Summerland

A real weaving of Norse and American Northwest Indian mythology.
Ethan Feld is a motherless 11-year old who shows no talent for baseball and wants to quit the team, until he is unexpectedly (and erroneously) called upon to save the Universe. Together with his friends and teammates Jennifer T. and Thor, Ethan sets out to find his kidnapped father, “scampering” into another world via Summerland, a baseball meadow that is one of the few crossing points not yet disconnected by shapeshifter Coyote in his plan to destroy the worlds of the Tree of Life. Ethan, Jennifer T., Thor and a bizarre assortment of creatures that include fairies, Sasquatch and a vertically challenged giant are pitted against the fiercest, most avid baseball players show more in the Universe. They play for safe passage across hostile lands in a hopeless race to reach Murmury Well before Coyote, with help from Ethan’s hapless father, can poison the waters that sustain the Tree of Worlds.
The story moves at a suspenseful pace switching between the protagonists’ odyssey and the antagonist’s progress. Chabon’s writing style employs a wild mixture of humor, horror, baseball culture, nanotechnology, mythology, shamanism and tall tale to craft the plot, drawing on the rich heritage of Norse, Pacific Northwest Indian and Frontier American story telling. The length may put off younger readers, but it’s hard to imagine a more entertaining read for a fantasy fan or a more incongruous crew of unlikely heroes. This book could make reading assignments and genre research look fun. show less

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I really liked this book, even though it is mainly about baseball, a game which I know almost nothing about. Its parallel worlds and talking animals are close to Philip Pullman, and its fantastic imagining of America is not very far from American Gods, but I think it is better done than either - more confidently rooted in American folklore than Gaiman's book, and less ideological than Pullman. Also, despite its 500 pages, I found it a surprisingly quick read.

This is a story about baseball and friendship and perserverance and magic. If that isn't enough to intrigue you then you may have lost your ability to wonder. I'm glad to say that even at 66 years of age I was able to lose myself in this magical book.

Ethan Feld is 11 years old and lives with his father on Clam Island off the coast of Washington State. His mother, a veterinarian, died of cancer a few years ago when they were living in Colorado Springs and his father followed a dream that she figured in to this remote spot. Ethan's father is an aeronautical engineer and he is working on a personal use dirigible. He occasionally flies his prototype around the island and sometimes uses it to take Ethan to his Little League baseball games at show more the tip of the island. This tip is called Summerland for the fact that it is always sunshiney in the summer even though the rest of the island is often covered in clouds. The reason for this unexpected weather pattern is revealed when Ethan finds a werefox that can scamper between different realities. The Summerland end of the island has a connection to another reality that is also called Summerland which is populated by faeries. However this reality and two others that are supported by the great tree of life are in trouble. Coyote, that old trickster of myth, is trying to bring down the whole tree which would end all existence as we know it. Ethan has been identified as the champion who can possibly help prevent this. Ethan isn't so sure of his abilities especially since they seem to depend on his baseball prowess which is pretty much nonexistent. Nevertheless when he comes home and finds his father has been tricked away by Coyote he is determined to try. He gets his friends Jennifer T. Rideout and Thor Wignutt and the werefox Cinqufoil together and they take off in the Feld's old Saab attached to a dirigible envelope. They make it across the join between the worlds but that is just the start of their adventure. Along the way they meet giants and Sasquatches and other beings that are spoken of in myths and stories and tall tales. And they play baseball for increasingly important reasons. Follow their journey and be amazed.

What a great way to finish out the year! Although this book is actually meant for children I sincerely loved it. Since I purchased it in 2009 it took me a long time to crack it open but I'm glad I kept it. show less

It wasn’t until I picked up this book to start reading it that I caught an important point from the back cover - “Hyperion – Paperbacks for Children” and the quote from the Today Show “A home run of a kids’ story”. Alas, in my haste to pick up another book by Chabon, I had grabbed this novel for children. But a 500-page children’s book? It didn’t really make sense. So I dove in to see what I would find (after all, I can still read A Wrinkle in Time and enjoy it.)

My only regret is that I wish I hadn’t known it was a children’s book. Would I have thought it too simplistic? I doubt it. This is a very involved tale with different images around every turn. Would I have thought the writing itself “dumbed down”? show more Maybe. But the conversations and the writing match the hero of the tale. And the one thing knowing this was a children’s book did was make me imagine reading this out loud to kids – and that was a very easy thing to imagine.

At the start, I had my small quibbles. Why do all these stories start the same – a misfit who has lost a parent (this time the mother) struggling in a new environment who has to go on a quest to save the remaining parent. But these quibbles disappeared quickly. Chabon has wrapped the mythos of baseball with a newly defined mythology of alternate worlds. These alternate worlds could have also slipped into cliché – there’s the requisite elfin-like creatures, and giants, and yeti, and coyote, and sometimes what seems like the kitchen sink – but he never lets them act like clichés; giving them personalities that match expectations but build into more. The entire thing is wrapped in a slightly different package and, while I didn’t warm immediately to the entire story (I think I was still put off by that whole “children’s book” thing), I soon found myself looking forward to what new things Chabon was going to deliver in each step of the journey.

