Tuesday, March 18, 2014

The Bear by Claire Cameron

Cameron's book about two young children, five-year-old Anna and three-year-old Stick, orphaned by a bear attack while canoe camping on an island in Algonquin Park, Ontario, is absolutely impossible to put down. The story is based on an actual event--the death of two people in 1991 in the park, and the fictionalized version builds on what was known about the attack and on details of the wilderness environment provided by the author who was once a ranger in the same park.  In this account, Anna is awake in the family's tent, listening to her parents quiet talk by the campfire when her mother starts to shout.  Soon thereafter, her father reaches into the tent, grabs Anna and her brother and throws them into a large cooler that the family carries with them to store food.  Cameron describes the attack and its aftermath through the eyes of the five-year old, who can't figure out why the bear (or large black dog, as she first thinks), is trying to get into the cooler and why her parents don't answer her calls for help.

Eventually the bear leaves and the children manage to get the lid open and crawl out.  Anna's and Stick's dad is not there and the camp is a mess.  Anna doesn't see her father, but she does spot his shoe stuck on a piece of meat like the leg of lamb she once saw in the refrigerator at home.  Why, she asks herself, would Daddy put his shoe on a leg of lamb?  The children's mother is still alive, although motionless.  She whispers to her daughter to "be brave" and to put her brother in the canoe and leave the island, because it's not safe.  The rest of the novel details this bewildered child's efforts to do what her Momma wants--to paddle away and then wait for her parents to come get them.  Anna has to draw on every ounce of will and devotion to her parents and baby brother to combat hunger, thirst and fear of the black dog's return.   She is alternately hot, freezing, hungry, angry, scared and delirious.  I must confess to peeking at the later chapters so that I could keep reading about the children's suffering.  This is a great book, although not recommended for reading before or during Outdoor Ed!

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Good Kings Bad Kings by Susan Nussbaum

This award winning book serves as an eye-opener on the care--or lack of care in most cases, of a group of teens with disabilities who are confined to a privately-run  but government-sponsored nursing home in Chicago.  The story is told through the voices of  three of the teens, two of the staff, a recruiter for the company that runs the home and wants beds to be filled, and a smart young woman, also disabled, who is hired as a data-entry clerk, a job which provides access to patient records and prompts her to ask questions.

A variety of relationships emerge from the teens' narrations.  Sad, vulnerable Mia is often stranded in her oversized and broken wheelchair.  Sometimes Teddy attaches her chair to his automated one so he can move her around.  Teddy adores Mia and watches over her until she mysteriously starts to shun him.  Yessie is also wheelchair-bound, but that doesn't stop her from taking on girls that steal from her or call her names. Orphaned and grieving but tough, fifteen-year-old Yessie finds a friend in Jimmie, one of the aides, who feels fortunate to escape from a life on the streets herself.   The other aide, Ricky, is a pretty cool Puerto Rican who cares about the kids and has a major crush on Joanne, the data-entry clerk.  Their romance and Joanne's increasing involvement in patient advocacy are high points of the book.

Ricky, Joanne and Jimmie are the "good kings."  There are, unfortunately, a number of "bad kings" who are abusive or criminally negligent as part of a system that values making money over delivering quality care.  The home, also know as the ILLC--Illinois Learning and Life-Skills Center, has a higher than expected number of hospitalizations for its clients.  There are disturbing undercurrents of  danger for the residents, who have few resources other than their own spirit and resilience and the dedication of the "good kings" to deflect the physical and psychological threats that confront them on a daily basis. The language is honest and raw and the situations are very believable. The tension comes from wondering if there will be any justice for the characters. The novel is gripping and at times tough to read, but its well worth the effort.