Tory Anderson

The Westing Game: A Book Well Played

Revisado: 04-28-24

I heard of The Westing Game in an indirect reference while reading an essay about the movie Knives Out. I ran across the book on Audible and thought I would give it a try. I went in not knowing anything about the story. I didn’t know it was published back in 1978. I didn’t know it was a Young Adult book let alone that it was a Newberry winner. The beginning of the book caught me off guard. It was quite different from most of the other young adult books I had been reading. It took time and perseverance on my part, but by the end I was a fan. In fact, I think I’m going to read this book again.

I didn’t know it was a murder mystery for several chapters, so my brain was in the wrong gear. I was confused by what seemed to me to be a fragmented beginning. I was also confused by the narrative style. It was third person. Yes, third person is as common as yellow sunflowers, but this was the extreme third person that jumps point of view across sixteen characters. My head was spinning trying to keep up with who was who. It’s not that the book is poorly written. It’s not. It’s just that, as already mentioned, I went in completely unprepared. It says a lot for the author, Ellen Raskin, that in spite of my unprepared cluelessness, I caught up with the book and was all in by the end.

As far as murder mysteries go, this is one with heart. While the plot of the book does orbit the sun (the “murder”) Raskin interests us more in the planets (the 16 characters) doing the orbiting than in the murder itself. I found every one of the characters dislikable at first. I was about to turn my nose up at the book and move on to something else more compatible with my sensibilities. Just in time, though, one of the characters momentarily flashed an empathetic side. I decided to stick around to see what this was about. Then it happened again with another character. The characters don’t suddenly become likable, but little-by-little, they become fully human and worth my attention and care.  Raskin shows her skill in the slow unwrapping of this delightful gift set of characters.

The mystery itself is intriguing . . . and fun. Little things happen that tease your curiosity like how the piece of jewelry the young girl drops the night of the murder ends up on the person of the murdered man the next day in his coffin. The man in the coffin is Mr. Westing. He's quite an enigma. The day after his murder he invites the sixteen of the residents of the nearby apartment complex to his funeral where, in his will, the rules of the Westing Game are laid out. Apparently one of them is the murderer. There is a lot of money at stake for the team that figures out the mystery. I’m lousy at figuring out murder mysteries. Even in books and movies where the detective explains the whole thing, detail by detail, to the suspects who have been gathered in the library, I still don’t get it. I’m pitiful. I think I got it in The Westing Game, but whether I did or not, I loved the book.

This book is not what I consider a hard-core mystery. Perhaps that's why I like it so much. I love stories. In this book I get the stories of sixteen characters—sixteen characters, who in one way or another, become better people by playing The Westing Game.

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A Crooked Little House

Revisado: 04-28-24

I met Beverly Tapinsky in Raymie Nightingale, the first book of the “Los Rancheros” series that also includes Louisiana’s Way Home and Beverly, Right Here. In Raymie Nightingale the three girls meet each other while taking their first baton lesson from an alcoholic woman living in the past. Raymie is taking lessons so that she can win a talent contest and get her picture in the paper to get the attention of her dentist father who has just run away with his dental hygienist. Louisiana is taking lessons so she can win the prize money and be able to buy food. Beverly Tapinsky’s reason for the baton twirling lessons is much darker. She wants to be in the talent contest so she can sabotage it. Each girl has a reason to be angry, but Beverly is the angriest.

Beverly, Right Here begins soon after Beverly’s one-eyed dog, Buddy, dies. She loved this dog deeply. Buddy's death is her emotional last straw. Beverly’s father walked away from the family when she was little. Her mother is an alcoholic and emotionally abusive. The death of Buddy pushes her over the edge, and she runs away from home. As she puts it, “I’m not running away, just leaving.” She’s fifteen years old, confused, and angry.

Beverly doesn’t like people. She doesn’t trust them. The two people who should love her most—her father and mother—have abandoned her physically and abused her emotionally. Then, the one who did love her—her dog Buddy—leaves her by dying. Additionally, one of her two friends, Louisiana, just up and disappeared one night (read my review of Louisiana’s Way Home). What is she supposed to make of a world like this?