And the use of baseball is what takes this over the edge – makes it more than a nice little tale. The marrying of baseball with Chabon’s alternate worlds is what makes this book work and provides humor that any baseball fan can enjoy (warning to all American League fans, Chabon is obviously not a fan of the designated hitter). The culmination is particularly effective – every child’s nightmare (that is, every child who has played baseball) is turned into the triumph that saves us all.

Fun and entertaining. show less

The perfect love child of [b:Shoeless Joe|57736|Shoeless Joe|W.P. Kinsella|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170476259s/57736.jpg|977324] and [b:American Gods|349347|American Gods|Neil Gaiman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173975984s/349347.jpg|1970226], and one of the best tween-age novels I've come across.

This is the first of Michael Chabon's books that I've read, but it's obvious on every page that he isn't a children's author, but simply a great writer who decided to write a children's book. Better than merely utilitarian, Chabon's language is a joy to read: accessible enough that my then-9 year old stepson enjoyed it, yet I was kept on my toes by the rich, sharp imagery and inventive uses of simile and metaphor. Considering show more this book is aimed at the same general age group as the Harry Potter series (which I enjoyed), the writing in Summerland makes those books come off as impossibly clunky by comparison.

One of the fastest 500 page reads I've encountered, and a fantastic ride. Special mention has to go to the wonderful end-of-the-world scene, which is vividly described, exhilarating, and as plausible as any I've read anywhere else. show less

The same quality I noticed in Kavalier & Clay is present here - this book is effortless. It seems as though Chabon never needed to stop and think about how his characters would talk, or how the metaphysics of the world would act if the bad guy cut a branch, or anything, that the giants and werefoxes and intermingling of Norse and Native American mythology and baseball all just flowed, in one piece, from his brain onto the paper. Being a kids' book, the vocabulary is not as impressive as in Kavalier & Clay, but the writing style doesn't pull any punches - apart from expecting kids to deal with the 500 pages, he also expects them to keep up with the jargon, geography, and metaphysics of his world - and I bet they will. It uses baseball as show more its central metaphor, and although I played softball for 10-odd years, I'm not a huge lover of the game. Still, baseball is a metaphor, not the focus, and there's plenty to keep adults and non-fans interested and entertained. show less

"Just because something is invisible and immaterial doesn't mean it isn't really there." (40)

I've actually read this book before. I try to read it once a year, although I have to admit, it's probably been about...two and a half years since my last reading. Knowing a bit about my ridiculous love for books, it should have an impact that I take time out from reading new books to read this old one. I love books by Michael Chabon in general. This is - as far as I know - his only children's book. (If you like this book and you're looking for something more adult - WAY more adult - you should read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Great book.)

I don't know a whole lot about baseball, but Chabon gracefully weaves the elements of show more baseball with pieces of American folklore into this story about a boy who has to try to prevent the Changer (or Coyote, as he's sometimes called) from ending the world as we know it.

Set in the fictional town of Clam Island, Washington (that's right, Washington State. What up?!), we encounter Ethan Feld, who is possibly the most devastatingly horrible baseball player in the history of the game. He moved to Clam Island with his father, who is working on revolutionizing the dirigible field, after his mom died of cancer. He mostly continues to play baseball because he knows it makes his dad happy. We also meet his best friend, Jennifer T. Rideout, who is actually a phenomenal ball player. They are joined in their adventure by Thor Wignutt, a boy acting like a robot attempting to be a boy, who has always seemed oddly out of place.

They are recruited by a "hero finder" who recruits Ethan to help prevent the end of the world. A ferisher explains to Ethan that the "world" is actually separated into four worlds, which are connected because they are actually four branches of the same tree. The ferisher elaborates that certain kinds of people can "scamper" from world to world. An oracular clam predicts that Feld will have the answer. Little do they all know, the Feld to which the clam refers is actually Ethan's dad. His father is kidnapped by Coyote, who wants to use him in order to help hasten the end of the world so that he can start over. Ethan must work together with his friends, the ferisher, and other folklore-ish creates to try and prevent the end of the world. Part of his journey through the Summerlands (one of the four worlds" formed by the great tree") is getting past particular obstacles by playing baseball, which seems to have some sort of mythical control over the creatures there. The question Ethan asks is: if I can't even play baseball, how am I going to save the world?

I've read this book before, and I'll read it again. As much as I am not particularly eloquent at explaining the plotline (it's really not as confusing as it sounds), I love this book and the beautiful worlds that Chabon creates, especially using themes and characters which are common to our American heritage. The adventure he takes us on with Ethan, Jennifer T.,, Thor, Cinquefoil (ferisher), Taffy (Sasquatch), and Skid (car-cum-dirigible) is a magical dirigible ride not to be missed. show less