The Underneath by Appelt, Kathi (2008) Hardcover

by Kathi Appelt

Japanese edition of THE UNDERNEATH by Kathi Appelt, illustrated by David Small (Caldecott Award-winning illustrator). This beautiful and magical story is Kathi Appelt's debut novel and the National Book Award finalist(2008) and a Newbery Honor Award winner(2009). In Japanese. Distributed by Tsai Fong Books, Inc.

Genres: Fantasy, Middle Grade, Animals, Fiction, Young Adult, Childrens, Juvenile

Hardcover

First published May 6, 2008

About the author

Lives in College Station, TX with husband Ken and four adorable cats.

Two sons, both musicians.

Serves on the faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts in the MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults Program.

Reviews

[Betsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I review lots of books. Oodles of caboodles of books. And a lot of the time my thoughts can basically be boiled down to very simple sentences. "Me like book. Book good." or conversely "Me no like book. Book bad." It takes a very special story to knock me out of this frame of mind. When you pick up a copy of The Underneath by Kathi Appelt and you read the words, "A novel like this only comes around every few decades," on the back cover you're forgiven if you scoff a little. Uh-huh. Suuuuuure it does. But doggone it if it isn't true. Appelt in her debut novel has somehow managed to write a book that I've been describing to people as (and this is true) Watership Down meets The Incredible Journey meets Holes meets The Mouse And His Child. If that doesn't make any sense to you it is because you have never read a book quite like this. Bound to be one of those books that people either hate or love, I'm inclined to like it very very much. But that doesn't mean it isn't weird, man. Really freaky deaky weird.

"There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for a while, and then abandoned on the side of the road." North of the Gulf of Mexico, west of the Sabine River that divides Texas and Louisiana, three hundred miles north of Houston in far East Texas a cat is left to fend for itself in a forest with her belly full of unborn kits. She is looking for somewhere safe to live, but instead she finds Ranger. Ranger is a hound, shot be accident years ago and chained ever since to the house of a man known only as Gar Face. Ranger warns the cat that this place is dangerous and that Gar Face will kill her if he finds her, but she refuses to leave. The two curl up under the house into the Underneath and there she gives birth to two kittens that she names Puck and Sabine. Unbeknownst to them Gar Face searches the nearby swamps for a massive alligator, hoping to kill it and earn the respect of the men he despises. And even further in the forest a bowl waits, containing a serpent known only as Grandmother Moccasin who remembers how she was trapped and contemplates her imminent escape. All storylines finally coincide in unpredictable, interesting ways.

I brought this book up with a fellow children's librarian, the first I'd run into that had also read the story. When asked what she thought she said, "I liked it. But I couldn't figure out who it was written for." This is more than a little understandable. The story is dark. Dark in tone and in content. Yet I think The Underneath will definitely have its fans and not just librarians and booksellers either. I've already heard from a couple sources about kids being read this book in class and being desperate to hear at least one more chapter. Not all children will dig it, of course. If you've a ten-year-old that can't read Charlotte's Web because they find Charlotte's death too disturbing, boy oh boy is this NOT the book for them. Other kids though, the ones with thicker skins, they will find much to love in this story. It will usher them into maturity, whether they want to go there or not. And it will use cute furry animals to do it.

But the darkness extends beyond the critters. I for one cannot think of a children's novel that spends as much time as this one does in the head of its villain. For that matter, I've never met a villain this nasty that managed to have zero redeeming characteristics and still remain three-dimensional. Gar Face is a bad man, and normally I have a real problem with children's book authors telling the audience, "This person is bad and there is nothing good about them and that's how the world works." It's not like we don't see how the guy came to be bad. We see his entire life story from a nasty bird-poisoning kid to a nasty bird-shooting adult. So why didn't I have a problem with the author rendering him in such stark black and white moral terms? I can't account for it, except maybe to say that Appelt's writing somehow manages to overcome the normal pits and fissures into which less talented authors fall.

