Watercress by Andrea Wang

 A young girl is driving along a country road in Ohio with her parents and her older brother. They are in the family's old red Pontiac. Suddenly her mother spots watercress in the ditch beside the talk stalks of corn. They stop and out of the car trunk, comes a brown paper bag and rusty scissors. Her parents are remembering a time in China.

The young girl and her brother are told to remove their sneakers and socks, roll up their jeans and help them gather the watercress. The water is cold and the mud squelches between her toes. As they gather bags of the small plant, the young girl hopes no one sees her in the ditch with her family. Her brother shoves some watercress, dripping muddy water and snails near her face.

At home that night, a dish of watercress is served for dinner but the young girl refuses to eat it. Her parents try to convince her to try it, but to the young girl anything different is bad.

 The young girl's mom shows her an old photo of her family, her China family. She never talks about her family. She points to her young brother, the girl's uncle and for the first time speaks about her family in China. During the great famine, they ate whatever they could find. But it was not enough, and her young brother died. Looking at the picture of her uncle who never survived and at the watercress, the young girl is ashamed of being ashamed of her family. And so, she makes a decision.

Discussion

Watercress is a story based on author, Andrea Wang's experiences as a child of Chinese immigrants growing up in a town in Ohio. In her poignant "A Note From The Author" at the back of the book, Wang writes that she "was very aware of how different my family and I were from everyone else. It's hard to feel like you don't belong, and collecting food from a muddy roadside ditch just made that bad feeling more intense for me -- something my very practical parent's didn't understand." Wang writes that her parents didn't talk about their life in China and the hardships they experienced during war. At the same time, she feels it's important for children to know their heritage.One way to learn this is through the memories parents offer. These memories, according to Wang, "...have the power to inform, to inspire, and to heal."

This simple story is full of meaning, rich with the power memories have. This is captured so beautifully by the expressive artwork of illustrator Jason Chin. The illustrations are rendered using watercolour on 140 pound cold press Saunders watercolor paper. In his "A Note From The Artist", Chin writes that he chose the medium of watercolour which is common to both Chinese and Western art. He writes that his colour palette and technique were also carefully chosen to reflect the themes in the story. In an attempt to "add another layer to Andrea's remarkable story", Chin "drew on my own memories of exclusion, loss, and guilt". He has succeeded admirably. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this exceptional picture book, is the ability of the illustrations to convey these exact emotions so deeply and purely.The reader experiences the shame, the anger and the guilt of the young girl as she struggles to come to terms with her identity and her heritage. Highly recommended.

Book Details:

Watercress by Andrea Wang
New York: Holiday House    2021

Threads by Ami Polonsky

Threads is a parallel narrative, telling the stories of twelve-year-old Clara Clay who lives with her parents in Evanston, Illinois, and thirteen-year-old Yuming Niantu who is an orphan in China. Their lives intersect in a way neither can ever imagine, tied together by the thread of one action. The novel opens with a copy of Yuming's note hidden in a purse on May 16 while she is working in a factory in Hebei Province, in China.

Clara and her parents are still grieving after the death of Clara's older sister, Lola who was adopted from an orphanage in China. Lola, who was abandoned in a cardboard box in Molihua Park in Shanghai, was found by a man and taken to an orphanage where her birthday was estimated to be October 1. Unfortunately, Lola developed acute lymphoblastic leukemia and despite chemotherapy, she relapsed and died.

Clara's narrative opens with her being dropped off at Bellman's department store on July 1 with her "used-to-be best friend", Dahlia. Clara has known Dahlia since they were babies. Their families met through an adoption support group because both Dahlia and Clara's sister Lola were adopted from China. Clara decides she doesn't want stay with Dahlia and she tells her she's leaving. Since Lola's death on May 15, after her long battle with cancer, Clara feels disconnected from Dahlia. She hides from Dahlia and texts her father asking him to come pick her up. They arrange to meet in twenty minutes but in the meantime Clara hides from Dahlia in a booth that has leather purses on display. While waiting for her father to show up, Clara spots an ugly yellow purse on clearance and wondering why it's on sale looks inside. In an inside pocket Clara discovers a piece of white paper and a photograph. Unbelievably the photograph is of Molihua Park in Shanghai where Clara and her family have visited and also where Lola was found as a baby. The note is written by thirteen-year-old Yuming Niantu who is a prisoner in a pink factory along with twenty-two other children. In her note Yuming Niantu asks for help.

