See You At Harry's by Jo Knowles

Welcome to my first 2013 Marvelous Middle Grade Monday review! Each Monday, you can depend on me for a review of a great middle grade read. I've changed up the format, so let me know what you think.

Date Published: May 8th 2012

ISBN: 0763654078

Genre: MG, Contemporary

Themes: Bullying, loss, friendship, family, grief, siblings, LGBT

About The Book: Twelve-year-old Fern feels invisible. It seems as though everyone in her family has better things to do than pay attention to her: Mom (when she’s not meditating) helps Dad run the family restaurant; Sarah is taking a gap year after high school; and Holden pretends that Mom and Dad and everyone else doesn’t know he’s gay, even as he fends off bullies at school. Then there’s Charlie: three years old, a "surprise" baby, the center of everyone’s world. He’s devoted to Fern, but he’s annoying, too, always getting his way, always dirty, always commanding attention. If it wasn’t for Ran, Fern’s calm and positive best friend, there’d be nowhere to turn. Ran’s mantra, "All will be well," is soothing in a way that nothing else seems to be. And when Ran says it, Fern can almost believe it’s true. But then tragedy strikes- and Fern feels not only more alone than ever, but also responsible for the accident that has wrenched her family apart. All will not be well. Or at least all will never be the same.—Goodreads

First Line: The very best day of my whole life, I through up four times and had a fever of 103 degrees.

Great Quote: "The sun blasts down on me, and I feel a drip of sweat slowly slip down my chest and unto my blly button under my shirt." (73)

What Others Thought: "Prescient writing, fully developed characters and completely, tragically believable situations elevate this sad, gripping tale to a must-read level." —Kirkus Review 

"See You At Harry's is one of the most beautiful, moving books I've ever read. Full of laughter, love, and tears, it will break your heart and put it back together again, with a little more light, a little more hope than there was before.  —Kate Messner

Other Blogger Reviews:
Rather Be Reading
Paperback Treasures
Jenn Renee Review

My Analysis: 

1. Narrator/ Protagonist is twelve-year-old Fern.

2. 310 pages/ Chapter avg. length 5 pages

3. The Hook: Fern is "deathly" ill and how she became sick.

4. Inciting Event: Chapter 5 

5. Plot and Pace: Every sentence pushed the plot and never lost pace.

6. Voice: Authentic and honest

What I Thought: If this was a movie, it might have been a sleeper. An unremarkable cover, lost among the splashes of color and tantalizing adventure illustrated sleeves, See You At Harry's quietly burst forth in early May, 2012. It was on my list, but I admittedly kept pushing it back for action packed titles. It's a quiet story with a strong middle grade voice and themes that leave you running for the tissues for both laughing and crying. Knowles bravely addresses the issue of Fern's brother being bullied because he's gay. Don't miss this gem. I highly recommend this wonderful narrative that reminds all of us how precious life is and how very short it can be. 

Awards: 

Kirkus Reviews- Best YA Books of the Year

New York Times Notable Children's Books

Amazon.com Best Books of the Year

YALSA Reader's Choice List Nominee

Best Fiction for Young Adults- Nominee

About The Author: Jo Knowles

Website

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Who: "In college I took a children’s literature course, got hooked, and went to grad school to learn more. There, I took a course on writing for children. I loved it so much, I decided to write my first YA novel for my graduate thesis. That semester I was lucky enough to meet Robert Cormier, my hero. I told him how his book had turned me into “a reader.” He gave me his address and said to send him my novel when I finished. That message helped me finish my book. I sent it. He wrote back and told me I had talent, and that he hoped one day my book would be published with a blurb from him on the back. I have that letter framed in my office.

"In February 2006, I sold my first novel, Lessons From A Dead Girl, to Candlewick Press. My dream of becoming a published author finally came true.

"Now, I live in Vermont with my husband and son. I’m a freelance writer, and I work on my fiction whenever I can find the time. And I read. I try to read at least one novel a week. If you want to be a writer, I suggest you try to read a book a week, too. Reading makes us better writers. I’m a firm believer in that." — Knowles Website

Other Books:

Pearl

Dear Bully

Lessons From A Dead Girl

Jumping Off Swings

Be sure to stop by the other MMGM reviewers for some great reads to add to you list!

Next Week: What Came From The Stars by Gary D. Schmidt

Lights, Camera, ACTION

 When we think about action we often think about swashbuckling pirates and fight scenes. Those are indeed action but in fiction we use action for more than just the fight scene. Action is an effective tool to tell a story. 

