Destiny, Rewritten by Kathryn Fitzmaurice – A Review

Destiny, Rewritten by Kathryn Fitzmaurice is a wonderful middle grade, general market novel of the coming-of-age variety.

The Story.

Emily Elizabeth Davis loves happy endings and she wants one for her own life, but there are a couple problems. First, she lives without knowing who her father is, and second, she seems to be trapped in a destiny determined for her before she was born.

Emily sets out to discover whether or not she can alter her destiny, but the situation quickly turns into a hunt for her misplaced copy of The Complete Works of Emily Dickinson in which her mother has recorded all the important events of her life, including the name of her father. With the help of her best friend and her cousin, Emily makes every effort to take charge of her own destiny, all the while wondering if her mother might be right–that a person can’t force things to happen and must simply wait for fate to unfold.

Strengths.

Kathryn Fitzmaurice is a brilliant writer. Her characters pop off the page, each with their little quirks and passions. But I think what I love best is how wonderfully woven together her plot is, starting with the epigraph, lines from an Emily Dickinson poem:

In this short Life
That only lasts an hour
How much–how little–is
Within our power

That’s really the focal point of the main character’s quest, and readers will likely find themselves weighing in on the subject in their own minds.

The brilliant part of the story is the way Kathryn weaves this central theme into the subplots involving the minor characters–Cecily Ann and her love of poetry, Wavey and her environmental causes, Mortie and the stray dog he named Samuel Morse, and even Conner Kelly and his choice of where to sit in class. And of course there is Emily’s mother.

Kathryn’s prose is beautiful–perhaps not as picturesque as her earlier books, but she’s writing a character who isn’t a poet, so the language fits her protagonist. It’s still lyrical and there’s still lots of creativity and fun.

Here’s a sample.

In the exchange below, Emily is talking with her best friend Wavey right after their science teacher, Mr. Hall, asked two boys in the class to carry some boxes for him to the storeroom, then for Emily and Wavey to pour ten milliliters of water into cylinders on the science table.

“Have you ever noticed how Mr. Hall never asks a girl to carry boxes?” I said to Wavey as we walked to the science table. “But he’ll ask us to do easy stuff, like pour water into graduated cylinders.”

“That’s because he thinks we’e too weak and frail to carry boxes.”

“It’s like Mr. Hall is living in that old movie Star Wars, where Princess Leia is waiting to be rescued by Luke and Han Solo, and all she can do is wait because she’s a girl,” I said.

“And then Luke breaks into the jail cell where she is, and she’s all, what took you so long to get here,” said Wavey.

“So he has to explain all the extremely dangerous things he did to get to her,” I told her.

“Which he can do because he’s a guy.”

“Meanwhile,” I said, “Princess Leia finally gets back to the ship, where everything is always in disrepair, mostly because of Han being the type of guy he is.”

“But Mr. Hall, who is Luke, would be like, why don’t you just sit down and rest,” said Wavey.

“Or make coffee,” I added.

“She could make coffee and then paint her nails.”

“While lounging around letting Han carry heavy boxes of spaceship parts,” I said.

“Which he would have because he’d know how to fix anything mechanical,” added Wavey.

“At which point, I said, “Chewie would come in and say something only Han understood.”

“And Han would have to pilot the ship through an enemy attack while at the same time repairing some gauge that their life depended on.”

“And Princess Leia would be letting her nails dry,” I told her.

“While reading a magazine,” said Wavey.

“And pouring sugar into her coffee.”

“This is like that,” Wavey told me.

“I know,” I agreed, filling the last graduated cylinder with ten milliliters of water. “This is exactly like that.”

I might have initially enjoyed that exchange because of the Star Wars references, speculative fiction lover that I am, but there are a couple similar dialogues between Emily and Wavey later on, and I found those equally delightful.

In fact, the whole story is delightful and even heartwarming.

Weaknesses.