Clara's father can't imagine twenty-two children trapped in a factory making purses. At Clara's urging he decides to call the Chinese consulate in Chicago where Susan Zhau takes his call and the information about the note and photograph. She is abrupt with Clara's father, Al and requests that he send the note and photograph to the embassy before hanging up on him. Clara is doubtful the consulate will help but she makes sure that her father makes copies of the photograph and the note. Clara remembers visiting Molihua Park when she was ten and Lola was eleven - more than a year before Lola's relapse. Unconvinced that the Chinese consulate will act, Clare wonders if she might be able to help Yuming herself.

The next morning Clara and her mom take the note and photograph to the consulate and meet Susan Zhau who treats them curtly. When Clara arrives home she begins searching for flights to Beijing and at lunch makes the suggestion to her parents that they plan a trip to China. Her parent's shocked response causes Clara to run out of the house and catch the bus they used to take to the hospital where Lola was treated for her cancer. There, Clara is recognized and comforted by two nurses who cared for Lola. They contact her parents who come to the hospital. After a discussion with Clara, her parents decide to take a trip back to China in the hopes it will help her process Lola's death. But for Clara the trip is about trying to find and save Yuming.

Meanwhile in alternating chapters, Yuming's story is told. It has been six weeks since Yuming placed the note into the pocket of a purse she was sewing. No help has been forthcoming so she knows she will have to find another way to escape the factory. Yuming was living in Yemo Village in Anhui Province with her grandmother Wai Po and grandfather Wai Gong. Her older brother Bolin left to work in the city and eventually her grandmother, and then her grandfather passed away. Three months ago in early April, Yuming sat near the fountain in Molihua Park in Shanghai. She had come to the city to look for her older brother Bolin who last worked at a food stand in the park. However her efforts proved fruitless. While resting on a park bench, Yuming was forcibly taken from the park by an older man and pushed onto a bus with two boys and driven out of the city to the north. The man, Mr. Zhang, told them they are to work in his factory and he also told them what to say if they were questioned. They arrived at a pale-pink factory where they were taken to a basement room and taught how to sew. 

Yuming now sits next to a girl, Jing, who often helps her and who has been in the factory for years. In the three months that have passed, Yuming does nothing but sew and sleep and often dreams about her life in her village. On July 2, two new boys arrive - an older boy named Kai and his younger brother Li. Yuming overhears Kai and his brother talking about escaping. That night Li refuses to go sleep with the younger boys, so Yuming volunteers to keep him company in the barracks. In the morning she tells Kai she knows a way to escape and tells him she is coming with him and Li. Later that week the three of them make their escape. Li pretends he is sick and needs to get to the bathroom. Kai and Yuming help him to the bathroom. The bathroom in the factory is a room without a ceiling and when Jing joins them the four help each other over the high walls and to freedom.

Once out of the factory, Yuming, Jing, Kai and Li race into the forest and continue to run until they reach the safety of a cave. That night they head out of the woods to the nearby village where they break into a store to find something to eat. Jing reveals that she has been at the factory for almost five years, and Yuming learns that Kai and his brother are from a village near Beijing. Kai tells the group that the plan is for them to make money at the tourist sights, in particular the Great Wall of China. With money, Yuming hopes to be able to return to her village.

From this point on the two storylines intersect frequently as Yuming and her friends struggle to survive and steal enough money to make it home, while Clara and her parents travel to Beijing and Shanghai. Clara believes the spirit of Lola is there to guide and encourage her in her quest to find Yuming's factory, while Yuming relies on the spirits of Wai Po and Wai Gong to help her in her quest to return home. 