1- Action is used to create the arc of a story. A narrative consists of action, reaction, change.

Jack is bit by a spider. Jack becomes a spider. Jack chooses to be a super hero. 

2- Action is the way an author can convey to the reader information without telling it. 

     "I'm tired."  OR    "My arms and legs are sore and stiff, and feel like they're going to fall off.  I can't hold my head up or keep my eyelids open."

3- Action is also used to develop a character.
    Jack is an angry person. OR  Jack slammed on his breaks and yelled out the window honking his horn, "Out of the way you stupid dog." 

So liven' up your plot and characters with action! Be sure to check out all the other bloggers participating in the A-Z challenge here. 

Discovery Friday

     Today I was thinking about all the cool things I have discovered through my reading, blogging and writing  this week and thought I would share them with you. Maybe you will find something useful that you can use...

Cool books:

XVI  by Julia Karr  Totally enjoying this and will review it in the near future. Suffice it to say it is awesome! 

Hero by Mike Lupika  (I hope he has a sequel) MG  One of his best. A very fast ride!

Diary of a Bad Year by J.M. Coetzee A post modern divisive chapter structure that in the end delivers a coherent plot. Talk about writing outside of the box.


Cool Blogs:  
The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment by Matthew Rush His posts are meaty writing and his blog is loaded with useful links!
A Torch in the Tempest by Christi Goddard Snarky writing with real literary pizazz!
A Writer of Wrongs by Terry Towry Terry unabashedly shares his conference experience in NY. Go Terry!
Writing YA in the Midwest by Julia Karr  Follow the journey of XVI and her other writing projects. Congrats Julia!

What Star Wars and Seseme Street Can Teach Us About Story Structure

   The other day I was looking at an article on Cracked.com entitled "17 Images That Will Ruin Your Childhood". I'll warn you, if you love nostalgia this will definitely crush some memories. 

So, it got me thinking about what I have been learning about story structure and plot. What made our childhood images so powerful was the effort that writers, artists and directors took to "suspend disbelief".  

Wait...isn't that what we are trying to do in our writing? 

Catherine Brady in her book Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction states," to think like an artist is to understand that story structure depends not on baldly advancing a literal conflict but on constructing a plot that articulates the exact parameters at the stories heart."  

Wow! That is a mouthful but think about it. What stories have you read that leave you changed and hungry for more? Why?

When I read a story, I don't want the author to come out and tell me what to think, just like a child I want to discover it myself.  It's how many of us are wired. Would the parables in the New Testament have as much impact if the true message was blatantly laid out?

Think about Faulkner and Munroe, their ability to use literal action to build the tension of the bigger story is epic! There are, of course many more that use this artistic scaffolding, invisible to the reader. It is only at the climax of the story do the questions that the tension aroused make sense. It's magic, a sleight of the hand.

What magic have you read lately?

Why Isn't This Scene Working?

Tweet    "It's 2:00am and I have been up for two hours frantically typing a scene for my current middle school MS. You know what I'm talking about, the kind of scene that won't let you get on with anything in your life until you get it on paper."

    Sound familiar?  Well, it had been two months since that night and I still couldn't figure out where the scene fit.  Still sound familiar? Well,  I revised it, tried it in several different positions but it still wasn't working. So I decided that I would just put it aside and deal with it later and picked up one of the current books I'm reading, The Architecture of the Novel by Jane Vandenburgh. In her section on plot  she writes:

      "So plot is story's sequence--the 3,2.1 or the 2,3,1 of it's scenes. These are events arranged not necessarily in the order in which they chronologically happened. Rather, they are positioned so they best show us what we are to understand about each event in the moment in which it occurs. Sequencing has everything to do with the way plot weaves layers of time... we can look back...and understand and events significance-- only later, when we encounter meaning in the story's narrative future.' (Vandenburgh, 78) 

Eureka! It suddenly occurred to me that the scene that I believed was for my protagonist,  was actually a scene involving her deceased mother. So now I had to discover where in my plot this information/ scene would be meaningful and how my protagonist would learn about it.

Uncovering story and plot is such an adventure! Have you had any eureka moments you would like to share?

It's still not to late to enter my 80 followers celebration give-away, enter here. Amazingly in only two days I have now jumped to 103 followers, so....in celebration I will be adding another copy of Possession, doubling the chances of winning!! :) Be sure to enter before 12:00 midnight on December, 9th.