Tag Archives: track

Nov 1 2018

Book Review: My Year in the Middle by Lila Quintero Weaver

 

Review by Corina Isabel Villena-Aldama, with Frederick Luis Aldama

DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK:  In a racially polarized classroom in 1970 Alabama, Lu’s talent for running track makes her a new best friend — and tests her mettle as she navigates the school’s social cliques.

Miss Garrett’s classroom is like every other at our school. White kids sit on one side and black kids on the other. I’m one of the few middle-rowers who split the difference.

Sixth-grader Lu Olivera just wants to keep her head down and get along with everyone in her class. Trouble is, Lu’s old friends have been changing lately — acting boy crazy and making snide remarks about Lu’s newfound talent for running track. Lu’s secret hope for a new friend is fellow runner Belinda Gresham, but in 1970 Red Grove, Alabama, blacks and whites don’t mix. As segregationist ex-governor George Wallace ramps up his campaign against the current governor, Albert Brewer, growing tensions in the state — and in the classroom — mean that Lu can’t stay neutral about the racial divide at school. Will she find the gumption to stand up for what’s right and to choose friends who do the same?

MY TWO CENTS: Lila Quintero Weaver’s My Year in the Middle (2018) might be set in 1970 and in an Alabama where racial lines continue to be drawn—and resisted and fought—but there’s much that speaks to a 12-year-old like myself. There’s the hallway chatter; catching those competitive sideways looks in gym; feeling those butterflies in the tummy when completing a math sum or a free write, knowing that your fave teacher will be grading it; avoiding those kids—the ones that push others around with looks and words—and occasionally with shoves; seeing in the cafeteria a sea that divides 6th from 7th and 7th from 8th graders; being the target of darting eyes of jealousy; getting caught sneaking a text—today’s way for us to pass notes.

Lila illustrated each chapter heading with a piece of emblematic spot art. Here’s a preparatory sketch for Chapter 46, used by permission of the author.

Quintero Weaver has a real ear and eye for description: the rotating sound of dialing an old phone as well as hand-drawn art of newspapers from the day. She breathes life into the main character Lu during this ‘70s period and southern region of the US. Quintero Weaver has an equally sharp ear for turns of phrases from this time and place, also adding to the realism of the story: “I don’t say a dadgum word”; “pretend not to give a plug nickel”; “boocoodles of people.”  Quintero Weaver is so good at conveying just how it feels for a middle-schooler like me to have someone come along and crush your hopes and dreams: “There I was, believing I was somebody, but now all kinds of darts are zigzagging back and forth inside my head” (24). And, Quintero Weaver really knows how to write about how someone like me struggles with being different. We see this with the food that Lu’s parents prepare (empanadas, for instance), the way her hair stands like “porcupine quills” (37), and the deep feeling of not wanting to stick out as a Latina in a world filled with hate. At one point in the novel, we learn that Lu’s mamá warns the older sister to be quiet about her progressive political views during a time of terrible racism and racial segregation. There are many times when those of us who are made to feel different—whether in the way we speak or look—are afraid to shout too loud.

A preparatory sketch for the spot art that appears in Chapter 26. Used by permission of the author.

As a middle-schooler in 2018, I can say that Lila Quintero Weaver has her work cut out for her. Why? Like many of my friends, we tend to reach for those high-octane novels like Divergent or fantasy novels like the Red Queen. When I first saw the novel with its stark black and white cover, I didn’t think I’d like it. It seemed like it might be boring. Once I began reading, I couldn’t put it down—and I understood why the cover had to be made up of those two big blocks: white and black, with a little girl caught in the middle. I can say that in the end, Lila Quintero Weaver pulls it off. She weaves together a story that I connected to. I can’t tell you how different I feel growing up in Columbus and attending a school where I am the only brown Mexipina kid. Much like other authors who choose not to go the action-suspense way (some of my faves include The War that Saved My Life and Red Umbrella), Quintero Weaver creates an engaging story that really shows what it feels like to grow up different—and this still applies to today. My Year in the Middle keeps you glued all the way till the end.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lila Quintero Weaver is the author of My Year in the Middle, a middle-grade novel published in 2018 by Candlewick Press. She’s also the writer-illustrator of Darkroom: A Memoir in Black & White. Darkroom recounts Lila’s experiences as a child immigrant from Argentina to Alabama during the tumultuous 1960s. The Spanish edition is now available, under the title Cuarto oscuro: Recuerdos en blanco y negro. Learn more about Lila on her website, and follow her on Twitter and Goodreads. To see background and educational material related to My Year in the Middle, visit this page.

 

 

IMG_7640ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Corina Isabel Villena-Aldama is a 7th grader at Jones Middle School in Columbus, Ohio, who likes to write and read fiction, watch movies, and do back handsprings. When it’s nice weather she likes to walk her two Shih-Tzus, bike to the local library, or swim at the local pool.