Discussion

Ami Polonsky has crafted a touching story that captures those tenuous and momentary connections that exist between people, sometimes known but mostly unknown in this life. These connections happen frequently throughout Threads, making it an captivating story while set against the backdrop of forced labour in China.

Yuming places a note inside a purse hoping someone in America will find it and act. In a remarkable coincidence, her note is found by a young American girl with ties to China. But the coincidences do not stop there. When Clara and her family arrive at the Great Wall on July 7, Clara sees a city bus stop with a commotion going on in the back. "Suddenly, four of the windows open and, at the exact same moment, four kids jump out, one from each window. They have identical hair-cuts and are wearing brightly colored T-shirts that are way too big on them." The reader already knows from the previous chapter that Yuming, Jing, Kai and Li are "all wearing oversize, brightly colored T-shirts." Clara is unaware that she is seeing Yuming, and Yuming is unaware that Clara is the person who has seen her note and is actively trying to help her.

As Clara and her parents walk along the Great Wall, they "pass the four kids who escaped from the bus windows. They're jogging down the path, and I hope the bus driver is long gone by now."  As Clara walks along the Great Wall she is remembering when she last visited this famous site with Lola and how they played Rock, Paper, Scissors. Meanwhile Yuming, Jing, Kai and Li are jogging along the Great Wall path, searching for someone. As Yuming is keeping a careful lookout for Mr. Zhang, she notices "...people from many places: the wealthy Chinese families, the South Koreans laughing...the American girl in sun glasses and a baseball cap who seemed lost in thought, playing Scissors, Rock, Cloth discreetly with herself..." Unknown to Clara she has walked right past Yuming and Yuming does not know she has passed the girl who carries her note and picture in her pocket.

A third encounter happens in the city of Sunma during the kite festival. Clara looking for a way to get to the pink factory she has spotted from the gondola, sees "...a Chinese kid run to one of the cabs, say something to the driver, and shove a wad of money into his hand before jumping into the backseat." Unknown to Clara this is Yuming using the last of her money to take the very ill Li to the hospital. But this gives her the idea to use the cab to try to find the pink factory.

The final encounter between Clara and Yuming happens at the Molihua Fountain in Shanghai which is the one thing that ties Clara, Lola and Yuming together. Clara, upon learning that the factory has been located by Chinese officials, feels that Yuming will probably be safe. After spreading Lola's ashes in the fountain, Clara leaves Yuming's photograph on the fountain ledge securing it with a stone. As she walks through the narrow archway out of the park, Clara steps "...aside to let two girls in matching blue sweatshirts pass by. The way their arms are linked, they remind me of Lola and myself-- how we were, and how we could have been -- and I wonder if they're sisters. I smile at them. They both smile back at me."  Earlier, Yuming describes how she and Jing, waiting for their train to Shanghai, buy a package of food and "two matching blue sweatshirts." Unbeknownst to Clara and Yuming, they have met and even smiled at one another. At the end of the novel Yuming mentions looking at her framed photograph of herself and Wai Po and Wai Gong - the one she sent with her note, which Jing found at the fountain. It's also possible that Yuming now realizes that someone has seen her note in the purse.

Although Clara set out on a journey to China to help and unknown girl, Yuming, it is this quest which helps Clara begin to heal from the loss of her sister Lola. Clara realizes that she undertook the quest of trying to save Yuming because she could not save Lola. When she learns that the Chinese authorities are now investigating the factory, she is able to let go of Yuming and accept that she will likely be fine. Returning to the fountain where Lola was found as an abandoned baby, Clara releases Lola's ashes, bringing her closure and acceptance.

"The stone tiers of the fountain shine under a coat of dew. The drops are sparkling like glitter -- like tiny drops of life -- and I step closer to the edge. I stand in the spot where Lola was found almost fourteen years ago, and I think about all the layers of living that are always passing over and under one another like threads in a tapestry."

