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

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"Well I left my happy home to see what I could find out
I left my folk and friends with the aim to clear my mind out
Well I hit the rowdy road and many kinds I met there
Many stories told me of the way to get there

So on and on I go, the seconds tick the time out
There's so much left to know, and I'm on the road to find out"
--Cat Stevens

ZIGZAG is a warm, sometimes rocky, summer's journey through which a young Midwestern woman--soon to begin her senior year of high school minus the boyfriend who is heading off to college--learns about losses, changes, choices, and new parts of the country, while accompanying her bereaved aunt and younger cousins on a winding highway of discovery across the Western US.

"Going down the road feeling bad
Going down the road feeling bad..."
--Traditional

As the story and the summer begin--with the fancy graduation party given for her boyfriend Chris--Robin is already miserable, trashing the summer before it starts because she is dreading Chris's end-of-summer departure to Georgetown. Robin is a girl who has misplaced her Self, along with any self-awareness of her better qualities, as a result of her perception of their relationship:

"It had all been so easy with Chris, right from the beginning. He was the perfect boy and he chose me. I knew I didn't deserve him, but I had him anyway. Except now he was leaving and I couldn't stand it. I couldn't imagine what my life would be like without him."

The crisis quickly hits high-alert, when Chris's parents unexpectedly give him a summer of studying in Rome as a graduation present. The plane leaves in a matter of days. Robin is awash in self-pity and junk food. But as Chris flies the coop, the proverbial door opens when Robin's Aunt Dory convinces her to take part on a zigzag summer trek with the kids. Dory's husband Allen had died in an accident the previous winter, and Robin quickly discovers after sliding into her Aunt's minivan that her cousins, Iris and Marshall, perfectly complement their mom--as a pair of smaller basket cases.

"...Money it's a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash..."
--Pink Floyd

" 'I have to buy something,' he said, shaking his head at me as though I didn't understand his role in keeping the economy afloat."

In addition to the book's other important themes, Ellen Wittlinger takes serious aim at modern-day commercialism in Gotta-Have-It-Now Brand Name America, and its effects on adolescents--the haves, the have-nots, and the used-to-haves. How, we are forced to contemplate, are the balances of relationships between her various characters weighed down by who has how much moola?

ZIGZAG is an indispensable story for girls who will be newly testing the waters of high school in the fall, as well as those who have already been up to their necks in it. Adolescents facing that pressure to dress right and have a boyfriend (or girlfriend) have plenty to learn from Wittlinger's character Robin as she wrestles with such questions as "Who am I?", "What's really important?", and "How much is enough?" ZIGZAG is a lovely and introspective end-of-summer read that could well set teens on the road to find out.

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