|
March 6, 2006: Death and Dying in Children's Literature: Walk Two Moons
It's apparent that children's authors are not afraid of tackling the hard
issues young people and old alike have to deal with . We all have lost or will
lose someone we love. Children will face the death of young schoolmates. Some
will face the death of parents and grandparents -- perhaps even siblings. It's
somewhat ironic, but also appropriate, that two of the Newbery books
I read this weekend, in the first anniversary week of my own mother's death last
year on March 2, were about the death of a parent and a grandparent. As I tried
to list these books before reading them, I had to draw on the summaries by the
Library of Congress or the back cover of the books for an idea of the plot. And
it strikes me how those summaries tell a story in a couple of sentences so
matter-of-factly and convey little of the potential impact on the reader. They
are but skeletons of a book's contents, whereas the books themselves take
readers beyond themselves into someone else's mind, heart, and emotions.
 On Sunday I read Sharon
Creech's Walk Two Moons, a winner of the Newbery Medal. From the title
alone I expected an Indian theme, and if you read the book you will see why I
didn't say Native American. But Indian ancestry of the main character, Sal, is
only incidental, and not where the title comes from. In this book, we
enter into the lives of Sal, Phoebe, their families, and their way of thinking.
Three characters in the book at some point, do not live with their mothers.
Sal's mother is dead, but it is only implied until the end. Phoebe's mother is
seems to be an unappreciated supermom, who does everything right, but leaves
home for a while in the middle of the book with notes to all about the food in
the freezer she's left and other instructions, but no way to contact her. She
will call in about a week. Next door to Phoebe lives Mrs. Cadaver, whose husband
is dead, and who is the reason Sal and her dad had to move to this little box
house with almost no land -- away from the house in Bybanks, Kentucky by
the Ohio River, with her maple, willow, and chestnut trees, the barn, hayloft,
and swimming hole. Sal fears her father's interest in Margaret Cadaver as
betrayal of her mother. Phoebe is convinced that Mrs. Cadaver killed her husband
and cut him into pieces and buried him in the backyard. Phoebe is also convinced
that a lunatic is after her household when a young man comes to the door wanting
her mother, who wasn't home, and left no message when he could not see her. Then
the strange notes started arriving on Phoebe's doorstep -- left by the lunatic,
of course. All these facts about Phoebe come out as Sal tells her story to her
grandparents on a trip to Lewiston, Idaho -- the trip her mother took when she
left them. They are taking Sal to find her mother.
I forgot Ben. He lives with his cousin Mary Lou, all of her siblings, and her
parents. Their household is what you'd call rambunctious --lots of wild activity
and rather loose discipline. Sal wonders why Ben doesn't live with his own
mother, but she later learns his mother is in a mental hospital -- the same day
Phoebe and Sal have tracked the lunatic (whose identity Sal had discovered) to
his university. Phoebe is convinced he has kidnapped her mother. But when they
find the "lunatic" they both feel sick. He is sitting on a bench on the grounds,
and he is kissing Phoebe's mother. (This is not exactly what it appears to be,
and the reason comes later that evening, when Phoebe's mother comes home.)
One thing a reader will really enter into is the fertile imagination
possessed by thirteen-year-old girls. Another theme is the denial felt when one
loses a loved one. Both Sal's father and Mrs. Cadaver try to explain to Sal
about their relationship, but Sal is so sure she knows what it is, she won't
listen. Finally, the night Phoebe's mother comes home, right before the trip,
Mrs. Cadaver finally makes her listen. Sal has already discovered from her
teacher, who turns out to be Mrs. Cadaver's brother, that Mr. Cadaver died in a
tragic automobile accident and that Mrs. Cadaver was the nurse on duty in the
emergency room when her husband was brought in, along with Mrs. Cadaver's
mother, who was blinded in the accident. By the time Sal has driven 100 miles on
the terrifying curvy road from Coeur d'Alene to the top of Lewiston Hill,
the highway on which her mother's bus had crashed, and seen its broken remains,
jagged metal, and the holes through which rescuers had removed the victims, she
already knows that only one person had survived -- Mrs. Cadaver, who had been
sitting next to her mother. By this time she also is found by the sheriff, who
sees her trying to find a way into the bus to see if anything of her mother's is
there. She explains she is driving because her grandmother had a stroke just
before they got to Coeur d'Alene and her grandparents are at the hospital . She
tells the sheriff she learned to drive on her grandfather's farm, and when
he knew he needed to stay with his wife in Coeur d'Alene, he given
Sal the car keys with the subtle message to get anything she needed because he
know how badly Sal wanted to be in Lewiston the next day -- her mother's
birthday. The sheriff took her the rest of the way to her mother's grave,
and the deputy drove grandfather's car. As Sal gazed on her mother's
final resting place, she was finally able to accept the fact that her mother was
not coming back. And when she and grandfather's car were driven back to the
hospital, Gramps told her Gram had died early that morning. They do some
grieving together.
Although my description might make the book seem depressing, it really
wasn't. There were touches of humor throughout, and lots of signs of growing up
as the girls realized how much of what they had thought when they had jumped to
conclusions wasn't true. At the end, Sal and her Dad are back at the farm in
Bybanks, and Gramps is with them. And Sal is constantly thinking about what it
might be like to walk two moons in other's moccasins. She's also working through
her grief issues. All in all, I'd call the book moving, not depressing. It's a
great book for families or classes to read together and discuss.
There's lots in the book there's not room to comment on here, but one episode
deals with the schoolteacher's reading of student journals aloud -- changing the
names of course. I think that part has something important to say to teachers.
I wanted to get into the book I read on Monday, After the Rain, by
Norma Fox Mazer. But it's too late for tonight.
©2006, Barbara Radisavljevic
Click here to
respond
|