Although Clara could not directly see these layers and how they pass over and around and under one another, she has come to understand this because of the fountain which is the connection between herself and Yuming. It was where Lola was found and it was where Yuming's picture was taken. And unknown to both girls it is where their lives finally connect for one brief, happy moment. It is these connecting threads that weave the tapestry of our lives.

Threads  that takes recent events of consumers having found notes in merchandise made in Chinese prisons and factories, from Chinese workers asking for help. These notes often mention deplorable working and living conditions in specific factories. The fact that these notes reach people halfway around the world, exposes the global interconnectedness we all have to one another, even if we never meet face to face, even if we don't recognize those connections. 

Polonsky has taken these events and crafted a story that features two young girls, worlds apart whose lives briefly touch and yet they never actually meet.  At the heart of the story is one's girl's struggle to deal with the loss of a sister, while the other girl must deal with the loss of family and freedom.  Ami Polonsky writes in her Author's Note, "Sometimes I lie in bed at night and think about the fact that my life is, in one way or another, connected to every single other life on the planet. It's as though there are invisible threads that bind us all, and occasionally, when I envision these invisible threads, they feel charged with unseen energy. Every now and then, like in the cases of the man in the factory and the woman in New York, and Clara and Yuming, an invisible thread becomes exposed. The energy creates tangible, visible sparks and, from these sparks, come stories."

Threads asks young readers to consider these invisible threads and to try to recognize them.

Book Details:

Threads by Ami Polonsky
New York: Disney Hyperion     2016
pp. 240

The Marvels by Brian Selznick

The Marvels begins as a graphic novel - a story told mainly through the use of beautifully crafted pencil sketches, and then moves into a story told in words.

The story begins in 1766, with a ship, Kraken, on the sea. A young girl tied to the mast is saved from a dragon by an angel brandishing a sword and a glowing lantern. It is part of a play, The Angel and the Dragon performed for the sailors by two young brothers. However, during the performance, the sailors do not notice a terrible storm overtaking their ship. The Kraken is struck by lightning and the ship sinks. The older brother is badly injured in a fall from the ship's rigging. The two boys and their dog survive the sinking and wash up on an island where the older brother dies from his injuries. After burying his brother, the younger one lights a bonfire on the island. However, this causes the trees on the island to catch fire. Terrified that this would be his end, the younger brother is shocked to see a ship on the horizon. The twelve year old boy whose name is Billy Marvel is brought to London where his story is the talk of the town. Watching the construction of the Royal Theatre, Billy tells the workers his story and inspires the young man painting the ceiling to paint his brother as an angel on the dome.

Billy stays on as a worker at the theatre, growing into a young man. After the tenth anniversary celebration at the theatre, Billy discovers a basket left outside the theatre's back doors. The basket contains an abandoned baby boy with a note to raise him to be a good man. Billy adopts the baby who is brought into the theatre community and eventually becomes a child actor. His name is Marcus Marvel and he grows up to be a famous theatre actor. On June 10, 1800, Marcus marries fellow actor Catherine Vine and in 1801 they have a baby boy, Alexander.

Alexander Marvel too becomes an accomplished actor, but his career is filled with brilliant performances as well as many unplanned antics including jumping offstage during a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream to punch the father of a crying child. His grandfather, Billy passes away in 1829. In 1835, Alexander returns to the stage after a stint in jail for the attempted murder of a stage manager.

In 1836, his illegitimate child is left at the theatre by the mother. Named Oberon Marvel, he too becomes a great actor. Oberon and his wife Eleanor become famous, he especially for his role as King Leontes in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. On November 10, 1888, Eleanor gives birth to a son, Leontes Marvel. Meanwhile, the baby's grandfather, Alexander Marvel who is believed to be insane, has disappeared. Many people believe he is living beneath the stage at the theatre. Unlike the previous generations of Marvels, Leontes is not interested in performing. He misses his cues and loves to draw, all the while enraging his father. This eventually leads to Leontes being banished from the theatre. Leontes discovers his grandfather, Alexander alive and living beneath the Royal Theatre stage. He tells Leontes about his family's past and gives him a medallion with a nightingale on it. After this Leontes decides to run away and writes his parents a letter telling them and asking them to care for Alexander. However, as he is leaving, the Royal Theatre catches fire. Realizing Alexander is trapped in the theatre, Leontes rushes back to save him and is himself trapped. The story panels end at this point and the prose narrative begins.

