There isn’t much I can add to my review that hasn’t already been said about Esther Ehrlich’s debut, Nest. I predict it will be on the short-list for the Newbery Medal this year. Finally, a middle school book that disregards trendy voice and plot and instead focuses on character development, realistic dialogue, and a nicely paced, coherent plot. Even the gorgeous book design by Stephanie Moss is a refreshing change. I should have made this a book club pick, but it didn’t come out until September. I received the advanced copy from NetGalley, a great site for those who would like to review books. (You don’t get paid, but you do have access to wonderful books-most of the time.)
Because of the subject matter of this book, I’m going to include a multitude of spoilers. Since it’s a middle school book, I assume that’s okay since your child, or one you know, is more likely to read it than you.
I should have taken the shortcut home from my bird-watching spot at the salt marsh, because then I wouldn’t have to walk past Joey Morell, whipping rocks against the telephone pole in front of his house as the sun goes down. I try to sneak around him, pushing so hard against the scrub oaks on our side of the road that the branches scratch my bare legs, but he sees me.
“Hey,” he says, holding a rock and taking a step toward me. He doesn’t have a shirt on; it’s been broiling all week.
“Hey,” I say, real friendly, like I’m not thinking about the fact that I’m a girl and he’s a boy who might pop me with a rock, since he comes from a family that Dad says has significant issues.
The first concern, and the reason I can’t have it in the library (such a shame!), is the language. There is only one instance of very mild cursing, but it’s enough that I know the Diocese won’t approve of it as a middle school book. (The publisher lists the book as 10 and up.)
Chirp warmed up to Joey and believes he won’t to do her bodily harm. They start throwing rocks against the telephone pole together.
“Not bad,” Joey says. He comes and stands next to me. He smells like the lime Dad cuts up for his gin and tonic before dinner.
Joey’s turn. Bam.
My turn. Bam.
His turn. Bam.
My turn. Bam.
“Crap,” he says.
“Crap,” I say.
“Double crap.”
“Triple crap.” Dad says swearing is inappropriate and not what he expects to hear from either of his daughters. I don’t know if crap is officially a swear, but I do know there are lots of more polite words in the English language.Joey picks up a whole handful of rocks. He throws them into the air, and they smash down on the road.
“Is your mom’s leg okay?” he asks.
“Not really.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah, it sucks.” My heart is pounding.
“I love chocolate pudding,” Joey says.
Because Joey has his own secrets–he is obsessive when it comes to germs/health and his father is abusive–he recognizes when a subject is not to be broached. In this case, Chirp wants to avoid any mention of what she didn’t realize was obvious to everyone else. Something is wrong with her mom, but they don’t know what.
We eventually learn with the rest of the family that Chirp’s mom has multiple sclerosis. Chirp’s mom, a dancer, takes the diagnosis poorly and within a couple of weeks admits herself into a facility for extended psychiatric care. There are hints in the book that she has battled depression before. The family focuses on keeping it together while she is away. Chirp and her older sister debate the future.
When Rachel and I are upstairs in the bathroom brushing our teeth, she says, “You know, Mom will die is she has to give up dancing.”
“No she won’t!” I say. “Take it back.”
“It’s just an expression, Don’t you know that?”
“Take it back anyway.”
“No, she says. “Don’t be stupid.”
There is a scene where they visit her in the hospital that is just painful. Chirp’s mom eventually does come back, though her recovery seems tenuous. Chirp learns how fragile her mom is in the middle of an oral book report.
Dad grabs my hand and pulls me through the hall. He’s walking so fast I have to run to keep up with him. As soon as we’re outside, he kneels right down on the pavement and looks into my face.
“It’s Mom,” he says. “I have terrible news.”
“You took her back to the hospital.”
“Oh God,” Dad says. He rubs his face with his hands.
“I want to finish my dance,” I say. “I was just about to take off from the water.”
“Listen, honey. Mom isn’t in the hospital. She died. Mommy died.”
“No, she didn’t,” I say. “She’s just really sad. There’s a chance she’ll have to go to the hospital again.”
Dad holds my shoulders. He puts his face so close to me that his words make wind in my eyes and he says that Mom died, she really did die, this morning after we left for school, and he knows this because Clara went to the house and Mom wasn’t there, but there was a note on the table that said she was very sorry but she just wasn’t able to go on this way and she loves us very much and she didn’t want to make this harder on us, so she wanted us to know that she went to Hutchins Pond.”
The rest of the story is about Chirp moving forward following her mother’s suicide.