After leaving home and making her way to a nearby city on the coast, Beverly has no plans and nowhere to go. Fortunately, she has author Kate DiCamillo looking out for her because the world is harsh and no place for a lone 15-year-old girl to be living on the streets. Beverly happens to walk past a trailer park where a lonely old lady is out watering her flowers. “Haddy!” says the old woman in her north Floridian accent. Presumably she means “Howdy.” Beverly is not impressed. The first thing that comes to her mind is a poem, “. . . in a crooked little house by a crooked little sea.” It turns out that that owner of the crooked little house is lonely and in need of someone to drive her to her Thursday night bingo matches at the local VFW. Beverly doesn’t have a driver’s license, but she can drive. She’s not great company, but she suits Iola just fine. For her services Beverly gets room (a bed on a screened porch) and board (tuna melts).

Soon, other odd ball characters step into her life. There’s lonely Mr. Denby, the owner of Mr. Seas, a seafood restaurant that serves only lunch. He’s separated from his wife and three daughters but works hard to support them. In Beverly he sees his daughters. He hires Beverly to bus tables. In spite of paying her under the table, he’s a good man. There’s Freddie, a waitress for Mr. Denby. She has big dreams that she will never reach. Freddie has a loser of a boyfriend, Jerome, who tries to rob the restaurant with a wiffle bat. Then there is Elmer, an intelligent but jaded boy with severe acne and a beautiful heart.

It doesn’t take long for these oddball but beautiful people to help Beverly understand that hope grows alongside despair. This happens in subtle ways. For instance, this encounter with the grey-haired cook at Mr. Seas. After giving Beverly some very good advice, Doris says, “You have to watch out for yourself, because no one else will.”

“But aren’t you watching out for me right now?” Beverly answers.

Indeed, Doris is looking out for Beverly just like these other strangers whose lives have suddenly merged with hers. By the end of the book Beverly isn’t focusing on the tragedy of what’s not in her life, but on the joy of what is there.

In each book of the “Los Rancheros” series, the protagonist (Raymie, then Louisiana, then Beverly) is two years older. Beverly, being the oldest at the time of her book, has the darkest anger of the three. DiCamillo deals with this anger by throwing in other people who are struggling through their own difficult lives, but doing so with compassion and the faith that what’s good in the world is just as real and even more important than what is not. Beverly’s life is still complicated at the end of the book, but her ability to see and accept the good in the people around her gives us hope that she is going to be able to build a full life.

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The Way School Used to Be

Revisado: 04-28-24

I’m reading Gary Schmidt a little bit backwards. I started with Okay for Now. I’ve finally read its predecessor, Wednesday Wars. It was good to finally meet the Holling Hoodhood who was so kind to Doug Swieteck at the beginning of Okay for Now and then never seen again. Reading Wednesday Wars made me feel like I could believe in Santa Claus again the way I did when I was a child. No, the book doesn’t have a Christmas theme. It has an education theme. Replace “Santa” with “a classroom experience that is warmly and deeply meaningful” and you will know what I mean.

Wednesday Wars is set in the mid-1960s, a time—for me—that was not so long ago. Pop bands still wore matching costumes. My family dressed up in our Sunday best for our annual Christmas Eve dinner even though we had no guests. Some teachers still had a paddle hanging on their classroom wall with which they enforced the rules. Times were certainly different then. This difference is what Schmidt so skillfully captures in his story.

Holling Hoodhood—and no, that last name is not a typo—is the only non-Jew/non-Catholic in his seventh grade class. He is the lone Presbyterian. This means that on Wednesdays, when the Jewish kids and the catholic kids get out of school to go to their respective religious training, Holling must remain in class. For his teacher, Mrs. Baker, this means she will not have the afternoon free to grade papers, prepare lesson plans, read a novel or whatever it is that a teacher would do with that much free time. When she realizes this she gives Holling a look that he interprets as, “She hates my guts.” She takes revenge on Holling by making him read Shakespeare, discuss Shakespeare, take tests on Shakespeare, and write papers on Shakespeare. It’s horrible, although in the end it’s quite wonderful.

