Richie's Picks: Great Books for Children and Young Adults

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"Was a time when I did not eat cereal oh no
(background singer monsters--- Oh No!)
I had never tasted it
Had never tried it sooo
Then one day my Dad said have some cereal with me
(with me! )
Cereal tastes really good and it's healthful you'll see

I said I'll taste it, I'll give it a whirl
And now I am a cereal girl
I said I'll taste it, I'll give it a whirl
And now I am a cereal girl -- Cereal Girl, a favorite from Sesame Street, sung to the tune of Madonna's "Material Girl.

A few days ago I was thinking about Sesame Street while waiting to be interviewed by our local PBS television affiliate. It was an evening devoted to gay and lesbian programming. During the breaks from a show, based on Tomie dePaola's book OLIVER BUTTON IS A SISSY, I talked about THE MISFITS play and the No Name Calling Week that I instigated here in Sebastopol. Beforehand, sitting on the old couch in a hallway that served as their "green room," I had been imagining how it wouldn't be all that long before we have our first president who has been raised on Sesame Street, and how I really believe that such an upbringing means she will know a lot more about tolerance and solving problems peacefully than her predecessors...

But, getting back to Laurie Halse Anderson and to Merryweather High, the setting for SPEAK, and now for CATALYST... What? Yes, indeed, Laurie returns us to the land of the infamous Mr. Neck, and Hairwoman, and Andy the Beast--none of whom we get to see here. The story is set at the end of the school year following SPEAK, and Melinda, in another of Mr. Free-man's classes, does actually make a cameo appearance. So, knowing all of this ahead of time, you are possibly going to open this book and look for it to grab you by the throat and mystify you the way you were immediately mystified by Melinda Sorrentino's treatment on the bus and in the auditorium on her first day at the school.

Right?

Well, get over it! This is a whole different chemical equation:

Kate Malone, minister's daughter, star student, and runner, is a senior who lives for her acceptance letter to MIT--the only college she has bothered to apply to.

"Insomnia rocks, actually. You can get a lot done if you don't sleep. I've turned into a hyper-efficient windup Kate doll, super Kate, the über-Kate. I wish this had happened last year. It would have given me more time to study for my AP exams."

She introduces us to her family:

"Toby and I are the proton and neutron of our atomic family unit. Dad is the loosely bonded electron, negatively charged, zooming around us in his own little shell."

She introduces us to her group of friends:

"Sara slides her sunglasses across the table. I take off my glasses and put them on. The room mellows to a golden, SFP-protected glow...They are all out of focus now, but...I'd recognize these shapes anywhere. Sara Emery, my BF, is a self-described Wiccan Jewish poet. This would send most parents screaming to the therapist's office, but the Emerys are totally cool with it. I've been asking them to adopt me for years.
Travis Baird is to Sara as water is to fire: opposite and necessary. Trav is a freakazoid good guy with a taste for body art. The vice principal in charge of discipline has been aching to bust him for four years. He refuses to believe that good things can come in colorful packages.
A warm hand snakes around my waist. My knees buckle and the hand pulls me down into the very familiar lap of Mitchell A. Pangborn III--my friend, my enemy, my lust."

She introduces us to the story's outcast, a tough female named Teri Litch:

"The ugly girl, the one who smells funny, studies carpentry at vo-tech, stomps around with sawdust in her hair, and has fists like sledgehammers. Teri beat me up every year in elementary school, fall and spring. I turned the other cheek for a while, then I learned to run. Intelligent life pursues self-preservation."

And she introduces us to her "sad excuse of a motor vehicle, a Yugo named Burt."

But who or what is the catalyst here is one of the things you're going to have to read the book to find out.

"Oh, nobody knows the trouble I see/Nobody knows my sorrow..."

CATALYST, which alternately had me crying and laughing, is a moving story that seeks to knock us off our little career tracks long enough to see what's really important.

"...I gotta get out of bed and get a hammer and a nail
Learn how to use my hands
Not just my head I think myself into jail
But I know refuge never grows
From a chin in a hand in a thoughtful pose
Gotta tend the earth if you want a rose..."--Indigo Girls

Laurie Halse Anderson has once again crafted an unforgettable young adult novel filled with literary brilliance. This CATALYST sure got one hella'va reaction out of me!

Richie Partington
http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com