It is 1990 and a few days after Christmas. Joseph Jervis has run away from his boarding school,  St. Anthony's. He is trying to find his Uncle Albert Nightingale's home at 18 Folgate Street in London but the wind blew the map he and his friend, Blink, made for him to use. On the streets of London, Joseph encounters a boy chasing his white dog. The boy tells Joseph that 18 Folgate Street is near where he lives. Joseph agrees to help the boy find his dog in exchange for him helping to bring Joseph to Folgate. Along the way Joseph learns the boy's name is Frankie. When he loses Frankie and believes he is lost, Frankie yells to him to follow the ship. This turns out to be a ship weather vane on the top of a house - his uncle's house on Folgate.

Peering into the house Joseph sees a home done up like something out of the nineteenth century. Frankie reappears chasing his dog and together they watch hidden while Albert Nightingale clears his walk of snow. Joseph eventually introduces himself to Albert and asks if he can stay with him. Albert refuses but tells Joseph to go into the house, change his wet clothes and warm himself by the fire. Joseph does this and sees rooms in the house set up in a tableau format - a small picture of a ship named Kraken, the dining room table set with a half-eaten meal, a room with a Christmas tree and opened presents, toys on the stairs, candles in the windows.

In the bedroom, Joseph finds a small box with a photograph and a drawing of an angel. Exhausted he falls asleep.  In the morning Joseph asks Uncle Albert if he can meet his wife and children. Albert tells him he lives alone with a cat named Madge. Albert tells Joseph he called St. Anthony's and his headmaster is very angry with him because he sets fires. However, Joseph tells Albert the fire was an accident. He was writing a letter to his best friend "Blink" who left St. Anthony's several months ago after his father came to get him. Joseph wants Albert to help him find Blink. Albert makes Joseph promise he will not set his house on fire.

The next morning Joseph comes downstairs to find that Frankie's dog has darted into Albert's house and made a big mess, breaking glasses and plates. Instead of cleaning up the dishes, Joseph is astonished to see Albert replacing the broken plates, filling the glasses and returning a dropped napkin to the floor. The presence of ships all through the house including a tattoo on Albert's arm, as well as the unusual rooms leave Joseph with many questions.

Joseph stays with Albert, helping him clean and set up his rooms each day. One night Albert dresses in a faded tuxedo and goes out for the night. He is driven in a nineteenth-century horse-drawn carriage. Frankie surprises Joseph at the house and in his attempts to get him to leave, discovers that Frankie is a girl and also causes some of the dishes on the table to break. Frankie asks Joseph about his uncle and also why he ran away from school. She also tells him that she believes her older brother, Marcus Matthew Bloom is somehow connected to Albert and his house. She tells Joseph that she has found some of Marcus's things in the attic. While cleaning up the mess they've made the two children find various items that lead them to question who Albert is and who lived in the house. Joseph's attempts to uncover the secrets of his Uncle Albert's life lead him to understand his own life and what that what he might want.


Discussion

The Marvels is a beautiful book, complete with a gorgeous cover in blue and gold, exquisite illustrations that form over 400 pages of this massive novel and an engaging story. Selznick has successfully created this type of format for juvenile fiction - stories told separately in illustrations and then in text.

The dominant theme in The Marvels revolves around what constitutes a family. Most of the regular families in the prose part of the novel are seriously flawed - a theme that's hinted at in the artwork in the first part with Leontes troubled relationship with his father. Joseph Jervis's parents are wealthy and occupied such that they rarely have time for their only child. Joseph set fire to his toy chest which led to his parents sending him to boarding school in England. Lonely and unable to fit in, Joseph runs away to find a long-lost uncle, Albert Nightingale who lives in London.