The book is written from Holling Hoodhood’s perspective in his voice, yet so many characters filling out his life materialize into our lives where they will remain forever. There’s Danny Hupher, Hollings good friend; Mrs. Baker, the teacher that takes her revenge; Mai Thi, the lone Vietnamese student; Meryl Lee, Hollings first kiss; Doug Swieteck and Doug Swieteck’s brother, both are trouble; and so many more.

It is his English class that connects all these characters together. It is a classroom where the teacher rules with uncontested authority while also ruling with a humanity that doesn’t seem possible in today’s litigious society. It is a classroom where pans of delectable cream puffs get coated with chalk dust or devoured by ravenous, escaped, pet rats. It is a classroom where kids hide under desks to escape simulated nuclear blasts. It is a classroom where students bond in those complicated ways of children on the verge of young adulthood. It is a classroom where a boy and his teacher can bond in a beautiful, wholesome way. It is a classroom that you and I either remember or wish we remembered.

In Wednesday Wars Schmidt has captured the nostalgia of the 60s in its infamy and its glory. We may no longer be able to experience hot pans of cream puffs made just for our class by the school cafeteria; we don’t get to hang out the window and clap erasers together to clean them; we won’t get a year of 1 on 1 time with a teacher to study Shakespeare; and we don’t get to go on two-night, class camping trips in the woods; but in Wednesday Wars Schmidt manages to bring the better part of humanity—the part that never grows outdated—to the 21st Century and help us remember how wonderful it is to be a human being.

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Louisiana's Way Home: A Day of Reckoning

Revisado: 09-15-23

I first met Louisiana Elefante in the book Raymie Nightingale. Louisiana may have just been a side character, but she is one to draw attention. From the moment she faints during baton lessons to when I learn she has been taught how to steal tuna fish from the grocery store by her grandma so that they can have something to eat, she was unforgettable. The last scene in which I saw her in Raymie Nightingale she is riding in a runaway grocery cart down a hill toward a lake (and she can’t swim). She looks at where she is going and says, “Oh, My!” Then she looks back at her two friends who are chasing the cart and says politely, “Goodbye.” It’s no wonder that when I saw that Kate DiCamillo wrote a book just about Louisiana I didn’t hesitate to pick it up.

If you met Louisiana in real life you would quickly ascertain that she is a unique personality. She would tell you the story of her parents—trapeze artists—who died in a shipwreck. She can’t be called a liar or fanciful for her family history as it’s the story her grandmother told her. She accepts it without question. She will tell you that she suffers from a “curse of sundering.” This is a curse where you are destined to constantly be separated from those you love. This isn’t tragical romanticizing on her part. She sincerely believes it. When a stranger sees her behind the wheel of a car and asks her if she should be driving (she is just 12 years old, after all), she answers:

“Yes, I should be driving. The situation is dire!”

You may think she is being overly dramatic speaking this way, but if your grandma had abducted you from your home in the middle of the night saying, “The day of reckoning has come!” and who is now lying in the back seat of the car incapacitated with a toothache and you are driving a car for the first time through a strange town in a neighboring state looking for a dentist, you might speak the same way. No, Louisiana is an unusual girl, with an unusual history, in unusual circumstances that makes her different from anyone else you might ever meet. Because of her unusualness, she is a girl I desperately want to meet.

The question is, do I really want to meet a girl like Louisiana Elefante, or is it just a nice idea. There are many in the book who are not pleased to meet a girl like her. The dentist’s receptionist is only concerned about running a strict schedule and not helping a desperately sick grandma. The motel owner is focused only on payment and not on human beings who have been caught in a very difficult situation. These are truly unlikable, even mean, people who don’t realize how miserable they are. But with these unhappy people we meet human beings who give the rest of us hope. One of these is the greasy gas station owner who seems unresponsive to Louisiana’s chatter, but seems to read her soul. Seeing her eyeing the packages of peanuts on a rack on the counter he tells her, “You can have as many as you want. No charge.” When she takes sixteen packages (Louisiana is legitimately half starved at all times) the man just smiles. She meets other people even kinder.