I've read Kathi Appelt's picture books, you know. In fact, I am particularly fond of her Bubba and Beau series, following the very low-key adventures of a baby (Bubba) and his hound dog puppy (Beau). Clearly she has a thing for hound dogs. One of the things I like about those books is that Appelt has a real ear for a Texan tongue. Midwestern gal that I am, I can't think of a famous Texan children's book author, though I know there are bound to be heaps of them out there. But if we can make Appelt our honorary author of the Lone Star State then I am all for it. We need more children's books out there that take advantage of colloquialisms and distinctive turns of phrase. You'll see a couple come out every year, but few rope you in completely. Now we've Appelt taking Texas and Ingrid Law's Savvy handling Kansas. Things are looking up.

And her language. Oh, the language. Gripping story I can understand, but wrapping it in words like these cannot be easy. In the space of three sentences we see a gnarled tupelo tree and an old loblolly pine. We hear the wind in the pines and the smell of the water. The chapters are always short, often not much longer than a page, but it works in the context of the tale. And I loved the way her sentences wrap around themselves. "Ask a tree, and it will tell you about any number of traps. The steel traps of hungers, the steel jaws of gators, the vicious jaws of the water moccasins." Notice how that second sentence went from steel traps to steel jaws to vicious jaws. Beautiful.

Appelt uses repetition in such a way that the book deserves to be read aloud. "Respect. A word he had never had any truck with. Respect. It crawled down his back like a rat. He reached around as if to catch it and then held his empty hand in front of his hideous face. Respect. He wanted it." This repetition doesn't just happen in sentences that repeat a single word or phrase over and over. Ideas are repeated too. Read the book closely and carefully and you'll find that words you ascribe with families pop up again and again. The Alligator King calls Grandmother Moccasin "sister". Gar Face, searching in vain for the gator he wants to kill, calls him "brother". Grandmother Moccasin's past mistakes are centered upon her family and what happened to them. And of course, the whole story revolves around an unexpected family consisting of a dog and some cats.

I compare this book to The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban in large part because of David Small. Mr. Small is fine with doing carefree picture books along the lines of Imogene's Antlers or Once Upon a Banana but there's a darkness to him and to his work that occasionally peeks through the surface. The newly reillustrated Hoban book featured Small's illustrations, and they were dark moving images. In The Underneath Small goes even darker, his pictures never going for the obvious shot. These illustrations complement the action but Small seems to have taken a great deal of care not to distract the reader, or even create an image that the reader will look at with more interest than the text on the opposite page. He sometimes will miss a detail from the book (Hawk Man's long black hair is conspicuously absent) but for the most part his images are dead on the money.

I'm fairly certain that there will be some objection to the fact that in the middle of the book and for a very long time nothing much happens. Characters are in their respective areas and it's only until you reach the slam-bang last fifty pages or so that they begin to take action. Much of the space in-between concerns Grandmother Moccasin's past mistakes, and that's why I kept thinking of Holes as I read the book. The climax of the story hinges on Grandmother Moccasin's family, such as it was, and if you don't pay attention to the past then the ending of the book will strike you as unsatisfying. It may be hard for some people to invest themselves in the past when the present is so dire. Maybe that is why Appelt chose to include some magic. She didn't have to. She didn't need to. But because she did, she made Grandmother Moccasin's memories just that much more interesting. It's up to the reader to determine if it was worth it in the end.

Here is what I think the author is trying to say. This is just my own interpretation, mind you, so I could be completely off. But the book is basically telling us that there is evil in the world. It does bad things to good people, and often these people have very little recourse in their lives. There is also love in this world. Compared to evil, love does not look like much. It might just be a kitten licking a dog's ears to make it feel better. But love can win and should win and when it does win then that's the story worth telling. That's the moment worth remembering. It is up to each person to do what they can for love and in doing so understand that while it isn't always enough, sometimes it's everything you need. This isn't a pretty message or one that you can tie up with a little bow. It's also not often found portrayed as well as it is here in The Underneath. Adults don't always like children's books to address the nature of evil, real evil, without coating it in sugar first. But as Lemony Snicket's, A Series of Unfortunate Events taught us, kids are more resilient and intelligent than we give them credit for. They can take messages like this one, process them, and draw their own conclusions. This is a book that is not always pretty, and for that very reason a lot of people are going to hate it very much. I can only hope that enough other people read it through and take what it has to say to heart. Memorable, controversial, wonderful.