Early in Joseph's narration the reader learns, "Joseph's parents didn't really  know anything about him. They lived their lives of great privilege, with their servants and their money and their travels that didn't include him." When he enters Uncle Albert's home, Joseph remembers fondly a visit with his grandfather when he was younger. After returning home from that visit, Joseph attempted to recreate the warm fire they shared at his grandfather's home, except he did this with matches and his toy chest. His parents, not taking the time to listen nor to understand that this was done over the loneliness and sadness he felt at the death of his beloved grandfather, punish him and ship him off to boarding school in Switzerland. Joseph recognized that his situation is unusual when he acknowledges that "He was the youngest boy the school had ever taken." All of these statements show that Joseph is unloved and has a dysfunctional relationship with his parents. All he wants is a family who loves him. This is never more evident than when he walks across the rooftops of the connected houses and sees a girl (who is Frankie) reading in her bedroom. "Her room looked cosy and warm, and Joseph wondered if her parents were awake downstairs, reading side by side in their bedroom or preparing tomorrow's lunch for her."

Likewise, Albert and his sister Sylvia, Joseph's mother, had their family break apart when their mother left their father. This left Sylvia with many family responsibilities and Albert retreated to a dream world made up of stories. Sylvia was determined to find a wealthy man to marry so she could have a life of comfort and ease. She was able to accomplish this. Albert, however was not just eccentric - he was a homosexual. Albert created his own family, first taking in Frances's older and wayward brother, Marcus, helping him to straighten out his life, and then with his partner, Billy Marvel. With Billy, Albert recreated his stories in their home, telling them to Billy every night and eventually recreating them in the various rooms . Billy died of AIDS, leaving Albert to live in a house of filled with memories and his stories unfinished. His new definition of family gives Joseph the hope that someday he too can make his own "family". And in fact this is just what happens as Joseph is shown at the end living happily with his friend Blink and a baby.

It's unlikely this massive tome will appeal much to children. The first part of the novel, told in pictures, is quite lengthy. There's absolutely no doubt that Selznick is a gifted artist - his drawings are simply beautiful. However it takes a long time for Selznick to get into the second part of his story, although once he does, he weaves all the lose ends together. The Marvels is more likely to be read by parents who will enjoy the artwork, the clever writing with its use of Shakespeare themes, the beautiful cover and gold embossed pages. Whether readers accept the messages the book promotes will depend largely on their values and beliefs. And one of those messages is that family is a fluid concept not defined by blood relatives but by any set of individuals who come together and who love one another. In The Marvels, the presentation of this view of family is done subtly and as such, the book is a brilliant piece of marketing.

Book Review:

The Marvels by Brian Selznick
New York: Scholastic Press       2015
669 pp.

Crossing Stones by Helen Frost

Set during the First World War, Crossing Stones is the story of two families who live across from one another on Crabapple Creek. Frost has structured her novel in a unique way, with four separate narrators who tell their stories in free verse.

The Jorgensen family including Muriel and her younger siblings, sixteen year old Ollie and seven year old Grace, live across Crabapple Creek from the Norman family which includes Emma and Frank and their parents.

The novel opens in April, 1917 with Muriel questioning her teacher, Mr. Sanders, during class as to why all the "real life" secretaries are women but in school they only learn about men secretaries. Muriel is angry to learn from President Woodrow Wilson, that the United States will send men to fight in the war. Ollie is still to young to enlist, but Frank has been in basic training in Kansas for the past six months. The President Wilson tells the nation he will need an army of five hundred thousand men.

Mr. Sanders talks to Muriel's parents telling them she has no "moral compass" when she questions America's involvement in the war. While Muriel's mother is ashamed, her father defends her freedom to express her opinions. Mr. Sanders tells them that if she continues to question the decision the president has made, other students "may wonder if their classmates are risking their lives for nothing." Papa tells Muriel that she must be careful in the future about people like Mr. Sanders who believe others have no right to different opinions.