 

 

 

 

Jan 18 2016

Q&A with Debut Author Marieke Nijkamp about This Is Where It Ends

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By Cindy L. Rodriguez

This Is Where It Ends, Marieke Nijkamp’s debut novel, captures 54 harrowing minutes of a high school shooting through the perspectives of four students who have personal connections to the shooter. They are alternately hurt, betrayed, confused, and guilt-ridden about their possible roles in the tragedy and what they could have done to stop it. Two of the main characters are Tomás and Sylvia, unspecified Latin@ twins. Sylvia is trapped in the auditorium with the shooter, while Tomás is among those outside and trying to help. Author Marieke Nijkamp joins us today to answer a few questions about her intense debut.

CINDY: What inspired you to write about a U.S.-based school shooting? What kind of research did you do to capture the intensity of this kind of tragedy?

MARIEKE: A lot of it—from before I started drafting through final edits. I read firsthand accounts of shootings, I listened to 911 calls, I plowed through hundreds of pages of investigative reports, I talked to people, I kept up with news and social media feeds as active shooter situations emerged, I familiarized myself with the psychology of being held at gunpoint. As much as possible, I immersed myself in what we know about school shootings (which is both a lot and not a lot at all). And I tried to translate that to the book.

Even now, when shootings happen, my first instinct is to drop whatever I’m doing and absorb what is happening, listen to people as they share their experiences.

CINDY: Using present tense and limiting the time frame to 54 minutes puts the reader in the moment. As a writer, what made you decide to tell this story as it unfolds?

MARIEKE: When I set out to tell this story, I wanted to tell the story of a school shooting. Not the lead up, not the aftershocks, but the shooting itself. So I knew early on I wanted that limited timeframe, because I wanted, as much as possible, to recreate the experience and the feeling that, from one moment to the next, your entire life can be upended.

It presented some challenges while writing – not just because of the timeframe, but also because most of the action takes place in the same building and even the same room. But I’m a plotter at heart. And I spreadsheeted to my heart’s content.

CINDY: The novel alternates first-person perspectives, but the one person we don’t hear from directly is Tyler. He causes the tragedy, and we find out about him through the other characters, but we never get inside his head. As a reader, I found this powerful because whenever something like this happens, we want the shooter to explain why, but no answer to that question is ever enough. For me, seeing the story through everyone else reinforced this idea, but I’m curious about why you chose not to give Tyler one of the first-person POVs?

MARIEKE: For me, that was actually one of the main reasons to not include Tyler’s point of view. Because, like you say, we are all looking for answers, and they’re never enough. Besides which, we don’t have a singular profile of a shooter, beyond some general elements (most shooters are white, male, and often though not always dealing with loss, grief, resentment). I didn’t want to recreate a profile based on one interpretation, because it’s always going to be exactly that: one interpretation.

Beyond that though, for all that Tyler is a central character in this story, it’s not his. It’s Tomás and Fareed’s story. It’s Sylvia and Autumn’s story. It’s Claire story. To me, the story always belong to them, to the victims and the survivors.

CINDY: Because of your work with DiversifYA and We Need Diverse Books, I wasn’t surprised by your novel’s diverse cast of characters, including an interracial/ethnic lesbian couple (sooooo few depictions of such couples, so *applause*). Although, since it’s set in a small, fictional Alabama town, you could have resorted to creating a less diverse cast of characters. Why was it important to include so much diversity? 

MARIEKE: You know, I never get asked why Claire is straight, white, non-disabled. And that is as much a choice as all the others are.

The thing is, when I set out to write THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS, I wanted to be as respectful and as true to life as possible. When I did take poetic license, I did so by keeping in mind the adage I talked about with many other WNDB team members: first, do no harm.

To me, that didn’t just mean doing the academic research; it meant reflecting life as I know it and as so many friends and so many of my teen readers do. School shootings do not just affect non-marginalized, affluent teens. And even if Opportunity were 95% white and straight, that doesn’t erase the other 5%. Why should they not be the heart of the story?

CINDY: As you begin your debut year, do you have any advice for pre-published writers?

MARIEKE: I’ve come to learn that no advice fits all, but to aspiring authors, I’d say: tell your stories, the stories your most passionate about, in your own way. To pre-published writers anticipating their debut: be  grateful to be on this journey, and be mindful to enjoy it. It’s a wild ride and it’s a wonderful one, too. And it’s so, so worth it.

 

Marieke landscapeABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marieke Nijkamp was born and raised in the Netherlands. A lifelong student of stories, language, and ideas, she is more or less proficient in about a dozen languages and holds degrees in philosophy, history, and medieval studies. She is a storyteller, dreamer, globe-trotter, geek. Her debut young adult novel This Is Where It Ends, a contemporary story that follows four teens over the course of the fifty-four minutes of a school shooting, will be published by Sourcebooks Fire in January 2016. She is the founder of DiversifYA and a senior VP of We Need Diverse Books. Find her on Twitter.