Pictures of Hollis Woods

            I think I should begin this blog by telling Colleen how horribly sorry I am—this is another one of those books.  I know Fig Pudding made you cry, and there is no way in the world that you could escape from Patricia Reilly Giff’s Pictures of Hollis Woods without tears.  For that, I am sorry.  For being able to share this book with everyone, I am not.

            Hollis Woods is alone, and has been since she was born.  The story begins with an anecdote about a picture the six year old Hollis had put together from magazine cut-outs.  Her teacher had told the students to find pictures of words that begin with “W.”  Hollis had put together a picture of a father, a mother, a brother, and a sister.  Her teacher wrote a gigantic “X” across the picture because none of them began with a “w.”  Little did the teacher know that it did—Hollis’ picture of a family was a wish, a want, a “wouldn’t it be loverly?”  So begins the story of Hollis Woods, a girl who was left on the side of a street an hour after her birth without even a blanket.  Hollis asks to herself, “Didn’t a baby deserve a blanket?”  Hollis has never felt loved and has never felt wanted, except for the time she spent with the Regan family.  She runs away from them and social services places her with an artist named Josie Cahill.  Josie is a retired art teacher, and Hollis’ is an artist with a natural gift.  Hollis doesn’t know if she can stay, but she eventually decides that she will not run away this time.

            There is trouble in Hollis’ new home—Josie forgets things.  Josie forgets to send Hollis to school, forgets when to eat, and forgets that people do not dance around in the middle of the street.  Hollis’ social worker, the lady she calls the “mustard woman,” has found her a new home, a home where mother does not forget things.  Hollis didn’t know if she could stay with Josie, now she doesn’t know how she can ever leave her.  Hollis attempts to save her newfound home by escaping again, this time with Josie.  While she attempts to find a new home for Josie and herself, Hollis cannot shake off the memories of the times she spent with the Regan family.

            While I was reading this book, there was a weight upon my heart that I still have not been able to shake off.  No child should have to bear the weight of abandonment and loneliness.  Hollis has no friends and no family and she feels like she will never belong anywhere.  The two times she has found any semblance of a home, with the Regans and then with Josie, Hollis’ dream of a family falls apart.  When Hollis tried to finish Josie’s sentences to help her remember, my heart broke apart.  Hollis, who has never had any real family nor had any real parents, is now attempting to take care of the woman who should be taking care of her.  Josie wants to take care of Hollis, but her memory is slipping.  Hollis has to take on the added burden of helping Josie and keeping it a secret from the “mustard woman.”  How much hurt should a child have to bear?  When can Hollis ever just be a 12-year-old girl?

            I am not sure how I could use this in a classroom. Amazon recommends that this book is for children ages 9-12 but I would be very cautious about handing this book to most students. I am not sure this book could even be used in an elementary-school classroom, unless it was used with a very advanced group of fifth graders.  The language is not too difficult, but there are very heavy themes.  Also, the book switches from Hollis’ “time with Josie,” to different paintings she drew that tell of her past, mainly her times with the Regans.  It may be difficult for children reading the book to understand the constant switching from past to present.  Patricia Reilly Giff does have a teacher’s resource site for this book.  It includes different prompts for themes such as abandonment, hope, truth, friendship, and family.  It also has interdisciplinary links.  The teacher’s resource page can be found here.  As always, make sure you know you readers before beginning this book.  If you have a student in your class who is in foster care, this story may cause the student to feel isolated or picked on.  Also, make sure your students have the maturity and the level of thinking to understand such deep topics.

            I have always wanted to adopt children when I am older, and the resolve is still there.  Hollis Woods is not even a real girl and I still want to sweep her away and make her know that she is loved and that people do care about her. After reading this book, I looked at Virginia's Department of Social Services' website.  Now I have been staring at the faces of all these children, just like Hollis, who just want a home.  One kid said that he is ready to have a “forever family.”  Pictures of Hollis Woods takes on some serious issues, and it helps to remind me of how present they still are in our community.  I know this book is fiction, but it is realistic fiction.  There are hundreds of thousands of children just like Hollis living in the world.  I know that we’re still really young and perhaps not ready to have children, but I also know that everyone reading this blog right now loves children.  If you want to learn more about adoption and foster care in Virginia, please go to their website. 

