good, horrifying and beautifully wrought, if you’re gonna read just one children’s book on a real world reign of terror, why not go with this one?
He isn’t big. He isn’t tall. He has the round face of an owl and he tends to do whatever it is his mother requires of him with very little objection. Really, is it any wonder that Carlos is entranced by the freedom of the soldiers that enter his small village? The year is 1981 and in Chopan, Guatemala things are tense. One minute you have strange soldiers coming through the village on the hunt for rebels. The next minute the rebels are coming through as well, looking for food and aid. And when Carlos’s mother tells him that in the event of an emergency he is to run away and not wait for her, it’s not what he wants to hear. Needless to say, there comes a day when running is the only option but Carlos finds it difficult to carry on. He can survive in the wild, sleeping in trees and eating roots and plants, but how does he deal with the notion that only cowardice kept him from returning to Chopan? How does he handle his guilt? And is there some act that he can do to find peace of mind once more?
This isn’t the first book containing mass killings I’ve ever encountered for kids. Heck, it’s not even the only one I’ve seen this year (hat tip to The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney). As such, this brings up a big question that the authors of such books must wrestle with each and every time such a book is conceived. Mainly, how do you make horrific violence palatable to young readers? A good follow-up question would have to be, why should you make it palatable in the first place? What is the value in teaching about the worst that humanity is capable of? There are folks that would mention that there is great value in this. Some books teach kids that the world is capable of being capricious and cruel with no particular reason whatsoever. Indeed Brown touches on this when Carlos prays to God asking for the answers that even adults seek. When handled well, books about mass killings of any kind, be it the Holocaust or the horrors of Burma, can instruct as well as offer hope. When handled poorly they become salacious, or moments that just use these horrors as an inappropriately tense backdrop to the action.
Here’s what you see when you read the first page of this book. The title is “Where I’m From”. It reads, “Our mountain stood tall, / like the finger that points. / Our corn plants grew in fields, / thick and wide as a thumb. / Our village sat in the folded-between, / in that spot where you pinch something sacred, / to keep it still. / Our mountain stood guard at our backs. / We slept at night in its bed.” I read this and I started rereading and rereading the sentence about how one will “pinch something sacred”. I couldn’t get it out of my head and though I wasn’t able to make perfect sense out of it, it rang true. I’m pleased that it was still in my head around page 119 because at that time I read something significant. Carlos is playing marbles with another kid and we read, “I watched Paco pinch / his fingers around the shooter, pinch / his eyes up every time . . .” Suddenly the start of the book makes a kind of sense that it didn’t before. That’s the joy of Brown’s writing here. She’s constantly including little verbal callbacks that reward the sharp-eyed readers while still remaining great poetry.
If I’m going to be perfectly honest with you, the destruction of Carlos’s village reminded me of nothing so much as the genocide that takes place in Frances Hardinge’s The Lost Conspiracy. That’s a good thing, by the way. It puts you in the scene without getting too graphic. The little bits and pieces you hear are enough. Is there anything more unnerving than someone laughing in the midst of atrocities? In terms of the content, I watched what Brown was doing here with great interest. <
Brown’s other method of handling this topic was to make the book free verse. Now I haven’t heard too many objections to the book but when I have it involves the particular use of the free verse found here. For example, one adult reader of my acquaintance pretty much dislikes any and all free verse that consists simply of the arbitrary chopping up of sentences. As such, she was incensed by page 28 which is entitled “What Mama Said” and reads simply, “They will / be back.” Now one could argue that by highlighting just that little sentence Brown is foreshadowing the heck out of this book. Personally, I found moments like this to be pitch perfect. I dislike free verse novels that read like arbitrary chopped up sentences too, but that isn’t Caminar. In this book Brown makes an effort to render each poem just that. A poem. Some poems are stronger than others, but they all hang together beautifully.
Debates rage as to how much reality kids should be taught. How young is young enough to know about the Holocaust? What about other famous atrocities? Should you give your child the essentials before they learn possibly misleading information from the wider world? What is a teacher’s responsibility? What is a parent’s? I cannot tell you that there won’t be objections to this book by concerned parental units. Many feel that there are certain dark themes out there that are entirely inappropriate as subject matter in children’s books. But then there are the kids that seek these books out. And honestly, the reason Caminar is a book to seek out isn’t even the subject matter itself per se but rather the great overarching themes that tie the whole thing together. Responsibility. Maturity. Losing your mother. Survival (but at what cost?). <>
On shelves now.
Source: Final copy sent from publisher for review.