Ages 8 and up.

[Joe · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for awhile, and then abandoned on the side of the road.

This is the breathtaking opening sentence of The Underneath - a sentence that has already been over-quoted and will probably lose its luster once it is revealed as The Great Deceptor. What follows this ingenious sentence, however, is not nearly as captivating.

Kathi Appelt's asinine debut novel is inexplicably receiving buzz as a contender for the Newbery Medal. Perhaps after reading the stunning above-quoted sentence, many have just thought, "Yep, here's a winner!" and thrown the book to the side. Because there really can be no other logical reason for all the hype about The Underneath. Unless these same people are mistaking the Newbery for the Caldecott. After all, David Small's illustrations throughout this book are the book's strongest point. They're charming beyond belief.

Kathi Appelt's overly florid prose (think Hemingway geared toward kids) consists of annoying and sophomoric methods.

1. Repetition Ad Nauseum:
[p. 263] "And then came that night, that long-ago night when he had paused and Gar Face shot him, shot his own dog in the leg."

YES! We know about that night! Do you know why? Because you mentioned it in great detail fifty pages into the book. And then a couple more times in the middle. We've also received the same story in multiple pointless perspectives. We are also treated to repetitive stories about the Grandmother, the clay jar, the alligator, Gar Face... well, just about everything. Multiple chapters are just reiterations of "action" that has already taken place.

2. Run-Ons Disguised As Art:
[p. 108] "Saw him yelp and cry and howl until he had nothing left, until his neck was raw and bleeding where the chain dug into the skin, rubbed the fur away and left it bleeding, raw, sore, until he had no voice at all, until he didn't utter a single sound." (This also reinforces #1 - you've already mentioned he had no voice, which is the exact same thing as not uttering a single sound)

Virginia Woolf writes excellent run-on sentences. But she doesn't write for children. And she doesn't indulge in purple prose. Also, she actually has something to say. In the case of The Underneath, this method just comes across as Desperately Trying Too Hard.

3. Endless, Meaningless List:
[p. 83] "The Caddoo can be found in the memories of trees. Not just pines, but hackberries, tupelos, water oaks, winged elms, mulberries, cedars, cypresses, yaupons, bois d'arcs."

Surely he's making that up, you might be thinking. No one in their right mind would write a sentence that stupid, and no editor would tolerate it. Please, by all means, reference page 83 of the book. It's the third paragraph. Oh, and like most everything else in this 320 page snoozefest, it adds nothing to the story. Nothing.

4. Character Development Concealed As Violence
When Gar Face beats the living hell out of his dog, the violence is jarring... not because you don't expect it (the character, in the brief biographical sketch we get, is a mean old coot), but because there's virtually no development in either character. Therefore, the action seems rooted in stereotype rather than in anything remotely honest. In fact, the sequence just seems like a ridiculous ploy to get the reader to gasp. And it works. Until the wily reader thinks, "Wait a minute... I know virtually nothing about this dog or about this man. What the hell is going on here?" Are we just supposed to feel sorry and move on, or is something deeper here at work? Good luck figuring out that little koan.

5. Tone Shifting
From the first chapter, The Underneath meanders with a foreboding and funereal tone. And then the kittens are born. Suddenly, many chapters are manic and bouncy. Yes, this tone shift indicates the unbridled playfulness of the kittens, but bookended with the dour passages, it creates an unbelievable inconsistency. And when Appelt begins mashing together multiple points-of-view in a single paragraph - Holy Creative Writing No-No 101!

Here's a clue that something is amiss in a book: when reading, if you find yourself wondering things like, "I wonder if Axl Rose realizes he looks dumb with corn rows" or "Maybe I just haven't given cauliflower a fighting chance" or "Gee, I wonder how many interstitual hairs are on my index finger", then there is something very wrong with the book.

Want to turn children off to reading permanently? Hand them a copy of The Underneath. Chronic aliteracy will be nanoseconds away.

[Cheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

”Whenever there is a breeze in the old forest, you might, for a moment, realize that the trees are singing. There, on the wind, are the voices of sugarberry and juniper and maple, all telling you about this hound, this true-blue hound, tied to a post. They have been watching him all these years, listening to his song, and if he knew what the trees were singing, it might be about how he found a friend.”

This hound, Ranger, lives his life attached by a chain to the porch of the house where a man who is only known as Gar Face, feeds him when he feels like it, or is sober enough to remember, or care. Once upon a time, Ranger was his hunting dog, a good and faithful hunting dog, until one trip where Ranger ends up getting shot in the leg, making him useless as a hunting dog. Since that day, he’s been alone, chained, and dreaming of the days when his life was better. So when a pregnant cat follows the sounds of Ranger’s song to his side, he knows he needs to become the protector of their soon-to-be family. He knows they need to know that they need to stay in the Underneath, where the man won’t see them. It’s the only way they will remain safe.

Aimed at the 10+ age group, story-wise, this reads a bit like a cross between Sheila Burnford’s The Incredible Journey with a blend of ancient legends, set in the deep woods of the East Texas bayou which adds a haunting, ominous feel. It’s hard to tell which way for them to turn when there are cougars, a monstrously huge alligator, and an ancient snake ready and waiting to strike.

The illustrations by David Small in this story (and on the cover) are wonderful, and add a nice touch, but it’s the bond that develops in the present day story, which follows Ranger and the mother cat and kittens that I loved the most. Interwoven with the present day story is the story of Grandmother Moccasin, imprisoned for 1,000 years waiting for the moment she will be freed and can reclaim her life. How they connect doesn’t really come together fully until the very end – but I thoroughly enjoyed the fable quality of this, as well. Overall, it’s the magic of friendship and love that shines through.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

A reading journal of Kathi Appelt’s The Underneath, as captured in emails to a friend who enjoyed it


Subject: Progress Report #1

Once the accolades for The Underneath started rolling in and I knew I'd be reading it, I decided to keep my reading experience as pure as possible and started avoiding anything about it. Didn't want too much hype for it to live up to, hadn't read a single plot summary, didn't look at the back of the book or the inside flap of the jacket. Just started it cold at lunch today. First impression: blech. Cats, trees, dogs, ugh. So not interested. To page 26 so far.


Subject: 43 Pages Choked Down

I generally don't quit books as a matter of principle; everything must have something to offer. But the only reason I'm still reading The Underneath is because it's "The Underneath," subject of accolades galore. I don't get it. The writing is awful. Absolutely awful. She's constantly shifting tenses. There's no plot to speak of. No characters to identify with. Enough with the constant mini-chapters alluding to the looming danger of grandmother snake and king alligator--either reveal them with some actual action or shut the @#%& up about them already. I mean, this is an entire chapter?!?

In the deep and muddy Bayou Tartine, the Alligator King floated to the surface. Already today he has eaten a dozen turtles [tense shift!!!:]. Caught them sleeping in the dappled sun atop a cypress root. He was always hungry [tense shift!!!:]. Always. Before the night fell [tense shift!!!:], he would eat a giant bullfrog, a wounded mink, and several fish. Fish are his primary sustenance [tense shift!!!:], the fist-sized perch and bottom-dwelling catfish, but he prefers the creatures of the land. They're not quite so salty.

Beware. [WTF?!? Can you be any less subtle? Ever hear of understatement? Show don't tell?:]

God, this book is atrocious.


Subject: Gotta Figure Out Why People Are Saying Things Like "Best Book in a Decade"

So please don't take this as an attack on your reading tastes for enjoying it. I don't want to detract from your experience. This is just the way it's striking me and I understand that's just me. So if you aren't in the mood for bile, stop reading now.

And I consider myself an absolutely unpretentious English major. I'll defend trash, can't name the majority of grammar rules, believe in stylistic freedom. So when the writing and grammar in a book bother me, I figure something's gotta be up.

Rant from breakfast reading below . . .

Pg. 83: The trees remember them. They do.