The tragedy of Louisiana’s life caught me off-guard. When she, while tears fall quietly from her eyes onto the couch in the living room of near strangers, says, “I don’t know who I am,” only the reader fully understands the depth of her words. To experience the revelation that Louisiana, a fictional character experiences and feel the feelings she feels, is a testimony to the power of fiction. No TED talk would come close to getting me to understand what it’s like to be in Louisiana’s position. I love these powerful literary moments.

Kate DiCamillo is a proponent of hope for the human race. Louisiana’s Way Home written by many others would most likely be dark and depressing. If not dark and depressing, it would be silly and saccharine. DiCamillo, in my opinion, walks the fine line between the two—a fine line the follows the goodness that really can be found in the hearts of human beings. Along with the miserably mean people Louisiana encounters (people who are probably more like us than we want to believe) she lands among the beautiful people of our race who make me proud to be a human being. These are people who I want to be like—something DiCamillo helps me believe can really be.

Louisiana’s Way Home brings to life the kind of girl who I would find annoying in real life, but manages to show me the rare beauty behind the annoyance. It makes me feel special because I feel like I am one of the chosen few who become a friend of Louisiana and that makes me unique, like she is.

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Invisibility Seen a New Way

Revisado: 05-04-23

I was young when I saw the original Invisible Man. It was in black and white and a little frightening as the process that made the man invisible led him into criminal insanity. Then there was the Invisible Woman. It was funny (and titillating) since the invisible woman was running around naked, though unseen. Andrew Clements does something quite different in his book Things Not Seen. Instead of writing a crime thriller or a comedy, he tries to bring invisibility into the real world—and does it with a fair amount of success.

Clements hooked my interest when I quickly realized he was taking the question of invisibility seriously. This wouldn’t be some Marvel style superpower or a prurient teenage fantasy. This book asks all the questions that would really be asked if you woke up one morning and found that you could no longer be seen by anyone in the world, not even by yourself in the mirror. This, of course, is impossible in our world. To actually see it happen would push man peoples’ psyches to the edge.
Clements did a great job with the “discovery” scene. This scene is important as it sets the tone for the entire book. It is this scene that sets it apart from any of the lesser things it could have been. Bobby’s difficulty, and then his parents’, at accepting his invisibility is well done. It’s kept just this side of freak out. His father (a physicist) staring from across the kitchen to his mother’s stammering “Knock it off, Bobby” as she sits next to him at the breakfast table she tries to process the impossible, rings true. Clements controlled the moment very well. It was satisfying to read.

Next Clements had to set the boundaries on how invisibility works in the world he is creating—pretty much the world we live in now. It turns out that anything that goes into his body disappears and stays invisible when it comes out (digestive waste), but anything that stays on the outside of his body stays visible—ergo, clothes. This provided a writing challenge and opportunity for Clements as the setting is Chicago in March. Bobby—when he tires of being cooped up in his home—can’t just go running around in the freezing temperatures of Chicago naked. Eventually it warms up enough that Bobby does spend a lot of time outdoors naked but unseen. The cold weather also allows Bobby the opportunities to get out completely bundled up and wearing sun glasses. Ironically, this allows his invisibility to be “hidden.” Clements is clever in dealing with Bobby’s maturity (he’s fifteen, but quite intelligent) in relation to running around naked. He see’s himself as a Greek Spartan, suffering the cold in the nude, with courage and strength. I liked that take.

Clements gracefully stayed away from the teenage boy fantasies of invisibilities of pulling pranks and sneaking into girl’s dressing rooms. The quality and seriousness of the writing naturally keeps from coming anywhere close to those areas. The real questions and problems of Bobby’s invisibility don’t allow time for fantasy. The closest it comes to fantasy (which isn’t fantasy at all) is when Bobby befriends a blind girl who eventually finds out about his invisibility. The questions of blindness and invisibility bring up thoughtful questions, by the way. Her parents also find out about his invisibility. The girl’s mom is always in the room when her blind daughter’s naked, invisible boyfriend comes to visit. It’s serious and humorous at the same time.

