Reasons to Love Anastasia Krupnik

....Lois Lowry won big prizes for The Giver and Number the Stars....and that is fine. But I prefer Anastasia. A few thoughts...

1 ....Anastasia is an artist in training. Like Anne Frank, Anastasia simply takes notes. She does not worry about being profound. She wonders why she dislikes her teacher...who...I think....has a hairy mole. Anastasia proudly acquires new words. She becomes absorbed in the story of her parents ....the story of their romantic careers. Her mother speaks candidly about the friendly lawyer whose vision of the future simply did not line up with a bohemian life. Anastasia studies her dad’s poetry and learns that a broken heart is good for output. So true...and how many other kiddie books will tell you this?

2 ....like Tomie DePaola....Anastasia will learn that teachers are not infallible. Anastasia writes a good poem and it is not seen as such. And that is life.

3 ....Anastasia keeps a journal of her likes and dislikes....which seems like a small thing. But I am happy to see this level of self-reflection in a kiddo protagonist.

4 ....Anastasia falls in love and struggles to understand the rules of adult life. The experience of holding down a job. A day job will inevitably be messy....because jobs mean interacting with people....and by definition people are messy.

5 ....Anastasia attends her father’s class at Harvard and struggles to understand adolescent ennui. Wordsworth is invoked. Bad language is used and pondered...What makes it bad? Anastasia studies the bad blood between her father and his acolytes...Are the teens entirely to blame? Could the poet alter his teaching? It is difficult to see your own parent struggling....and that is life. In these books...issues concerning adult frailty are not papered over.

Long live Anastasia. Just a reminder that these weird and smart novels exist in the world....

Comments

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...

Joshie

When I was growing up, a class birthday involved Hostess cupcakes. Often, the cupcakes would come in a shoebox, so you could taste a leathery residue (during the party). Times change. You can't bring a treat into a public school, in 2024, because heaven knows what kind of allergies might lurk, in unseen corners, in the classroom. But Joshua's teacher will allow: a dance party, a pajama day, or a guest reader. I chose to bring a story for Joshua's birthday (observed), but I didn't think through the role that anxiety might play in this interaction. We talk, in this house, quite a bit about anxiety; one game-changer, for J, has been a daily list of activities, so that he knows exactly what to expect. He gets a look of profound satisfaction when he sees the agenda; it doesn't really matter what the specific events happen to be. It's just about knowing, "I can anticipate X, Y, and Z." Joshua struggled with his celebration. He wore his nervousness on his f...

Josh at Five

Joshie's project is "flexibility"; the goal is to see that a plan is just an idea, not a gospel, not a guarantee. This is difficult. Yesterday, we went to a restaurant--billed as "open," with unlocked doors--and the owner informed us of an "error in advertising." But Joshie couldn't accept the word "closed." He threw himself on the floor, then climbed on the furniture. I felt for the owner, until he nervously made a reference to "the glass windows." He imagined that my child might toss himself through a sealed window, like Mary Katherine Gallagher, or like Bruce Willis, in "Die Hard." Then--thank the Lord!--I was able to laugh. The thing that really has therapeutic value for Joshie is: a firetruck. If we are out in public, and he spots a parked truck, he wants to climb on each surface. He breathlessly alludes to the wheels, the door, the windows. If an actual fire station ("fire ocean," in Joshie's parla...

Liars and Saints

Search This Blog