They do. They do? Really? Are you sure? Because based on everything else you've written so far, I'm not so sure. Let's see . . . Pg. 82: It's the trees who keep the legends. Pg. 44: A tree's memory is long, stored in its knots and bark and pulp. Ask the trees, and they will take you back a thousand years. Pg. 40: Trees send out their own messages. Here, in the languages of cottonwood and beech, of holly and plum, they announced the names of this new son and this new daughter. Pg 26: No one keeps records. No one but the trees. They do not count the time in years. Pg 25: There, on the wind, are the voices of sugarberry and juniper and maple, all telling you about this hound, this true-blue hound, tied to a post. They have been watching him all these years. Pg. 3: Trees are the keeper of stories. . . . So when you told me, The trees remember them, I wasn't so sure about it, wasn't that inclined to believe you. I had my doubts. Luckily you knew what I was thinking and responded before I could even ask my question with, They do.

Patronizing, repetitive, circular, stagnant, awful writing. Awful.

Pg. 85: What do you call someone who throws a mother cat and her kitten into a creek, who steals them from the hound who loves them, a hound twisting at his chain wailing, who never even looks back, what do you call someone like that? The trees have a word: evil.

Duh! I think if you just let your story speak for itself, let me focus on the horror of his actions without all this stupid commentary, I'd get that. Do you think I'm stupid? I know throwing cats in the river is evil whether the trees have a word for it or not. Never mind your poorly punctuated run-on sentence, your writing is patronizing and condescending.

Pg. 88: Sabine, descendant of the great lionesses of the Sarahan plains, grandchild of the mother tigers of the Punjab, tiny heiress of the fearsome lynx and cheetah and panther, night hunters all.

Is that supposed to be "poetic?" Because it's a waste of words. Flowery nonsense. Shut the @$#& up and tell the story already. Stupid book.


Subject: Another Meal, Another Ridiculous Character

Like the trees themselves, he knew the songs of wrens and warblers, the Carolina parakeets, the whip-poor-wills and crows and red-cockaded woodpeckers, for wasn't he one of their kind? Wasn't he?

You're asking me? How the @$#& should I know? He's your character in your book and you just introduced him out of the blue. Why the &@$# would you ask me? Stupid, cutesy, little, Despereaux-wannabe devices.

The thing about really good fantasy novels is they have this hugely developed universe, every location, character, and legend has an elaborate back story, but we're never told any of it. The author has it all in his or her head, but they don't waste time telling the stories that aren't this story. Fully-fleshed out people and places are seamlessly integrated into the story naturally without any exposition because they make sense narratively. You learn about them through their actions as they fit into the story with no "voice-over" necessary. This book is all voice-over.

So we have cats and dogs hooking up to raise children, snakes mating with humans, palling around with alligators, and falling for hawks. Apparently interspecies love is an important takeaway lesson. As long as you can sing the right song. When do we get to the lion laying the lamb?


Subject: Weekend Update

About halfway through the book now. At least there's been some storytelling for the last while now. Not that her method of telling the story makes any sense. Despite the mini-chapters that skip all over the place with no rhyme or reason, it seemed pretty clear to me she had set up the calico cat, Ranger, Sabine, and Puck as the main protagonists. But now one is dead, two mainly dropped out of the narrative, and one stagnating with very short chapters that aren't going anywhere, and instead we get the story (the one from a thousand years ago, the one that the trees remember, oh yes they do, those trees remember it, the maple and ash and loblolly pine and aspen and oak and rattler and warbler and oh yes the trees remember you just have to ask because they have long memories and time is different for them and they live millions of years and collect stories and this was just yesterday for them and the trees) of snake girl and bird boy and mean old granny and the glittery little one. So it's new and different and anti-linear/-western/-traditionaldeadwhiteguy and whatever, but it sucks.

So that's the big picture. Repetitive, circular, stagnant, awful. But I was making progress until a number of things in the last chapter just annoyed me so much I had to put it down. Her awful awful awful use of the language. Blech. Just constant cutesy stuff that distracts from the story and makes me want to puke. Like:

Hurry, she thought, I have to hurry. And she walked out of the hut with the jar in her arms, its smooth round surface pressed hard against her chest. It felt cool against her skin. She walked as fast as she could, but the weight of it slowed her down. She had to be careful not to stumble and drop it. Oh, glimmering girl, do not drop this jar that your mother has made for you. Do not. She stepped quickly, carefully, one foot in front of the other, toward the creek.