The book takes the direction of Bobby’s parents keeping his invisibility from the world so that he won’t be taken away and studied and possibly used by science or government. This makes sense. Of course, it also makes sense in this world that you can’t have the child of a civically involved couple just disappear without there being questions. I was happy when I detected the beginnings of this trouble in the book. The thrilling development of this trouble rang true and was fun to read.
In the end I found the book a pleasure to read. Of course, there was difficulty in explaining the source of the invisibility, but it was handled well enough. I was satisfied to see a “superpower” treated seriously in my reality, instead of in a typical superhero fantasy. It was a boon to see it done as well as Clements did it. Bobby is no superhero, but he becomes quite the human being through his experience. A graceful, enlightened human being is a superhero to me.

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Empathy and Guilt

Revisado: 08-16-22

It would be difficult not to like Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper. Draper does what most good literary authors do—that is, she sucks you into a life that is not your own and allows you to see your world from a unique perspective. What the author does that is unique and noteworthy is put you into the body of Melody, an eleven-year-old girl born with Cerebral Palsy. In addition to Melody’s lack of control over her limbs, she cannot speak. What ups the ante in this story is that in addition to being an object of pity or disdain, depending on your nature, Melody is a girl of great mental acuity, a gift that no one discovers until she is nearly eleven years old. Even after it is discovered, many resent her gift rather than celebrate it. This conflict certainly is the makings for a good read.

What kept me turning pages was Melody’s voice. From the first sentence of chapter 1 you begin to love her. She begins by saying, “Words. I’m surrounded by thousands. Maybe millions. . . Words have always swirled around me like snowflakes; each one delicate and different; each one melting untouched in my hands.” For a girl who can’t speak, she is a master of words.

As Melody tells you her story you will grow to love her. You will want what she wants, love who she loves, and be hurt by those who hurt her. You will live in a body over which you have little control and understand your dependence on others. You will feel the extreme frustration of being as smart or smarter than those around you while they treat you as an infant. As most reviewers point out, Out of My Mind is one powerful exercise for developing empathy. It is also just a really good read whether you are looking for empathy or not.

Spoiler Alert
The story does leave me with questions. Melody is surrounded by average human beings just like you and me. These are human beings who cannot comprehend Melody’s intelligence or the difficulties she lives with. Some are unapologetically ignorant and mean. Many are nice but make very little effort to listen to Melody. One makes a sincere effort to make room for Melody but ends up failing due to her inability to integrate Melody’s slow moving, slow talking albeit brilliant world into her natural fast-moving fast-talking world.

In the end, when Melody repudiates the team for what they did, I am with her all the way. Like most readers I’m thinking, “You go, girl!” As she wheels out of the room it’s a personal triumph for her. Since we are identifying with her, it is our triumph, too.

Ironically, I realize the disgust I feel for the team is disgust I feel for myself. The other kids and the teacher represent me. I certainly have no friends like Melody in my life. I’m old enough to know that just because I read this book and gained a little understanding about a person like Melody, I haven’t become a dramatically different person. This isn’t because I’m small minded and mean; it’s because I haven’t had the opportunity to learn how to be friends with someone like Melody. Because these kids hurt Melody, I want to judge them and wag my finger in their face. The truth is it would take a lot of time to learn how to adapt to be friends with Melody. Anyone who takes that time would be rewarded with a bright, unique friend who would enrich her life. These kids have a lot to learn, like we, the readers. The book helps grow empathy for someone like Melody but has little for those who would try to understand how to make Melody a part of their lives.

I enjoyed every moment reading this book. Melody is charming. Her story is rich and engaging. I do gain insightful understanding of what it’s like to live like Melody. The ending is strong and positive for Melody, and I, like everyone else, cheer. It’s just that, in my second thoughts, I wonder about my haste to disdain the other kids. We are all in need of empathy, just for different reasons.