Whether this is actually a weakness or not, you can determine. The book was almost strangely without angst. Emily lost her book because of something her cousin did, but she held no grudge and didn’t seek any kind of payback. Wavey faced a difficulty toward the end of the story but quickly bounced back. Emily did something I won’t say what because it would be too big a spoiler, and her mother reacted with amazing calm.

To be honest, in this day of angst-filled young adult books, I found this story to be refreshing. The problem was big, mind you, at least to Emily, and certainly the question about destiny could be one kids her age might begin to wonder about. I felt her tension throughout the story, but there was not much tension between people.

In the scene I quoted from above, for example, Emily and Wavey didn’t seem to hold any ill will toward their science teacher. Further, throughout the story there was a lack of bickering and backbiting and scolding. Because of this, it was honestly a more delightful read, though I can see some thinking the characters lack a bit of believability.

Another thing, and again, readers will have to judge if this is actually a weakness, Emily seemed to have an innocence, almost a naivete, and at the same time remarkable freedom to go places without adult supervision. I thought the tension between these two factors kept the story in balance, but I can see how others might question the realism of the circumstances.

Recommendation.

Buy it. Read it to your kids, read it with your kids, discuss it with your kids. What a great book to begin a family conversation about who controls your destiny.

I received a copy of this book as a gift from the author with no strings attached.

Review – A Diamond In The Desert

I discovered author Kathryn Fitzmaurice when I participated in a blog tour for her debut novel The Year The Swallows Came Early. Because of that review, I had the opportunity to read Kathryn’s upcoming release A Diamond In The Desert.

Her two books could hardly be more different from one another. The first features a girl protagonist, the newest, a boy. The first takes place in a small sea coast town in Southern California, the second, on an Arizona Indian reservation away from pretty much everything. Swallows is about forgiveness and looking past exteriors to what’s going on inside a person, Diamond is about choices and consequences. The first is a contemporary, the second a historical.

The thing the two books have in common is their talented author who writes beautifully in both. Kathryn’s words color the story, each laden with emotion. It’s hard to explain. Poetic? Yes, but not in a burdensome way with long passages of description or lines written to be admired for their own sake, not in an over-dramatized way where symbols aren’t first the objects the story needs them to be. Perhaps the best way to explain is by letting the writing speak for itself.

Tetsu’s father has been taken into custody shortly after Pearl Harbor because he is a leader in the Japanese-American community. Tetsu, his sister, and mother have been moved to the Gila River internment camp. They gave most of their things away, including their dog, because camps didn’t take dogs. Shortly after they arrived, they got a letter from the man who had taken their Lefty, saying the dog had run away.

And Kimi said, “Lefty’s making his way back to our old house.”

And we all agreed that’s what he was doing.

For the rest of the day, we reminded each other that Lefty was going home. And it was enough to keep us moving.

But I kept thinking that when Lefty got there, I wouldn’t be there to fill his water dish or take the thorns out of his paws that he’d get when he ran through the boxwood along the highway. I wouldn’t be there to pull foxtails from his fur.

It was Kimi who taught Lefty to shake. After Papa brought him home, five pounds of short-haired black-and-white spots, a country mutt. No matter how many times she tapped his right paw, he lifted his left. Because he was a lefty.

I told Kimi he was like Lefty O’Doul, left fielder, left-haned batter, left-handed thrower.

Nothing anyone can do to change a lefty.

In such a short segment we learn so much about the characters, in particular that Tetsu knows baseball. Little surprise, then, when baseball becomes a focal point of the story.

Here are a few of my favorite lines:

And when the sun was rising up after breakfast, and the smell of summer blew in strong, sometimes I’d see my old team.

“It’s all my fault,” I said, each word a flash of lightning tearing apart our sky.

There were no words between us.

But there was plenty being said by our twisted hands, and our stiff shoulders, and our silence.

I felt life rush in and out of my lungs.

Papa walked slow enough to give me room to talk if I wanted.

I could keep on. The language is simple but profound. The voice seems so realistic for a young boy having to grow up too soon.

This is a book that will capture you quickly and hold onto you until the end.

