Children’s Book Blog Tour – <i>Something Wicked</i>

Just a reminder. For those of you wishing to vote for the October CSFF Top Blogger Award, you can find the poll HERE.

Another reminder. I will from time to time be participating in the Children’s Book Blog Tour which features books published by both general market and Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) houses. This month the CBBT is focusing on Alan Gratz’s young adult novel Something Wicked (Dial Books).

I’m not quite sure where to start. A word of caution is in order, I suppose. This book has material—sexual innuendo, primarily—that pushes the edge. And it’s a murder mystery.

Am I saying not to read this book? If you think that, you haven’t been hanging out at A Christian Worldview of Fiction long enough to know that one of my beliefs when it comes to books is that readers all should be discerning, not reactive. In short, I have no wish to tell you what to think. At the same time, I don’t want anything I say to be misconstrued as approval of teens having sexual trysts while off on family outings.

In the case of Something Wicked, Mr. Gratz and his publishers make no secret that the story is connected to Shakespeare’s Macbeth. From the back cover:
“Horatio Wilkes is back in the Macbethian companion to Something Rotten.”

Then in a Gratz quote, also on the back cover:

“The challenge was figuring out how I was going to insert Horatio—a character from Hamlet—into the story of Macbeth.”

And if that wasn’t enough, the epigraph makes the case:

“By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.”
-Macbeth, Act 4, Scene iv

Why do I make this point? Essentially to say that few parents have any objection to their youth reading Shakespeare, though often his stories contained bawdy language, sexual insinuations, and some plain debauchery. Are these acceptable because Shakespeare’s works are considered classics? Because his work is artistry (much the way paintings of nudes are not considered pornographic. And how much spam will that sentence earn me? )

In Something Wicked, much of the sexual language and acting out, especially in the opening of the book, serve the story. The characters take on their Macbethian roles through those scenes. But since the story, essentially a retelling of Shakespeare’s original, takes place in a modern setting, suddenly red flags go up.

Red flags should go up, but not at the story. The problem isn’t with Something Wicked but with a society that has created the climate in which this story takes place. In that regard, this novel actually throws some light on that society. But just a little.

But beyond the sexual innuendos and acting out, beyond the murder, and even the societal woes that created the compost heap in which the story germinated, there is something else to consider that might be the biggest red flag of all. Something … well, wicked.

Discussion for next time.

Check out what other bloggers are saying about this book:
the 160acrewoods, All About Children’s Books, Becky’s Book Reviews, Book Review Maniac, Cafe of Dreams, Dolce Bellezza, Hyperbole, KidzBookBuzz.com, Looking Glass Reviews, Maggie Reads, Never Jam Today, Reading is My Superpower.