Fish in a Tree
By Lynda Mullaly Hunt.
Ages 10 to 14.
What would you do if you were in sixth grade and couldn’t read or write as well as you thought everyone else could? Ally Nickerson has been trying to hide her struggles, but a few classmates have been teasing her a lot lately. Ally also realizes that her teachers — and even the school principal — are getting frustrated with the ways she avoids doing her schoolwork.
The narrator of “Fish in a Tree,” Ally makes it clear from the start of the story that she would do the work if she could. She is clever and observant, and has been able to hide her problem. Because she’s afraid there will be no solutions, Ally distracts herself with drawing and daydreaming. She also misses her dad, who is stationed overseas in the military, and her grandfather, who died recently.
When a nice new teacher, Mr. Daniels, takes over the classroom, Ally gets the feeling she is being watched more carefully and kindly. She worries that she will disappoint him, too. At the same time, she becomes friendly with two classmates who don’t seem to care what other people think of them. Will they turn away from her when they find out she has so much trouble with reading and writing?
Ally and her classmates come across as a lively group of kids. She says that Mr. Daniels, unlike some other teachers, “actually seems to like that we’re different.” You get the feeling that the author, a former teacher, enjoyed bringing the students to life as well as devising the interesting assignments Mr. Daniels gives to the class. He tries to help Ally and her classmates gain confidence so that they don’t feel, as the title says, like fish in a tree.
— By Abby Mcganney Nolan, The Washington Post
The Way Home Looks Now
By Wendy Wan Long Shang
Ages 8-12
The Lee family didn’t see it coming. Oldest son Nelson — a smart and athletic college student — was there one day, and then he was gone.
Nelson’s death is the dividing line in “The Way Home Looks Now.” To 12-year-old Peter, everything is part of “the Before” or “the After.”
The Before was Nelson, Peter and Mom listening to Pittsburgh Pirates games with a good-luck peanut placed on the radio. It was Nelson squabbling with their dad, Ba, over the Vietnam War. It was a family trip to cheer on Taiwan in the Little League World Series.
At first, the After is neighbors bringing meals and asking how the family is holding up.
That soon ends.
“Eventually the casseroles stopped coming, that was an unspoken signal that we were supposed to go on with our lives and act like everyone else,” Peter explains.
But the Lee family isn’t able to bounce back from the tragedy.
Mom spends hours staring silently at the TV and soon stops cooking. Ba gets takeout food or makes eggs for dinner. Peter can’t seem to follow simple directions at school.
Baseball isn’t part of the After. Peter connects the game with his brother.
“The thought of playing baseball, even sandlot ball, scares me a little. It is too close to Nelson, too close without him being there.”
One rare, all-too-brief conversation with Mom about that World Series trip makes Peter reconsider. Maybe baseball is the one thing that can begin the healing process. Maybe talk of home runs and strikeouts can tempt Mom to come out of her silent world.
But the major league players are on strike. So Peter decides to play Little League. His plan becomes complicated when Ba volunteers to coach. Peter is stunned and worried what the other kids will think of his old-fashioned father.
“What’s a Chinaman know about baseball?” one kid complains.
Ba is willing to learn. He’s also willing to teach the kids, including Peter, lessons about loyalty and persistence. After a loss on the baseball field, there’s another game . . . or another season. A reason to hope.
Those lessons are also valuable off the field. Families don’t simply bounce back from a loss like that of Nelson. But hope and persistence are the tools Peter needs to help the family move forward in the After.
— By Christina Barron, The Washington Post