I highly recommend this story for anyone who likes to read. This one may be marketed for middle graders, but it is no less for adults. It shows historical things all of us need to read; it causes us to think about the consequences of our choices — something that is timeless and universal.

Free Books and Such

If you’ve thought The Year the Swallows Came Early by Kathryn Fitzmaurice sounds like the perfect book for your daughter or niece or granddaughter or for a prize for the Sunday school class you teach or for the classroom of your teacher friend, I have good news. You can win a free copy. A number of bloggers in the recent Children’s Book Blog Tour are holding drawings and the links are available at Kidz Book Buzz.

And if you’ve followed the tour, you might consider voting for the Best Blogger of the tour (see the poll in the left sidebar).

Speaking of polls, today is the last day for you to vote for the CSFF February Top Blogger Award because it’s scheduled to close Saturday at 8:00 AM (Pacific time? I’m not sure, so to be safe, don’t wait). The one exception would be another tie as we had last month.

Back to free books, by participating in Stuart Vaughn Stockton’s contest introducing his upcoming release, Starfire, you’ll be eligible to win a set of Brandilyn Collins books, a copy of Stuart’s book, a copy of By Darkness Hid by Jill Williamson (see my review at Speculative Faith), and more.

By the way, Volume 3, Issue 2 of Latest In Spec is now available. If you would rather not wait or would rather receive a copy sent to you via email, subscribe by leaving a comment here or at the LIS site.

Back to contests. I’m thinking we’re overdue for another version of The Fantasy Challenge. I’ll need to contact a few authors and see what prizes might be offered. The challenge is going to center on you telling others about the 2008 or 2009 Christian fantasies you think are worthy of some buzz, so let me know what books you’d like to have on the list.

What’s It All About, Alfie?

What’s it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?

(Opening lines from the 1966 Dionne Warwick song “Alfie”)

I can’t help but ask that question about fiction. What am I doing and why am I doing it? The hours I put into writing and the hours someone else puts into reading – what’s it add up to?

Here’s Sally Apokedak‘s conclusion of the middle grade novel we just toured, The Year the Swallows Came Early by Kathryn Fitzmaurice:

The Year the Swallows Came Early is a beautiful book that gives a deep message with a light touch. Readers will take from it much or little depending on what they are ready to take, but they will grow from reading it. Because the characters in the book grow.

That’s the way I want to write. I want to create a story with a deep message, but I want to do so with a light touch so readers, all readers, will grow as they are ready to. Not because I tell them what to do but because they see the change in my characters. They see something winsome, something worthy, something satisfying, something that rings true and builds on what they know to be so.

From my analysis of The Year the Swallows Came Early I saw an amazing attention to detail that contributed to the creation of “a light touch.”

Now I’m wondering, do deep messages ever really “emerge,” or are those that do so, doomed to be light messages?

Children’s Book Blog Tour, Day 3 – Theme in The Year the Swallows Came Early

To vote for the CSFF Blog Tour’s February Top Blogger, click here.

– – –

This is the final day of the Children’s Book Blog Tour for the wonderful middle grade novel The Year the Swallows Came Early, by Kathryn Fitzmaurice. If you’ve read any portion of my last two posts, you know this is a book I love.

The thing is, the more I examined The Year the Swallows Came Early to write these posts, the more I found to love. But time and space crowded from my review some of the book’s notable strengths. For example, I didn’t include any mention of Groovy’s delightful voice, reminiscent of great fiction such as To Kill a Mockingbird. I didn’t mention the beautiful language, so unforced, so natural to the characters, it’s easy to overlook, though it contributes to the mood, the characterization, and to the themes.

In short, I think The Year the Swallows Came Early is a book that deserves attention because it does so much so well. It’s the kind of book would-be writers would do well to study.

In that vein, I want to look at theme. I mentioned in my review that the themes in The Year the Swallows Came Early, woven into the fabric of the story, comprise one of the book’s strengths. Just a quick warning: of necessity, I will be discussing aspects of the story that might be spoilers, so please consider this your SPOILER ALERT.