OK, so I'm reading . . . narrative . . . past tense . . . story, story, reading . . . wait, what? . . . what the @$ was that? Oh, glimmering girl, do not drop this jar that your mother has made for you. Do not. What? Where did that come from? Who said that? What the #$&@ was that? You're interrupting your own story with some stupid interjection that makes no sense? The narrator is telling some story from the past and all of a sudden is so drawn into her own story she becomes a present-tense cheerleader? Gaugh!!! I can't stand the idiocy of it all.

And if a character is disturbed, show it through that character's actions. Maybe add some internal dialogue if you must. But this? It's just wrong:

. . . He called and called for her mother, over and over. Something was wrong.
Wrong was here.
Wrong sat on the ground in front of her.
Wrong kept the birds from singing.
Wrong.
It crept up her legs and into her chest.
She heard her father again. . . .

It might have worked the first time you did something like this with Puck 70 pages ago. I still thought it was bad writing and it pulled me out of my reading experience and into analytical mode, but I could appreciate the novelty of it. The first time. Once and only. But you keep doing it. This is the second time (of three) this chapter. Reading that was . . .

(Continued in first comment)

[Donalyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not a good enough writer to tell you why you must read The Underneath.

I read a lot of books and I like most of them, but honestly, there are few that set themselves apart as books both magical and haunting, so well-crafted that the prose makes my heart ache with longing to read more and more.

The story is a simple one-- a calico cat, abandoned in the woods when she is pregnant, discovers the shack of a violent, broken man, known as Gar Face, who is so evil he shot his own dog. That dog, Ranger, has lived for years chained to the house, inhabiting the nasty space under it (The Underneath). The mother cat gives birth to her two kittens in this awful place and warns them to never leave the safe space under the house.

But kittens are curious...

Alongside the tale of the kittens and Gar Face, there is another story, an ancient one, of the woods and the history of sorrow and love that have marked that place for centuries.

These interwoven stories meet in a powerful conclusion.

More than an animal story, The Underneath reads like an old folktale, full of magical realism, and a setting so well-drawn it is a main character.

As a Texan, the Piney Woods between Houston and Louisiana are known to me, but I have never walked through them, until now. Appelt's personification of these woods and the animals and plants that live there is the most beautiful part of this book.

The writing is so good, so beautiful, so original, that if The Underneath does not win accolades from every book award committee in America, I don't know anything about books.

[Monica Edinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. What a book. What a story. What an amazing piece of writing.

Now I admit it took me a while to read this one. While I definitely enjoyed sad animal stories as a child, now, with the occasional exception, I avoid them. And so, when I received a gorgeously packaged ARC of Kathi Appelt’s The Underneath, I admired it (as it is handsomely illustrated by David Small) , and then read the flap. “An abandoned calico cat, about to have kittens, hears the lonely howl of a chained-up dog….” Nope. Not for me. Until someone told me it reminded her of Russell Hoban’s The Mouse and his Child which happens to be one of my favorite books. So yesterday, feeling lousy with allergies, a head cold, and a painful hip (can’t run which is misery for me), I pulled out the ARC and read it.

And was immediately and utterly drawn in. I read without pausing till I was done. What a remarkable book. It is an adventure, a story of myth and magic, of sadness, of family — and is very beautifully done indeed. Yes, it is sad. Yes, there are abused animals. Even worse, some dead ones too. But, oh my goodness, is it rich and complex and gorgeous. I would have loved, loved, loved it as a child.

While I can see why someone might compare it to The Mouse and his Child because of the journey aspect of the story, the setting, and the sentiment within (and the illustrations as Small also did an edition of the Hoban book), it seems extremely different to me. Another book this reminded me of was Kate DiCamillo’s The Tale of Despereaux. The darkness, the multiple plot threads (from different points in time) all coming together slowly, the allegorical qualities, the magical elements are in both. But DiCamillo’s like Hoban’s has humor. Be warned that Appelt’s book is deadly serious. Actually, the more I think about it the more it reminds me of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Books, still books I love, love, love.

