Bruce Brooks

I finally grabbed this from my bookcase on a whim the other night and started in. For some reason, I had thought this was a fantasy. I don't know why, exactly, other than I read that almost exclusively for the longest time. It also means that I have the delight of discovering new-to-me young adult books that people normally read back in middle or high school that I skipped over.

Like this one.

If you were to ask what is the theme of this book, I'd have a hard time describing it. There's music, show more of course, as the main character is a cellist. It's not quite a coming of age story, though it's close. It's a story of family, and self, and music.

Silibance T. Spooner unexpectedly asks her father to take her to meet her mother, who she has never met. This starts a cross-country journey where she learns about her parents and the Age of Aquarius. There's some very well-done introspection on how people change over time and being true to one's self, as well as finding oneself through music.

There's also a secondary story about a mystery Soviet cellist that Sib spends an inordinate amount of time trying to track down, that ties in neatly and wonderfully with the main story.

There's really a lot going on in this book. I enjoyed it a lot. I only wish I had actually read it 15 years ago. I also wish it wasn't so long out of print. show less

Wow! I can't believe it took me this long to read this one. Why did I put it off? Oh, right, basketball.

This was one on the Battle of the Books book list when I was in middle school, and I never read it because I have never been into sports. However, Bruce Books writes in a very compelling way that actually made me care at least as long as Jerome Foxworthy was sharing his story, probably because he himself was so interested, and the way he talked about it was much broader than just the show more basics of the game, it was also about how a person plays it and how that can tell you about the person.

At its heart, The Moves Make the Man is the story of Jerome Foxworthy's meeting, befriending, and trying his best to understand Bix, a young white boy with some very serious issues, but Jerome's first run-in with Bix doesn't reveal this, just spying him from afar while Bix plays baseball (a sport Jerome loathes) against his brother's team. The story, taking place in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1961, then pushes Bix and Jerome together through a series of circumstances, starting with Jerome's transfer to a new school thanks to Desegregation.

In the beginning, it is hard to tell how everything happening to Jerome connects with his eventual friendship with Bix, this bit of information already having been revealed right at the start of the narrative, but it all eventually comes together in a very fascinating read of the complexity of humans and human relationships. Also, the more I read the more I found myself relating to both Jerome and Bix in certain ways, which is always a plus.

I'm amazed this isn't on more Must-Read lists, as it certainly just found a place on mine, especially for the age and grade-level it is meant for. So good. show less

The book follows Asa through his childhood, through multiple moves as his mother leaves his father and remarries to a man who neither understands nor seems to like Asa much at all, through his mother's battles with depression, and through his own struggles with being much more intelligent than his peers, not fitting in, and trying to be as compassionate as he can with everyone around him. It's a lovely story and for the most part it's well told, but for me it doesn't quite work as well as it show more could, because Asa himself isn't very believable a character. He's very smart for his age, which is fine, but he's also incredibly (in the literal sense of that word) emotionally mature and self-aware. He has a grasp on the motives and emotions of others that no child could possibly have. It's so far from believable that it kept jarring me out of the story, and his insights are so keen that I also don't think this book is Newbery material (it won the Newbery Honor in 1993). If the Printz award had been around then, I could see it in that category, which tends toward more mature content for YA, but it just seems too sophisticated for the Newbery. show less

Continuing the July YA challenge, and making a dent in the Newbery award-winning books, the latest read is an insightful 1993 honor winner titled What Hearts by Bruce Brooks.

At the risk of redundancy, I've mentioned often that young adult books, including some of the later Newbery winners, are not fluff, and in fact deal with some particularly difficult life situations. This book is no exception!

Young Asa's life is suddenly uprooted when he returns home on the last day of first grade to show more learn that the house is empty and he and his mother are moving. Leaving behind his father, whom his mother states she no longer loves, Asa's mother selfishly immediately thrusts Asa into a life with a new boyfriend and living arrangement.

Lacking a transition time, precocious, sensitive Asa adjusts as best as possible. Astutely he grasps the knowledge that his new "father" is not a kind man and doesn't want the baggage of a little child.

The first night, Asa is taken to an amusement park, placed on an adult ride wherein he is suspended high up in the air for a long period of time while the ride violently shakes the small child. This is the beginning of cruel taunts and actions at the hands of a man who borders on malevolence.

While the subject matter is deep, there is also hope and a strong theme of spunkyness and resiliency.
Segmented into four separate sections, each dealing with the meaning of love, the definition of forgiveness, the power of friendship and the ability of the human spirit to somehow transcend difficulty, this is an incredibly powerful book.

Highly recommended. show less