Earlier I mentioned “themes,” because in reality, this book says much. At the core is forgiveness, but that’s accompanied by not judging on outward appearances and by the importance of trustworthiness. Yet never are these issues delivered in such a way that the reader feels as if the author is talking to him. In fact, rarely is there mention of the key issues. So how did Ms. Fitzmaurice communicate her themes?

One way she did so was by using what I’ll call book-end symbols. Chapter 1 is entitled “Coconut Flakes” and the metaphor at the bottom of the first page explains it:

And that our house was like one of those See’s candies with beautiful swirled chocolate on the outside, but sometimes hiding coconut flakes on the inside, all gritty and hard, like undercooked white rice.

While mention of coconut occurs on several other occasions, the most memorable instance is in the last chapter entitled “Caramel”:

Because even though he’d picked that chocolate by pure chance, it just so happened that when I bit into it, I tasted soft easy-going caramel, and no coconut flakes.

So coconut pictures the hard things in life, but by looking at chocolate candies no one can tell if the inside holds coconut or caramel.

The plot reinforces this early image. Daddy, who is taking Groovy to work with him, holding her hand, is arrested. Mama, who seems absorbed with her own needs, shows she’s concerned for Groovy’s life and heart and passion. The minor characters echo the theme. Crazy Mr. Tom is the one who delivers wisdom and who doesn’t look so crazy when he’s cleaned up and off to move into his new trailer. Frankie’s mom, who appeared to have deserted him, comes back to explain what really happened.

Even little things sharpen this point: Mama’s turning to makeovers as a solution to problems, her belief that hot weather was earthquake weather, even chocolate covered strawberries that play such a prominent role in the story.

Another way the themes are woven into the story is through what the characters learn. The importance of forgiveness comes out because of both a negative instance and a positive. The negative is two fold. First Frankie holds a grudge toward his mom, but it eats him up inside, beautifully played out by his popping Tums at times when his mother comes up in the conversation, and beautifully resolved in the end by Groovy’s supposing:

I imagine one day when his mama hugs him, he’ll put his arms around her, too. That these letters she sends are paving the way to family dinners together. That maybe the next time Frankie sees his doctor, the doctor will say, “Frankie, I have good news. You have been miraculously cured of stomachaches.”

Of course Groovy goes through her own dark night of the soul and must come to forgiveness too. The climactic scene is so rich, I wish I could post the whole thing, but here’s part:

Mr. Tom shook his head. “You don’t want what Frankie has. All that anger will turn you to stone … He reached to touch my shoulder and stared into my eyes, then squinted. Not from the sun, which was shining hard off the ocean just then. But from the story he must have seen, and the girl I knew I would become if I chose not to forgive. Because I could see that he knew all about people not showing forgiveness from his wrinkled-sheet face, the way his eyebrows slanted down on the edges, the sadness they whispered.

Again, there is more, more, more, so much more, but I think you get the idea. The themes of this story are integral to it. There would be no story without these themes. They are at the core of the plot, they are what determines how the characters develop. They are reinforced with symbolism and developed through dialogue (one of the things I’ll save to discuss another day). But never does the author turn this back on the reader or spell it out as a universal life lesson. Is it a universal life lesson? The reader must come to his own conclusions.

You won’t want to miss what the others on the tour have to say about The Year the Swallows Came Early:

All About Children’s Books
Becky’s Book Reviews
Booking Mama
Cafe of Dreams
Dolce Bellezza
Fireside Musings
Homeschool Buzz
Hyperbole
KidzBookBuzz.com
Looking Glass Reviews
Maw Books Blog
Never Jam Today
Novel Teen
Reading is My Superpower

Children’s Book Blog Tour – The Year the Swallows came Early, a Review

Those interested in voting for the CSFF Blog Tour’s February Top Blogger, can find the necessary information here.