            As I wrote this blog, I was listening to music.  Flyleaf’s “So I Thought” came on and some of the lyrics felt like they are very relevant for Hollis, so I decided to post them too:

“On my knees,
Dim lighted room
Thoughts free flow try to consume myself in this.
I'm not faithless,
Just paranoid of getting lost or that I might lose.
Ignorance is bliss cherish it.
Pretty neighborhoods you learn too much to hold
Believe it not
And fight the tears
With pretty smiles and lies about the times.
A year goes by
And I can't talk about it
The times weren't right
And I couldn't talk about it.”

I love to adore The Adoration of Jenna Fox

This is NOT A BOOK CLUB BOOK.  COLLEEN AND KERRY YOU DO NOT HAVE TO READ THIS.  I know that there is a solid chance no one will read this blog, and I am okay with that.  I finished a book yesterday that I loved so much I just HAD to talk to someone about it.  My mom’s in Chicago, my sister’s been sick, and so my computer seems to be the only one left to listen. 

“There is something curious about where we live.  Something curious about Lily.  Something curious about Father and his nightly phone calls with Mother. And certainly something curious about me.  Why can I remember the details of the French Revolution but I can’t remember if I ever had a best friend?”

            I marked this paragraph in The Adoration of Jenna Fox.  This is the point in the book, on page 12, where I decided I knew exactly what was going to happen in the book.  I read lots of books, even if I don’t like them (I actually own all of the House of Night books.  Please save yourself and don’t ever read them.)  I did not have high hopes for The Adoration of Jenna Fox, and I’m not sure why.  Amazon had been recommending it for ages, and there was just something about the title and the cover that threw me off (I think the alternate cover with the butterfly is better than the one I have with the puzzle pieces).  I thought this book was going to be a standard science fiction novel with a predictable plot and surprise ending.  I am so glad that I was wrong.  This book has shocked me, amazed me, and managed to make its way onto my top science fiction books ever.

            Jenna Fox has just woken up from being in a coma for a year.  She can’t remember anything before “the accident,” and she can’t even bring herself to say those two words.  She has been moved to California after living on the east coast her whole life.  While her father, the creator of Biogel, a medical miracle that preserves organs, stays in New England, Jenna is forced to live with her emotionally unstable mother and her grandmother who seems to hate her.  Jenna’s mother wants Jenna to spend her time watching movies of her life growing up to spark some memories—through watching the movies, it because apparent that whoever Jenna Fox was, she was adored.  Her mother is so fearful that something may happen to Jenna that she barely wants her to leave the house, but she eventually allows her to go to a school with only five students. 

            Jenna goes to the village charter school, where something seems to be wrong with all of the students.  There’s Gabriel, who plays no real role in the story.  Allys, one of my favorite characters, has lost both her arms and legs due to an antibiotic-resistant sickness.  She now volunteers for the Federal Science Ethics Board, the FSEB, which regulates things like the amount of organ transplants a person can have (In this futuristic society, everyone gets 1000 points.  Each transplant or prosthetic has a point value.  Once your points are up, you cannot receive any more transplants, no matter what.)  Ethan refuses to reveal what has happened in his life, but it is clear that it haunts him.  Dane seems normal enough, but Jenna can’t shake off a feeling she has every time she looks at him.  These students become Jenna’s first friends in her new life while at the same time she is trying to piece together the memories of her old one.

            What makes us human?  This one question is the reason why the story is so amazing.  Pearson forces us to come to terms with this question while Jenna tries to understand it herself.  There were times while I was reading this book that I had to put it down and think about this question.  What part of us makes us human?  Is it our brains?  Our hearts?  Some intangible part of us that is a soul?  I can’t answer the question, but I think it is a fascinating one to ponder.  Another question that permeates this book is what would you do to save someone you loved?  Would I make the decisions that were made in this book, if I were given the option?  I think about my little sister, who is about Jenna’s age, and I don’t know if I could turn away if given the choice.  This question takes on a very real aspect when one looks at the very reason why the story of Jenna Fox came into existence.