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Like a Warm Bath

Revisado: 02-25-19

I was surprised when I found that I was reading a comfort book. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows is just like sitting down in hot bath after a hard day. It’s been such a long time since I’ve read a book like this that I forgot that they existed. Yes, relaxing is the word describing this book.

Schaffer’s and Barrow’s use of letters to communicate the entire novel works very well. Each letter brings a major character more into focus in a slow and engaging manner. The major characters are pleasant people, the kind that you are happy to meet unexpectedly in the grocery store or in the park. Letters from minor characters reveal personality more quickly, doing what the marshmallows do for Marshmallow Mateys.

The book is a nice period piece focusing in, not on World War II itself, but the aftermath in London and on Guernsey. Schaffer and Barrows dish out details about the German occupation of Guernsey slowly through many letters to Juliet. You won’t put this book down being an expert on this occupation, but, if you are like me, you will know much more than you did before you picked it up.

Being a comfort book the authors are very careful to balance out the humanity, and inhumanity, of both the occupiers and the islanders. Unless you are like one of the three undesirable characters in this book, you won’t be able to hate anyone.
Throughout most of the book I was enamored with Juliet and each new warm, quirky character I met. These are the warm, colorful, kind, and intelligent people I dream of meeting. Eventually I realized I was reading a fantasy—not the wizards and dragons kind, but the kind that good dreams are made of. You wake up and know that you will never have a circle of friends this perfect in this world of disappointment. Not fitting into the traditional fantasy genre I term it a comfort book.

Yes, reading Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is like slipping into a hot bath. It’s comfortable, warm, and relaxing. It holds no more surprises than when the bar of soap accidently slips into the water. If this sounds like the thing you need right now. Get a copy and enjoy.

As a side note, I listened to this book on Audible. The letters from different characters were read by different voice actors, all of them distinct, colorful, and professional. The readers added a layer of enjoyment to the literary experience.

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Riveting American History

Revisado: 11-06-18

I've never enjoyed American History so much. Thorough, entertaining, enlightening. Excellent narration. Highly recommend. It increased my knowledge of the big picture of what led to the start of the Civil War. It delighted me with detailed smaller stories that are critical, or just humanizing, within the big story. On to the second volume.

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A Most Uncommon Witch

Revisado: 01-27-16

If you could sum up I Shall Wear Midnight in three words, what would they be?

Unique. Original. Engaging.

What other book might you compare I Shall Wear Midnight to and why?

Perhaps something like Spirited Away. It was so original, colorful, and beautiful.

Which scene was your favorite?

I especially liked the scene where she faces down Mr. Petty. It was inspirational the way she tries to save the villagers by saving the very undeserving Mr. Petty.

Who was the most memorable character of I Shall Wear Midnight and why?

Tiffany Aching, to be sure. She has stolen my heart.

Any additional comments?

The reader was fantastic. The story was engaging and emotionally refreshing. I raise my hat to the skill of Terry Pratchett.

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I'll Never Look at the Moon the Same Again

Revisado: 07-26-15

Where does The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

There are books you can listen to, enjoy, and forget. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is not one of those books. Visions of the cities on the moon still play in my head. I can hear the voices of the characters. I can see the rocks hurtling toward Earth. I miss Mike.

What other book might you compare The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress to and why?

I don't think I've read another book like it. I just racked my brain in "comparison" mode and nothing came up. It's a unique book. I must say that Mannie in the book as read by Lloyd James reminds me very much of Mannie from the computer game "Grim Fandango." This is a good thing.

Have you listened to any of Lloyd James’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I don't believe I've listened to Lloyd James before. He was excellent for this book.When I look at the moon James's is the voice I hear.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

There were two: the loss of Mike, and when I realized Luna was victorious.

Any additional comments?

At times I got a little impatient with the detail in which Heinlein went with the history and philosophy of revolution. I just wanted more story action.This is unlike me and I am a little embarrassed.

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