– – –

As part of the Children’s Book Blog Tour, I am happy to feature The Year the Swallows Came Early, by Kathryn Fitzmaurice. This is a middle grade novel with a girl protagonist, a coming of age story—quite frankly, not a book I would usually be drawn to. But if you read my post yesterday, you already know the main character quickly drew me in.

The Story. If you visit here at A Christian Worldview of Fiction and have read some of my other reviews, you know I hate to give a story away. Part of the fun of reading, as I see it, is discovering What Will Happen Next. Summaries, by definition, encapsulate the story, but for those of us who don’t want to know how it turns out before we start on page one, summaries can kill our interest before we start. Not everyone feels the same way. Some people (horror! – 😮 ) even read the last page first! If by some (sorry) chance – 😉 – you fall into this category, I refer you to some of the other blogs on the tour that did a good job of summarizing the story: Dolce Bellezza’s Day 1 post or Cafe of Dreams’ Day 2 post. Here’s my shorter version.

Groovy Robinson’s world turns upside down the day her father is arrested, in no small part because her mother won’t answer her questions. At least not at first. When she does explain, she creates more questions than she answers, and eventually Groovy wonders who she can believe, who she can trust. At a point of despair, she discovers that all is not as it seems and people are both more and less than what they appear to be. In the end, she must decide if she can forgive … or not.

Strengths. Certainly characterization has to rank high on the list of good things to like in this book. Not just Groovy, either. Although Groovy’s father spends nearly the entire book in jail, I come away feeling like I know him so well. Groovy’s mother takes center stage more and also comes into clear focus as a believable character—one with her own problems and quirks and needs, but also as one who loves her daughter very, very much.

Best friend Frankie is also beautifully drawn, especially because his story mirrors what Groovy experiences. (I’ve seen this done, or should I say, overdone, in an obvious, distracting way, but Ms. Fitzmaurice avoids stumbling here. In fact, Groovy having identified Frankie’s problem earlier makes her own situation and decisions much more poignant).

Then there are the minor characters like Pastor Ken, Marisol, Felix, Luis, and Mr. Tom who add much more than background color. They are integal to Groovy’s development. And they are each believably drawn.

As much as I liked the characters, I give equal praise to the story. I kept reading because there was tension, and conflict. I had questions I wanted to discover answers for. I cared about Groovy and wanted to know how things turned out for her. Ms. Fitzmaurice did a masterful job telling a masterful story.

This book is also a great example of weaving themes into the story. Without whipping out an explanatory speech, Ms. Fizmaurice showed Groovy’s changes, her mother’s changes, her father’s changes, and ultimately Frankie’s changes, all reinforcing themes of love and trust and forgiveness and mercy and not judging from outward appearances.

I even have some favorite lines. Here’s one:

And here’s what I thought: I wished I’d never found what was in that box because feeling mad at Daddy was a million times worse than feeling sad.

Little truth statements like that, observed as from a child’s perspective, are powerful.

Weaknesses. I’ve got one tiny thing here. I wouldn’t normally mention it, but I don’t have anything else, and I believe in giving a balanced review. Early in the story, afternoon fog rolls in. It’s mentioned on page 43 and again on 48, 56, 58, 60, 61, 63, 72, and 90. Then that same night, with no warning, Groovy and her mom are walking home and look up at the stars. Groovy says all she could see was the Little Dipper though she knew her mom could name all the stars. My first thought was, what happened to the fog? Maybe a wind came up, but we aren’t told so. It’s a small thing, but it jerked me out of the story for one brief moment.

Addendum. Well, now I have to backtrack on the weakness. A closer reading shows that I shouldn’t have been surprised by the stars being out: “… she raised her fists high toward the lone stars peering through the leftover fog in the dark sky.”

I even thought about this after posting the review, how the fog had mirrored Groovy’s confusion and lack of understanding why her dad had been arrested, then after her mother tells the story they come out to a starry sky. If I hadn’t missed the “leftover fog” line, I would have thought the use of fog quite mood enhancing. The weakness was mine, not the story’s.