What is it about? Hard to describe. It takes place in a deep Southern swamp — a place full of sentient trees, of intelligent animals, of shapeshifting creatures, a place of misery and mystery, a place of magic and myth. Within this magical yet hyper real place are two twisting and intersecting groups of beings. There is the bad man, an abused dog, a calico cat and her twin kittens. And then there is the other group. The magical and mythical one. The story threads swirl and twist around each other, a mix of the past and the present.

Just writing this makes me get all hyperbolic. Sorry! Suffice it to say I recommend it and look forward to hearing what others think about it.

[Roxanne Hsu Feldman]

I cannot give this a rating since I cannot decide how I feel about it. On the one hand, I think the author has succeeded brilliantly in creating a world, a mood, a sense of place, a unique tone, a great bunch of palpable characters, a mesmerizing tale. There is this rippling effect, formed with recurrences of phrases, that makes me feel I am in the middle of that mysterious swampy land and that the land itself engulfs me. There is the unflinching treatment of cruelty and evil embodied by Gar Face that made me cringe. (I hate animal suffering stories and this one tops them all!)

On the other hand, the recurring phrases and the listing of different trees, birds, other creatures get to be so annoying that I wanted to fling the book away and say, "ENOUGH! Just get on with the STORY. Stop being so pretentious and over-crafting! Grrrr..." It seems so over the top and so over done.

And I am so unhappy when a book is so different from its cover. Let's not fool little children and their parents into thinking this is a lovely animal buddies story, please?

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave this award winning book to my daughter a few years ago when she still found reading more of a chore than a joy. I thought, here's a warm fuzzy story about a dog and a cat who become friends; it's an award winner; it must be good; she'll love it. Well, she didn't make it through the first 20 pages before discarding it. I recently picked it up looking for a quick read and couldn't have been more surpised by what I found. I hadn't read more than a few chapters before I recognized it as something extraordinary. It is not a warm fuzzy story about a dog and cat but rather a very serious fable about the battle of good and evil, the conquering of love over hate. I can see why my daughter found it "weird" and didn't enjoy it. I think this is a book for older readers, maybe 6th grade on up, unless it's read aloud and discussed. Which actually would be even better because the language in absolutely beautiful and reads like a poem. I have seldom become so emotionally caught up in a book, let alone a book intended for children. At one point I found myself holding my breath in anticipation and I seriously had goosebumps while reading the last few pages. Now that my daughter is older I hope she'll give this wonderful book another try. It's just too good to pass up.

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not really sure how to explain my feelings about this book. While I recognize that the writing is compelling and builds a great deal of suspense, I was just annoyed throughout the book. I'm also not convinced that this will be an attractive book to kids, who are the targeted audience, as far as marketing efforts go. And of course, the book has been nominated for the National Book Award and has all sorts of rumblings for the Newbery. I can only say I hope it doesn't win the Newbery. It would be another disappointing pick in a decade of disappointing winners.

When I really enjoy a book, I can usually whip through it pretty quickly. Not so with The Underneath. It took me a long time to read for several reasons: 1) I have a tendency to take a break from reading a book when a chapter ends. With 124 incredibly short chapters, that adds up to a lot of breaks. 2) The repetition of certain phrases over and over and over drove me nuts--even though I recognize it was a conscious, stylistic choice on the author's part. 3) The two story lines were distracting. I didn't really care one whit about Grandmother Moccasin's story, even though she ended up playing a key role in the Ranger and cats story. I would have rather read a simple story about a hound and his kittens and have Appelt find some other plot device to wrap up the story.

[Kwoomac · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book had me crying on page one. It's a dark story about an abused dog, an abandoned cat, and her kittens who come together to try to forge a life under the porch of a creepy, damaged man who enjoys killing things. It's powerful and disturbing and there's an awful lot of death for a children's novel.