Ollie wants to go to fight but he's too young yet. Instead he helps Emma's family while Frank is away by mending fences. Ollie figures by helping out he will build up his muscles so he can look older and enlist illegally. He tells Grace he will make her a playhouse out of the scrap wood.

In the poem, Socks, Muriel talks about the expectations of their families. Emma Norman is her best friend and Frank and Ollie are like brothers, but with Frank coming home on leave next week before he ships out, their mothers seem to have the expectation that Muriel will become the next Mrs. Norman. Muriel likes Frank as a friend but she knows she cannot marry him.

Frank arrives home for ten days of leave after which he will be shipped overseas. Both families have a huge dinner at the Normans home to celebrate his homecoming. During his leave, Muriel graduates from high school. Despite being smarter than all the boys, Muriel is not chosen as valedictorian because she received a "D" in comportment, likely the result of her questioning Mr. Sanders view on the war.. Instead, Arthur Anderson is valedictorian and Muriel feels his speech makes no sense.

                                 "Why is everyone just doing what they're told?
                         The presidents of all the countries should
                 meet somewhere and fight this war themselves
        if they think it's worth fighting.
What are they sacrificing? Have they asked the mothers
        who gave the best years of their lives to raise
                 these boys the presidents are sending into battle?
                            No! Women don't even get to vote -- it isn't fair!

Frank thinks Muriel sounds like the suffragettes. Muriel enjoys her graduation dancing with all the boys but Arthur. On the way home, Frank mentions about all the local boys who are enlisting and then suddenly asks Muriel for a kiss. Frank wants to have a girl back home to write to when he is in France, "someone to keep fighting for". Muriel refuses because she doesn't want to just be "someone" whom Frank hurriedly chooses before going off to war. Refusing Frank a kiss results in an argument with Emma who feels this might have been good for Frank while he's at war.

With Frank and many of the other men gone to war, women begin filling in for the men. Muriel's Mama decides to go work for a shop manager as a bookkeeper "for the duration" and the housework falls to Muriel. When Muriel's mother tells her how important mothers are because they raise their children to be honest, Muriel questions the wisdom of this when these children are then sent off to fight wars.

Shortly after Frank is sent overseas, Ollie slips away, taking the train to the city to secretly enlist. Muriel and her family find out when the mailman brings a letter later that day from Ollie explaining what he's done. Muriel's Papa wants to go retrieve Ollie, but Mr. Norman persuades him that doing so might land Ollie in jail.

Meanwhile in July 1917, Papa tells Muriel that the government has passed a law, the Espionage Act,  punishing people who speak out against the war. Papa warns Muriel to be careful and he worries about his sister, Muriel's Aunt Vera, who is involved with the suffragettes protesting for the right to vote for women.

Frank's letters to Emma and his parents tell of adventure. His letters to Muriel are heavily censored, leading Muriel to wonder, if the war is right, why are the soldier's letters blacked out? Ollie too is beginning to regret having signed up and wonders if Muriel was right. A letter from Aunt Vera tells about the protests by the suffragettes and that she is going to Washington to join the picket line in front of the White House. She plans to be in Washington only a week and will stop to visit Muriel.

However shortly after Muriel's father receives a letter from Vera telling them about a controversial sign the suffragettes have made equating President Wilson with the Kaiser of Germany. Vera has been arrested and is in jail. The protests in Washington with new suffragettes replacing those who are arrested mimic the war effort as new soldiers fill in for those who are killed. Frank writes to Muriel that they can't seem to stop a war that is consuming millions.

And then one Saturday afternoon, the lives of the Jorgensen and Norman families are changed forever with the news that Frank has been killed in action. While trying to comfort Emma, Muriel struggles to deal with her own grief for a man she did not want to marry but she certainly wanted to return home safe and sound. Frank's death marks the beginning of several crises that Muriel and her family must deal with leading her to make some hard but different choices about how she will live her life.