Recommendation. Needless to say, I think The Year the Swallows Came Early is an outstanding book. It is a must read for women, for girls, for middle grade children. I highly recommend it to dads.

Take time to see what others on the tour are saying:

All About Children’s Books
Becky’s Book Reviews
Booking Mama
Cafe of Dreams
Dolce Bellezza
Fireside Musings
Homeschool Buzz
Hyperbole
KidzBookBuzz.com
Looking Glass Reviews
Maw Books Blog
Never Jam Today
Novel Teen
Reading is My Superpower

Buzzing Kids’ Books – The Year the Swallows Came Early

Announcements. I have an unusual number of these, so please bear with me. There is actual content below.

First, I participated in an email discussion about Christian speculative fiction, initiated by Mike Duran. He has posted the first part today at Novel Journey. (Warning: the discussion has taken a turn on a statement I made about what CBA’s target audience—women. Evidently my remark was controversial. Well, I hadn’t intended it to be so, but I’m pretty sure the comment I left, is! 😮 )

Second, I posted a review of an upcoming Marcher Lord Press release, By Darkness Hid at Speculative Faith which I hope you’ll take time to read.

And lastly, you’re invited to vote for the CSFF Blog Tour’s February Top Blogger.

– – –

The Children’s Book Blog Tour, of which I am a member, is featuring Kathryn Fitzmaurice‘s debut novel, The Year the Swallows Came Early.

Tomorrow I’ll give a full review of the book, but today I want to think a little bit about what makes a character draw readers in, perhaps even become memorable.

Eleanor Robinson, AKA Groovy, is just such a character. I found she drew me into the story on the first page:

We lived in a perfect stucco house, just off the sparkly Pacific, with a lime tree in the backyard and pink and yellow roses gone wild around a picket fence. But that wasn’t enough to keep my daddy from going to jail the year I turned eleven. I told my best friend, Frankie, that it was hard to tell what something was like on the inside just by looking at the outside. And that our house was like one of those See’s candies with beautiful swirled chocolate on the outside, but sometimes hiding coconut flakes on the inside, all gritty and hard, like undercooked white rice.

So here’s what I learned about Groovy, even before I knew her name. She considered her house perfect. Her father went to jail. She has a best friend who evidently is a boy. She thinks about things more deeply than you’d expect an eleven year old to think and even came to a wise, truthful conclusion. And she doesn’t like coconut.

Only that last part is a negative, as far as I am concerned. That her father went to jail makes me feel sad for her, and curious about why. That she has a boy best friend makes me think she’s not a spoiled-princess type. And that she’s likable enough to have a best friend. The coconut thing, I think she’s just wrong, but I’m willing to let that slide because I know there’s a whole set of people out there who don’t like coconut.

A little further into the story, I learn that Groovy had a special relationship with her father and that her mother loves her. I learn that those two facts seem to be in conflict and maybe in doubt. That she suddenly feels like she doesn’t know one of her parents as she always thought makes her even more sympathetic.

I also learn that she has One Great Desire and a particular talent. Before too long, she comes to realize that others have a similar passion to hers and this changes the way she perceives those of like mind. OK, I’m trying intentionally to be circumspect because I don’t want to give away too much of the story. The point is, Groovy doesn’t have a closed mind.

Eventually she shows that she is also kind, that she appreciates others for their kindness. In other words, she’s aware of others at the character level.

Is she perfect? Not at all. She makes some independent decisions that lead her into a real tailspin, and while it looks for a time as if she might get stuck, she makes another change that is probably the best of all, one that just might make her a memorable character.

I invite you to see what others on the Children’s Book Blog Tour have to say about The Year the Swallows Came Early:

All About Children’s Books
Becky’s Book Reviews
Booking Mama
Cafe of Dreams
Dolce Bellezza
Fireside Musings
Homeschool Buzz
Hyperbole
KidzBookBuzz.com
Looking Glass Reviews
Maw Books Blog
Never Jam Today
Novel Teen
Reading is My Superpower