It’s interesting to me that my book-review plugin automatically categorized this as Young Adult, whereas the publisher has it listed as a middle school book. I remember reading books in middle school where parents died for reasons like cancer, accidents, or old age. I don’t recall a death by suicide scenario, though that may reflect where I went to school. Is this a book you would allow your child to read? And if so, at what age?
As a young adult book, I think Nest is great. I’m disappointed it’s categorized as a middle school book because there will be teens who won’t read something so “baby.” If you follow me on Facebook, you know I’m discouraged with young adult literature. The quality, at least what I have seen, is poor. The most popular books among teens are sensational, dramatic, and, frankly, dull. I’m tired of series. I’m tired of reading the same plots rehashed into something slightly different. I’m tired of the fractured fairytales, the dystopian scenarios, and most of all, the assumption that kids don’t deserve to read something great.
I understand the publishing industry has to turn a profit, but surely there is an imprint somewhere that focuses on young adult literature. I can’t think of a single young adult book in the last few years that will last generations the way The Giver or A Wrinkle in Time has.
(Please don’t say The Fault in Our Stars. I refuse to believe the popularity of that book will last.)
Perhaps, as I mentioned on Facebook, this isn’t as much about young adult literature as it is about my disappointment in myself. I can’t seem to get through to the junior high kids this year. They don’t have time for reading (they have time for video games and iphones, oddly enough) or they want books that are incredibly inappropriate for them to read. I’m not sure what I have to do to challenge them or move beyond a genre. Even John Green, bane of my existence, doesn’t read John Green. That’s a strong list of books, and many of them are classics. I’m going to print out the list and bring it to school for the kids to review. Fingers crossed!
I still have the best memories of talking books with adults when I was 12-14 years old. It was the 70’s though so the titles were on the weird side (Robert Heinlein, Ram Dass, The Hobbit). Hippies! I was a bookish kid anyway but these conversations were a wonderful reinforcement to keep reading. Stay stubborn with those Jr. High kids, they specialize in listening while looking like they’re ignoring you.
My understanding of “middle grade book” is not that it is for middle school. YA is considered appropriate for middle school (although I do not put all YA in our middle school library). I look at both the YA designation, the age recommendations, and the content. I find this (http://writeforkids.org/2014/01/the-difference-between-middle-grade-young-adult/) helpful in understanding the distinctions.
All that said, yes, I would have let my kids read this book when they were in the middle grades (4-6). I would put this in our elementary libraries, in spite of mild language. I think it’s really important that kids have access to quality literature that will help them grapple with and understand the hard things in life. It sounds as if that is what this is.
ALSC has a nice list of recommended reads for tweens–that might be a good place to start in looking for quality titles for your middle school students. http://www.ala.org/alsc/sites/ala.org.alsc/files/content/Tween13_RecReadsList_bw.pdf But some of these are likely to seem too babyish for middle schoolers. They’re going to want protagonists their own age.
1. Thank you for correctly calling it “middle grade.” I knew I was screwing it up somehow. :)
2. I’ve read this article before–when I was trying NaNoWriMo, actually! I loved it then, love it now.
3. This is a great resource, thank you! :)
4. My challenge is that I have to stock a library for kids K-8. I’m not strictly elementary or strictly junior high. There are a lot of kids I have to buy for, and not every need will get met. I try to vary my purchases–one month I’ll focus on K-3, another month I’ll buy middle grade, and over the summer I stocked up on YA. Along with all that, I have to keep in mind the expectations of the parents (a mostly conservative crowd) and the Diocese (definitely a conservative crowd). I feel like I’ve done a good job so far considering I had zero professional experience before I jumped into the deep end, but there are days where I feel like I’m failing miserably.
“Professional” experience is overrated. I wrote my mom was one of my inspirations in my MLIS application because she took a seminary library from the dark ages of a paper catalog to a fully digital library with zero library education/training. Learned everything on the go. Now, I’m being a bit facetious, but my point is you are doing GREAT!
Copied off today’s Facebook post from Lena Roy (author, grandaughter of Madeline Le’Engle) ” My YA fave is Two Girls Staring at the Ceiling by Lucy Frank, and I just read a new historical fiction/ fantasy novel that I adored called The Golem and The Jinni by Helene Wecker.”
I hear your frustration and hope this helps. Great to see John Green’s book list!
I loved The Golem and the Jinni! I read that last year and I still find myself thinking about it.
This is great, thank you! I just want the kids to realize that reading can be amazing and better than their phone. But, you know, they are at the age where they know everything. Last year I was relentless in my promotion of The Giver. I talked about that book nonstop! Nothing. This year, with the movie out, what do they ask the first week of school? “Mrs. Kendall, do you have a book called The Giver?”
Sigh.