Discussion

Crossing Stones is an exquisitely crafted novel, from its expressive jacket art by Richard Tuschman to the uniquely structured poems within. Frost deals with two major historical events in her novel, the entry of the United States into the Great War and the suffragette movement to achieve the right to vote for women. These two dramas are the backdrop for the simple farm life of two families, knit together by the bonds of friendship and love. There are two prospective couples, Ella Norman and Ollie Jorgensen and Muriel Jorgensen and Ella's brother Frank. Ella and Ollie share a mutual affection for one another that eventually leads to love. However, Frank and Muriel, although good friends, do not know what they want. Frank seems to feel an attraction to Muriel but he's a cautious person by nature and without the encouraging cues from Muriel only decides to push their friendship before he leaves for France. This makes him seem a bit calculating which puts Muriel off. And Muriel doesn't like their families' expectations that she will some day marry Frank.

Frank's final letter to Muriel, which comes with his personal affects weeks after his death, reveals the deep conflict he felt over fighting and killing other men, how the truth of the war was being kept out of the newspapers and how Muriel's questions about the war lead him to doubt deeply about what was happening and to hesitate to kill. For Muriel, these revelations have a lasting effect.

"A bullet and a bandage for the wound
         it causes, all in one small envelope.
                  My questions may have caused a hesitation
                           that cost Frank his...his certainty.
                  His life? However long I live, it won't
         be long enough to silence that suggestion."


Grace's drawing is a foreshadowing of Frank's death; the picture showing the crossing stones with Emma and Ollie and "a stone with no one on it, my hand stretched out toward it, reaching out to someone who's not there."

While everyone is struggling to come to some kind of terms with Frank's death, Ollie arrives home, having lost an arm while saving a fellow soldier from being run over by a tank. Emma who is trying to cope with the loss of her brother, now has to deal with what has happened to Ollie. Despite being changed by his experiences in the war, Ollie is helped to heal by the wonderful acceptance and love of Emma.

Besides exploring the issues surrounding the First World War, Frost also includes much information about the suffragette movement in the United States during 1917. This is done through the eyes of Muriel who writes about the picketing women and their treatment by men in Washington, their arrest and the forced feeding of the suffragettes.

Another aspect especially appealing in Crossing Stones was Frost's positive portrayal of family life at the turn of the century. The Norman family suffers the loss of their only son, Frank, and in response to this tragedy, Muriel's Mama goes over to stay with Mrs. Norman. When Ollie returns home recovering from the loss of his arm, Muriel's family pulls together to help him recover, but Muriel also offers him the space on their walks to talk about the war and what he experienced. It is these talks that help Ollie to begin to heal.  When Grace becomes ill with the influenza that is sweeping through the towns, Emma carries her to the stream so Ollie can take her and Mrs. Norman brings soup for Grace.

The poetry in this book is nothing short of impressive. In her Author's Note at the back of the book Helen Frost provides her readers with some information on the form and structure of her poetry which she wanted to reflect the idea of "stepping from stone to stone across a creek". Muriel's poems look like a meandering river while Ollie and Emma's poems are representative of the stepping stones. Their poems are " 'cupped-hand sonnets,' fourteen-line poems in which the first line rhymes with the last line, the second line rhymes with the second-to-last, and so on, so that the seventh and eighth lines rhyme with each other at the poem's center." However, while the rhyming words are found at the end of the lines in Emma's poems, in Ollie's poems the rhyming words are the first in each line. Frost goes on to explain further how Ollie and Emma's poems are connected to each other.

Crossing Stones is a wonderful historical novel that conveys both the horror of World War 1 as experienced by both the men who fought and their families back home, as well as the determination and pluck the suffragettes demonstrated as they fought for the right to be politically equal to men. Creative, unique, poignant and sensitive in its treatment of these issues and of families torn apart by a senseless war and a changing social order, Crossing Stones is a true gem.

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Book Details:

Crossing Stones by Helen Frost
New York: Frances Foster Books      2009
184 pp.