Man, Lois Lowry is just the best, isn't she. The actual very best.This is a really great book. I loved reading it and I'd recommend it to everyone. Even though I'd read a lot of reviews, I didn't quite understand what I was getting. (Basically, all that many reviews can clearly say is, "Oh my gosh, this is sad.") Mainly, I had forgotten that it is set during WWII. But "the war" hums quietly in the background of everything here, as six-year-old Elizabeth (I gotta love a kid named Elizabeth) tries to understand what adults even mean when they say "the war." The war is why they move from the city to their grandfather's stately home in Pennsylvania, the war is why her dad is away, the war is why a lot of things, though she doesn't really understand. Elizabeth's perspective is a really good reminder of how little explaining gets done for children, sometimes.So she and her mother and siblings are living in this big, grand home, with antiques and a domestic staff and some older relatives Elizabeth doesn't know. Being just six, she's sort of a goofy kid, and isn't really poised to pick up on fine rules and social cues. ("'Elizabeth! Why is your hand sticky?' 'I was licking it.' I had been. 'I was wondering what I taste like.'") So, one of the things Elizabeth does is start bonding with people who are different from her, and she's little enough that it gets smoothed over without fuss. The cook, Tatie, is a bemused grandmotherly figure, and she's often got her grandson Charles with her, who becomes Elizabeth's best friend. But then in addition to all the rules she already doesn't understand, "because of the war," there's a new confusing set of things she has to accept because Charles and Tatie are black. Charles isn't allowed in the front of the house. Charles has to go to a different school. And a really painful episode occurs when Elizabeth has a tantrum when her grandmother tells her that Tatie can't read or write. (Elizabeth, perceiving a horrible insult, breaks down and insists that "she can too can too can too!") It's too hard for her to believe what these things really mean, the guilty feelings that come with her uncomprehending (six-year-old!) privilege, so she glances off them in denial.But she does know. One difficult thing this book does is make use of the n-word, twice. Elizabeth uses it, once, and then the second time she is thinking about why she did it and how bad she feels. (view spoiler)[The moment is really rather amazing: Elizabeth feels a shocking amount of jealousy one day when she brings Charles on a visit with her and he is given some special treatment (it's his birthday) that she wishes she would get. Totally losing control of her feelings, she acts out with words in order to hurt him. It's a brutally realistic emotion. (hide spoiler)]
I can't even believe how much sadness is in this book. I mean, I work with kids, and I feel like I know how much trauma can happen to kids, and how much it can impact them. But this book wasn't about a homeless kid with an abusive mom's boyfriend, or any of the other things at work that make me cry. This was a six year old who sees a lot happen, and doesn't see a lot more, and figures out how much things in life can hurt sometimes. And I expected some war and some death and some racism in the book, but this book instead just took it all out of me. I was not expecting to cry my eyes out over it, and I sort of feel like LL just smacked me across the face, turned the page, and smacked me again. Then she stepped on my foot once I was about recovered. Plus I'm all hormonal, and why would LL smack me when I'm all hormonal tonight? But this was good, this book, even with and because of the sadness.
What do You think about Autumn Street (1986)?
This was a very sweet book. Liz is adorable and so believable. She is a little girl that takes everything you say as truth and doesn't understand slang at all. Tatie (the cook) tells her that everyone eats a peck of dirt before they die so Charles and her decide that they should actually taste it. She's pretty hilarious and I really enjoyed getting to know her. Lois Lowry does a great job showing everything from Liz's six-year old perspective. There are a lot of different relationships that she has with different kinds of people: Tatie, Charles (her grandson), her mom and sister, the three great aunts, grandfather and grandmother, and the twins next door.This was a refreshing read.
—D'Arcy Rowe
Well holy crap! This was quite a book. If you don't want to get all rattled and choked up and needing a hug, maybe you shouldn't read it, because it's a rough one.I've said before that my favorite thing about Lois Lowry is that she writes about weird kids. I don't mean weird like effortful stuff, but just, you know, weird. The kids who think too much and are different because they just ARE and who can't figure out why the world works the way it does when often that way is so awful. Kids who are like me. I mean, I'm old now, but I was that kid. I am still that kid in so many ways. And no one else nails it like she does. Elizabeth here, Meg of a Summer to Die, and of course the glorious Anastasia Krupnik.Anyway, despite the happy little coverart we've got going on, this book reminds me most of To Kill a Mockingbird with a little bit of Bridge to Terabithia thrown in. Also it is absolutely unique too, very much its own thing, and of course one hundred percent Lowry.
—laaaaames
Throughout the book, Elizabeth sees the world through an artist's eye. The opening description of the painting of Autumn Street is mesmerizing. Elizabeth and her family go to live with her grandparents when her father goes to war (WWII). Somehow, the author manages to include class issues, racism and war inside a story of a small Pennsylvania town and have it all ring true. I couldn't stop reading this book and it did make me cry. What a powerful reminder that bad things can happen but we have the power to persevere inside us. I love Lois Lowry as an author -- and this is now my favorite from her.
—Beth Lind