You mean that book I talked about all last year? The one you wouldn’t read because “the old dude on the cover looks lame”? Yes, actually, I do. I have the entire quartet, because it’s actually part of a series! And I have 4 copies.
Double sigh.
I would definitely allow my kids to read this book, but hopeful, preferably, in middle school, 6th grade and up? Would your middle school kids be interested in Jack London? I read The Call of the Wild in 7th grade and was HOOKED. Survival, death, man vs. nature, etc. I would think it would grab their attention, but maybe I’m just showing my age. White Fang, To Build A Fire (http://www.jacklondons.net/buildafire.html) loved it. There’s a huge Black Stallion series that I enjoyed in 5th grade. Mrs. Mike was another favorite (http://www.amazon.com/Mrs-Mike-Story-Katherine-Flannigan/dp/0425103285) and it has tragedy and history galore. I just searched our (admittedly larger public school library) catalog and found animal stories like that. Don’t know if that would help, but by 6/7th grade kids are definitely ready for “deeper” books. Admittedly, I still read Sweet Valley High through 8th grade. :)
I’ve tried Jack London, but it’s in the classics section so they won’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. I happen to love the description you wrote, so I’M going to read it! :) We have all the Black Stallion series and, again, they won’t touch it. I’ll bet if the series were new and the covers didn’t look so dated they would be interested. True story: my parents didn’t let me read Sweet Valley High or the Babysitters Club! I haven’t read one of those books, ever!!
Haha, my parents were probably at least as conservative as yours, but reading-wise never checked what we read. If your older kids were forced to listen to To Build a Fire read aloud, I can’t imagine they wouldn’t be on edge, even if they wouldn’t admit it. I still remember reading it and knowing deep inside how it would end, but still pulling so hard for the guy and feeling all the suspense. You probably didn’t grow up dreaming of living in the wilderness from age 7 or so like I did (true story, filled a notebook with notes from My Side of the Mountain in 4th grade) so I know I’m weird that way (and tomorrow is our 10th anniversary and we are celebrating by leaving the kids with my parents and going . . . backpacking :) ) But I bet Mikey would enjoy TBAF. Finally, I’m blushing here feeling like a celebrity noticed me when you said you liked what I wrote so you’ll read it!!!! :)
This is probably a book I won’t read, because we are past that age in this house, but I wanted to comment on those stunning images. I’m not a big fa of birds in real life (sorry – I do love seeing Buttercup) but drawings and paintings of birds are among my favorites. Thank you for sharing those/
Aren’t they GORGEOUS? I just fell in love with them, and they are such a nice tie-in with the novel. They are all of Chirp’s favorite birds! :)
Dude — I feel like you’re throwing down the gauntlet! Not ONE book in the past few years that will be a classic? What about Wonder? Counting by 7s? Because of Mr. Terupt? I may have to go peruse my book lists and come back!
I can hear that you’re frustrated. You’re doing such great work in that library, from what I can tell! What about releasing the idea of having the middle schoolers read “literature” and instead try to get them to read anything at all? Comic books and graphic novels are huge in my house, as are Foxtrot, Calvin & Hobbes. I do kind of grit my teeth every time my eight-year-old daughter picks up another “___ the ___ Fairy” book, but it IS reading, and right now it’s what she’s excited about. If I can sneak in a “Because of Winn-Dixie” every fifth book, then I feel like it’s a win. Does it really matter if all they want to read is fractured fairy tales or dystopian series? Consider them a gateway drug!
I will definitely read this one. Thanks for the recommendation!
DUDE–gauntlet picked up.
Wonder, Counting by 7s, and Because of Mr. Terupt are considered middle grade books for ages 9-12 and are in the “middle grade” section in bookstores. I said I can’t think of a young adult book that will become a classic. I’m talking about books for teens 14 and up. I don’t see The Maze Runner doing that. Nest, which you would find in the “middle grade” aka “baby” section of the bookstore is a far better book than almost anything you’d find in YA. It drives me nuts that kids won’t pick up the book because of where it’s placed in a store. It sounds hard to believe, but it’s true. Most 8th graders won’t shop in a section that also carries Big Nate.
And, yes, I agree that reading is reading. I never said it wasn’t so I’m not sure if I’m reading your comment correctly. (Sorry if I misunderstanding something. I blame the heat wave.) What I said was that I wish there was more young adult literature available, not that I wish kids would read it, though that would be nice. There is a tendency to publish what is unremarkable but sells because of an assumption among some adults that teens don’t/can’t/won’t read something powerful and thought provoking unless it’s part of a school assignment. Why can’t there be books like the ones you mentioned for the kids in high school? Just because kids like to read dystopian or fractured fairy tales doesn’t mean they wouldn’t like to read about a teenage August. Wouldn’t that be interesting, to read about August as he circumvents the high school years?
