17. The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle by Leslie Connor

read on my iPhone/Kindle/Book/Audible
2018 Katherine Tegen Books
336 pgs.
Mid Grades CRF
Finished 2/15/2018
Goodreads rating:  4.27 - 392 ratings
My rating:  4

First line/s:  "Tell you what.  I already know who stuffed this tee shirt into my locker.  Matt Drinker did that.  He took a Sharpie to it first.  Fat black letters.  He wrote STOOPID on it.  Same way I spelled my word in the spelling bee on Friday morning."

My comments:  This story is about bullying, friendship, love, and a sweet, sweet boy.
     I don't understand bullying.  I don't understand parents that allow it to happen,when they know it is happening.  Both and the giving and receiving ends, as in this book.
     I really enjoyed the story, but it didn't quite rate as a five to me.  There were a few too many weaknesses.  Shayleeen, for one. (They have so little money that they're selling off bits and pieces of their orchard to a developer and they take in a stray young adult - someone they don't even know - and let her spend all sorts of money - their money - on the shopping networks?  Take her in, great, feed her and cloth her, that's more-than okay, too, but let her rule the roost?)  And come one, Mason is being chased and abused by neighborhood kids and his grandmother and uncle either don't know about it (they should!) or don't do anything about it?  It's not as if they don't love him and carae about him.  And they are not oblivious people.  It just doesn't make sense to me.
     There ARE a couple of characters that do totally make sense to me - the wonderful counselor and friend to Mason at his school (oh what a wonderful, klutzy, classy, real person she is!)  and the cop who is trying to figure out what is happening.  They were believable.
     I kept drawing comparisons to one of my all-time favorite books, Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick.  There are a lot.  That might even make and interesting paper/examination/comparison for me to write one day as I circumvent my journey towards a doctorate in children's literature, lol!
   
Goodreads synopsis: From the critically acclaimed author of Waiting for Normal and All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook, Leslie Connor, comes a deeply poignant and beautifully crafted story about self-reliance, redemption, and hope.
          Mason Buttle is the biggest, sweatiest kid in his grade, and everyone knows he can barely read or write. Mason’s learning disabilities are compounded by grief. Fifteen months ago, Mason’s best friend, Benny Kilmartin, turned up dead in the Buttle family’s orchard. An investigation drags on, and Mason, honest as the day is long, can’t understand why Lieutenant Baird won’t believe the story Mason has told about that day.
          Both Mason and his new friend, tiny Calvin Chumsky, are relentlessly bullied by the other boys in their neighborhood, so they create an underground club space for themselves. When Calvin goes missing, Mason finds himself in trouble again. He’s desperate to figure out what happened to Calvin, and eventually, Benny.
           But will anyone believe him? 

2. Ninth Ward - Jewell Parker Rhodes

Little, Brown & Co., 2010
HC $15.99
218 pages
For: Middle grades
Rating: 3

I ran to the library to find this book, because the ACPL Mock Newbery had voted it their winner for 2011. The library actually had it, which was a pleasant surprise. It’s about a 12-year old girl, Lanesha, who has been raised by Mama Ya-Ya, the midwife who birthed her. Lanesha’s mother died during childbirth, and her “uptown” family has completely ignored the child because her 17-year old mother had taken up with someone they didn't approve of. Lanesha does not know who her father is.

So we see Lanesha at home, in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, a particularly poor neighborhood. She and Mama Ya-Ya have an incredible relationship, filled with love. Although they have very little, every tiny aspect of life is made special. Mama Ya-Ya is a good woman. Lanesha is a great kid. We meet Lanesha’s math teacher, who sees promise in her and encourages her to be an engineer, a bridge builder. We meet the kids who bully and taunt her because of Mama Ya-Ya’s “sight.” We meet the boy who lives down the street from her. TaShon is tiny, also bullied, almost-silent, and has never really spoken to her before. And then there’s Spot, the stray dog that Lanesha takes home for TaShon, who has a personality of his own.

All this takes place on the eve of Katrina. Mama Ya-Ya starts to have strange dreams, dreams that take hold of her and make it difficult for her to focus on the everyday. So it’s up to Lanesha to plan and prepare for what the news says is going to be “unfathomable.” She watches the neighborhood prepare. She watches them leave, some to escape New Orleans, some to stay at the Super Dome.

And then Katrina strikes. And then the water starts to rise. And then Lanesha, who’s been joined by TaShon, must really use their wits to survive.

Hmmmm. There have been some excellent reviews of this book. Some of the writing is superb.

"I think the quiet before the storm means it isn't really quiet. Maybe it means only no you can hear birds flying, forming a V overhead. Or that the air has sound. That it whistles, low and deep, as a storm approaches. Quiet before a storm maybe means folks are done hammering wood across their windows and placing sand sacks beside their front doors. Or maybe it means there's loneliness. A weird loneliness that is, yet isn't, real."

But I had a few problems with it. It was repetitious. Much of the scenes from the rooftop were unbelievable . Come on, if they’d really been doing what they did on the roof, one or both of them would have drowned. And, they hey just happened to have a neighbor with a rowboat? A dog like Spot was afraid to jump across…or into…water?

My biggest hangup with the book, however, was Lanesha’s ability to see ghosts. I’ve pondered upon why Rhodes would have added this not-so-believable-for-me ingredient to the story. I suppose to show the superstitions and beliefs of many of the people of New Orleans. Well, she covered that with Mama Ya.-Ya’s “sight.” Perhaps because when Mama died at the end, she wouldn’t feel too much sadness because she knew she’s always be able to “see” her? So that her dead mother could save her when she was drowning? This touch of fantasy was a big weakness for me.

So, yuh, this book had many flaws for me. They can’t all be winners, right? It’ll probably win awards, because it seems I never agree with them, anyways!