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[CCBC-Net] Criss Cross: A Dream of a Novel
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From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 08:32:21 -0600
Inspired herself by "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Perkins wrote a dream of a novel showing the ordinary, subtle ways in which self-awareness dawns upon kids awakening to adolescence. "Life was rearranging itself*" For Debbie, Hector, Lenny and others in this funny, tender, unconventional novel, the rearranging might mean having coffee with dad, singing in public, driving to an ER sans a license, or experiencing a first romance. For them it's happening in Seldem, a town so small it's possible for its streets and the straight roads connecting it to nearby towns to be virtually empty of traffic on the day of the annual summer parade.
Readers meet Hector shortly before he's dragged by his older sister to a college coffee house performance. Here's where readers witness one of the many rearranging scenes in Criss Cross. Perkins writes that the "drops [of sound] fell on an unmoistened sponge that was waiting somewhere inside Hector. In his heart or his mind or his soul. He didn't realize that he was in a sponge state but, having been separated from his moorings * couch, TV, pizza * and led into unfamiliar territory, there was a spongey piece of him left open and receptive to the universe in whatever form it might take, and the form it took was a guitar."
Perkins quite deliberately sets up random interactions * crossings * for each of her characters. Things seeming not to matter at all do matter a lot by the time these inventive multiple narratives come to an end. The necklace inscribed "Debbie" matters the most as a link as it chains through brief, varied narratives and occasional whimsical visual elements. But then everything matters in Criss Cross, for example, Debbie's examination of her mother's youthful photos & wrapped-up dog figurines; her dad's wrench demonstration; and Lenny's learning to start a vehicle with a dead battery.
Criss Cross is much more than Debbie's story. For example, is anyone else wondering -as I am - what will become of Lenny who is so dear to me as a young teen character all too familiar in life?
I've marked up just about every page in Criss Cross: marvelous foreshadowing, observation and plotting; passages where the word "crossing" appears; exquisite language; implicit references to Eden; and the multiple missed connections ala "A Midsummer Summer Night's Dream." Criss Cross is a rare, wondrous, highly original work of art and an apt choice for the Newbery Award.
Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at education.wisc.edu
Received on Thu 16 Feb 2006 08:32:21 AM CST
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 08:32:21 -0600
Inspired herself by "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Perkins wrote a dream of a novel showing the ordinary, subtle ways in which self-awareness dawns upon kids awakening to adolescence. "Life was rearranging itself*" For Debbie, Hector, Lenny and others in this funny, tender, unconventional novel, the rearranging might mean having coffee with dad, singing in public, driving to an ER sans a license, or experiencing a first romance. For them it's happening in Seldem, a town so small it's possible for its streets and the straight roads connecting it to nearby towns to be virtually empty of traffic on the day of the annual summer parade.
Readers meet Hector shortly before he's dragged by his older sister to a college coffee house performance. Here's where readers witness one of the many rearranging scenes in Criss Cross. Perkins writes that the "drops [of sound] fell on an unmoistened sponge that was waiting somewhere inside Hector. In his heart or his mind or his soul. He didn't realize that he was in a sponge state but, having been separated from his moorings * couch, TV, pizza * and led into unfamiliar territory, there was a spongey piece of him left open and receptive to the universe in whatever form it might take, and the form it took was a guitar."
Perkins quite deliberately sets up random interactions * crossings * for each of her characters. Things seeming not to matter at all do matter a lot by the time these inventive multiple narratives come to an end. The necklace inscribed "Debbie" matters the most as a link as it chains through brief, varied narratives and occasional whimsical visual elements. But then everything matters in Criss Cross, for example, Debbie's examination of her mother's youthful photos & wrapped-up dog figurines; her dad's wrench demonstration; and Lenny's learning to start a vehicle with a dead battery.
Criss Cross is much more than Debbie's story. For example, is anyone else wondering -as I am - what will become of Lenny who is so dear to me as a young teen character all too familiar in life?
I've marked up just about every page in Criss Cross: marvelous foreshadowing, observation and plotting; passages where the word "crossing" appears; exquisite language; implicit references to Eden; and the multiple missed connections ala "A Midsummer Summer Night's Dream." Criss Cross is a rare, wondrous, highly original work of art and an apt choice for the Newbery Award.
Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at education.wisc.edu
Received on Thu 16 Feb 2006 08:32:21 AM CST