If teens only wanted to read popular fiction, I would be fine with it because it’s reading. I’m not clear how I gave the impression that I’m trying to dictate their reading. My beef is that they claim to have no time for reading OR they want to read inappropriate content. Sorry, but you will never convince me that an 8th grader should read erotica because reading is reading. If that’s a gateway drug, I’d prefer them straightedge. :)
I subscribe to School Library Journal and Voice of Youth Advocates magazine along with digital subscriptions to children’s, middle grade, and young adult releases on NetGalley, Edelweiss, and BookBub. I stand firm in my belief that the publishing industry underestimates teenagers. They deserve more and they deserve better.
Oh, and definitely pick up Nest. I think you’ll love it. :)
I have to second the sentiment here. I’m 28 and the books that got me through the young adult years as a reader were Harry Potter books. They came out when I was in fourth or fifth grade and lasted me through college. I read some other things but those were the ones I was really excited about at the time, especially during middle school when I probably did the least reading for pleasure. Whatever it takes.
Also, this sounds like an awesome book and thank you, in general, for all your recommendations. I’ve read a few books that you’ve recommended (and have The Graveyard Book on my ‘too read’ pile) and I feel like you’re a really trusted resource for me. This one is getting added to the list.
Have you read the series (sorry!) The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia, and A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner. A friend of mine, who is a children’s librarian, recommended them and so far, though I am net yet through them all, they’ve been really engaging and fun to read. I’d be interested in your take on them. They are also marketed towards older children.
Just to be clear: I never said I wanted kids to only read literature. I’ve always said reading is reading. I’m saying that publishers aren’t giving teenagers credit by not publishing more than just crap. And, as much as I hate to admit it, John Green has said the same exact thing. Publishers often treat teens like buffoons incapable of deep thought.
But, um, I consider Harry Potter literature and a classic and, again, that began as a middle grade book. (See how the middle grade books are better?) That’s what is so great about that series. Kids grew with them. They began as middle grade, but as the characters grew up, so did the books. The last 2 in the series are often considered young adult. And for the record, I read all the Harry Potter books (I started reading them when they first came out) and I was WELL into my 20s.
I’m glad you’ve had luck with my reviews! :) Book reviews are my least enjoyable posts to write because I find them stressful! I want people to read them and leave knowing whether a book I’ve reviewed is for them. The idea of them buying a book on my recommendation only for them to hate it…ugh!
It’s why in every post I try to include other similar books that I liked as a reference point. That way, if people read my review of Curse of the Alphabet Vampires, where I’ve compared it favorably to The Graveyard Book, which they’ve read and loved, they’ll know that if they liked The Graveyard Book they will probably like Curse of the Alphabet Vampires.
I haven’t read that series, but I will definitely check it out. My friends (HUGE YA fans!) have been really talking up Throne of Glass (another damn series!) so that’s also on my list. One book I read recently that I didn’t like was Bones of Fairie. Totally eh.
Amanda, so funny because my son (who just turned 11 last week) JUST finished reading The Thief series! And loved it, except he thought the third book got a little slow — too much politics.
I think I have difficulty distinguishing between YA and Middle Grade — I would’ve put both The Giver AND Wrinkle in Time in MG. (I read Wrinkle in 4th grade, my son read it in third, and he read The Giver this past summer. I read it in my 20s because that’s when it came out!)
Jules, I agree that old-looking covers are the worst. I am definitely swayed myself by covers, so I can’t imagine trying to convince a kid that a book is good when the cover is so dated.
Sigh. I was excited when you posted a book for middle school kids and at first it sounded promising. Until, the suicide. There is just no way I’d give my almost 12 year old a book where a mother kills herself. Call me overprotective/old-fashioned/etc., but I prefer to protect my child a bit longer from the harsh reality of mental illness and suicide. We homeschool and are very careful about what our kids watch and read, so I’m not sure my daughter really knew who Robin Williams was or how he died. And I don’t want her to imagine her own parents killing themselves. Life is too stressful in middle school to introduce other “fears”. So I guess I’ll set this one aside as a young adult book.
Just had to come back and comment on this post b/c my hold for this book finally came in and your review is spot on. I probably wouldn’t have read this if it wasn’t for you not because of the content but because I kind of hate birds. Chirp is charming and sort of makes bird-watching sound fun. (Sort of!) Mostly, I’m so glad I got to meet Chirp and Joey. Thank you for yet another great book review. I have found that whenever I read a book recommended here, I end up loving it. I always look forward to book review posts because it means I’ll have another favorite to add to my list.