From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Thu, 07 Dec 2000 11:25:47 -0600

Thanks, Art, Sharon, Dean and Amy for sending us more favorites.

Dean, I agree with your assessment of "Forgotten Fire" by Adam Bagdasarian (A Melanie Kroupa Book / DK Ink). It's a masterpiece. The author unfolds memorable, terrible scenes from his great uncle's experiences during the Armenian massacre in Turkey beginning in 1915. Elegant uses of language and remarkable restraint earmark this amazing novel. It was a sound idea to include Hitler's question "Who does now remember the Armenians?" at the beginning. Adolf Hitler is quoted as asking this in support of his argument that the world would soon forget the extermination of a people." Who, indeed? I remember being confronted with that quote for the first time as I read "The Road from Home" (Greenwillow Books, 1980), David Kherdian's splendidly written fictional account of his mother's experiences during that time and place and a Newbery Honor Book. These are two fine books for middle/high school readers or for anyone able and willing to be confronted with literature about genocide.

I also appreciate "Silent to the Bone" by Elaine Konigsburg (A Jean Karl Book / Atheneum / Simon & Schuster) for its carefully developed major and minor characters, intricate plotting, wit, and fully original treatment of a theme often developed less skillfully. OK, someone said that as a mystery, it's full of holes. Let me then say that if you can't think of it as a mystery, then think of it as being chock full of suspense. Regardless, Konigsburg has crafted a brilliant fictional study of two teenage boys experiencing their first crushes, kids who've stepped forward onto the bridge taking them from childhood to adolescence. Konigsburg works with the idea of bridges beyond the actual bridge in the story and what the boys can see from this bridge. She writes about listening and about silence, and she provides snapshots of intriguing. While firing satirical observations targeted at contemporary middle class American living, she offers serious serious glimpses of the complex claims family members and friends can require of each other. What a book!

If anyone is compiling a list of "favorites," let Betty Tisel know directly tiselfar at visi.com Let us all know at the end of the month where we should write to get the list after we've finished this discussion. Actually we probably won't finish discussing "favorites" for a long time, in that we'll be looking at the National Book Award books in greater detail early in January, and then we'll look closely at the books selected for several of the nationally prominent book awards. Of course people will have questions about the "favorites" either now or after awards are announced, and other people will rush to point out respectfully that the strengths outweigh anyone's complaints or concerns about any one book. That's how book discussion is.

Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Cooperative Children's Book Center www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ A Library of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin Madison
Received on Thu 07 Dec 2000 11:25:47 AM CST