            Mary E. Pearson’s daughter was diagnosed with cancer.  She began to ponder what she would do to save her daughter.  Luckily, her daughter survived her bout with cancer, but this idea lead to Jenna.  Six years after her first daughter beat cancer, her second daughter was diagnosed with the same cancer.  She says that “this second diagnosis was almost my undoing, but I believe that it deepened the story and my understanding of the characters, and also deepened my resolve that you never know what you might do in an impossible situation.”  This one quote deepened my love for this book.  It took this book from a fantasy book to a woman’s heart bleeding on the pages.  Once you read this book, and before you judge Jenna, Lily, or Jenna’s mother or father, ask yourself:  what would you do if you were in the same situation?

            I hope that maybe one day Mary E. Pearson will write a companion novel from the perspective of Allys. I would love a story to start with her crippling disease and see her develop her resolve and love for the FSEB.  In the end, decisions were made without Allys consent, and I think it would be fascinating to see how this plays out in another book.

            I recommend this book to anyone.  It is a book that will remind readers of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.  I think that The Adoration of Jenna Fox is more lively and more emotional—it took me two months to get through Never Let Me Go and only a few days to finish Jenna.  If you pick up this book, I promise that you too will become a part of The Adoration of Jenna Fox.

Mirror Mirror is the fairest of them all.

            Fairy tales have been told and retold, rehashed, re-imagined, redrawn, and every other re possible.  Or have they?  Marilyn Singer makes a bold move when she retells classic fairy tales through poems in Mirror Mirror.  What is so bold about telling a fairy tale through a poem, you ask?  Well, Marilyn Singer literally reverses the poems to create a new side to the story.  Marilyn Singer hits all the big fairy tales, including Cinderella, Princess and the Frog, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and almost every other classical fairy tale story imaginable.  It is difficult to explain the genius of these poems, which are called reversos, so I will give you one example from the book.  (I don’t feel like I’m giving anything away since the author has an excerpt on her website.) 

            “Cinderella’s Double Life”

Isn’t life unfair?                         Till the clock strikes midnight

Stuck in a corner,                                 these shoes!

while they’re waiting for a chance          I’ll be shining

with the prince,                         at the ball,

dancing waltz after waltz                       dancing waltz after waltz

at the ball                                              with the prince

I’ll be shining                                        while they’re waiting for a chance

These shoes                                          stuck in a corner.

Till the clock strikes midnight.    Isn’t life unfair?

As you can see, the author reverses the poem and it completely reverses the perspective of the story.  Some of the poems do not flow very well, but this no longer bothers me.  After I read this book and thought about how oddly some of the poems read, I decided to make a reversos of my own.  Is it horrible?  Yes, but I have decided to humiliate myself in order to show that these poems have to be well-planned in order for them to work at all.  Since Mairlyn Singer took all of the major fairy tales, I have decided to write a reversos about my favorite Disney character, Mulan:

Honor                                                              Honor

is key to my                                                      To keep my family

family,                                                              is won at a cost

my father.                                                         A battle, a war

I took the sword                                               You can do this

in the bedroom.                                                I said.

I cut off my hair                                                From the mirror

in the family temple.                                          Staring at me

I left home                                                        I saw a boy

in the middle of the night                                    To save my honor

to save my honor.                                             In the middle of the night

I saw a boy                                                      I left home.

Staring at me                                                    In the family temple

From the mirror.                                               I cut of my hair.

I said                                                                In the bedroom

You can do this.                                               I took the sword.

A battle, a war                                                  My father

is won at a cost.                                                Family

To keep my family                                            Is key to my

Honor.                                                             Honor.

            Josee Masse’s illustrations are wonderful and reveal something different each time you look at one.  The pictures are not mute colors or classically drawn lines, but instead bright colors and drawing that take timeless classics and give them a modern feel.  The illustrations show both perspectives, but are somehow still able to work as one picture.  Very few, if any, of the pictures can work without the other perspective.  Each line flows from its half beautifully into the other.  The illustration for “Do you know my name?” is my favorite because you cannot just look at it; you have to stare and ask yourself questions about what it all means.

            I think this book opens up wonderful opportunities for classroom teachers.  Even the most reluctant poet can appreciate Singer’s wonderful reversos.  A teacher could read the poem to the class, and then model their own poem (as I did with my horrible one above).  Then, the teacher could ask the students to write a simple, four line poem: I feel that anything longer than five or six lines might cause students to become frustrated.  This poem should be fun and engaging, not an arduous task.  I think that this book is a fresh take on classical fairy tales and poetry and is a must-have for any elementary school teacher.