The story meanders back and forth between 1000 years ago and today. It has an interesting rhythm to it as the story builds to its ultimate climax. I loved the writing, I loved (most of) the characters.

Did I mention that the dog sings the blues ?
Oh, I woke up on this bayou,
Got a chain around my heart.
Yes, I'm sitting on this bayou,
Got a chain tied 'round my heart.
Can't you see I'm dying?
Can't you see I'm crying ?
Can't you throw an old dog a bone?

This book was like a chain around my heart.

[Michael Fitzgerald · Rating 1 out of 5]

Until the end (chapter 123 - one hundred and twenty-three!), this was at 2 stars. The pathetic and ridiculous "choose love" deus-ex-moccasin resolution pushed it over the edge.

Here is a book that is 311 pages, 124 "chapters" (many of them are a page or less, and chapter 94 is 8 lines) and yet it just repeats and repeats itself. Often we just get "poetic" sentence fragments, just words without any direction. Omit needless words - omit needless chapters - omit needless books.

Over and over (and over and over), we get redundancies and unnecessary appositives, and when we aren't getting those, we get tired, boring constructions where many chapters start out the same way, with a grand truism (often not actually true, just made up and presented as "truth"). Sometimes it's as if the author forgot she already told us something. We are forever starting over with some grand Statement. And then every simple generality seems to demand not one, not two, but at least three specific examples. It's so bad it's like a parody.

Here come the examples. I could easily pull twice as many. It's that consistently bad.

"The water is not the only element that offers up magical beasts. Look into the upper stories of trees, look at the tops of the highest cliffs, look into the wispy, whispery clouds." (p.89)

"A tree's memory is long, stored in its knots and bark and pulp." (p.44)

"Trees are the arbiters of time, gathering up the hours and days and years, keeping them in their circular rings." (p.166) What exactly would be wrong with "Trees are the arbiters of time, with all the days kept in their rings."? Why must these be circular rings? Are there any other kind? Why hours and days and years but not months? Surely lunar months are more significant than 60-minute hours, which are just a convenience. How does the idea of an arbiter (ultimate authority) fit in? Everything that follows talks about accumulating and collecting, not really anything about authority. I get the feeling that the author likes the sound of her own words a bit too much.

"A knot formed in his stomach.
"A knot of revulsion.
"A knot of fear.
"A knot of anger." (p.279)

"Night Song sang to the crickets and the mosquitoes, to the flowers - the jack-in-the-pulpits, the lady's slippers, the horsemint and water lilies. She sang for the foxes and coyotes and beavers and minks and bears and wolves and panthers." (p.62)

"her forebears, those lionesses, those tigresses, those female ocelots." (p.128)

"Beware the vipers, the rattlers and corals, the copperheads, the venomous crew. Then there are the non-poisonous varieties, the black snakes, the corn snakes, the rat snakes." (p.17)

"the small and deadly corals, the bronze-colored copperheads, the massasaugas and their cousin rattlers." (p.35)

"Here are snakes. The brilliant green water snakes, the hognose snakes, the corals and rattlers and massasaugas, the copperheads and rat snakes, the kings and garters." (p.69)

"There, the voices of her reptile cousins, the rattlers, the massasaugas, the Eastern hognose." (p.306)

"Again the cousins called, the rat snakes, the corn snakes, the black and orange corals." (p.306)

If you don't want to hear about snakes, how about birds:

"The piney woods is known for its birds. Here there are martins and swifts and flycatchers, ducks and warblers and boattailed grackles. (pp.93-94)

"not the song of the chickadees or the wood ducks or the cinnamon teals." (p.94)

"Together, the cranes and spotted owls, the stilts and kingfishers [...]" (p.94)

"All of them, the vireos and kinglets, the peregrines [...]" (p.94)

"There are many birds of prey in the piney woods - the owls, the peregrines, the red-tailed hawks, and even the tall-legged waterbirds, the great blue herons and sandhill cranes." (p.129)

"the calls of grackles and orioles and gnatcatchers." (p.167)

"The air must be thick with thrashers and wood ducks and kinglets." (p.167)

And if not birds, surely you must want to be inundated with names of trees:

"Not just pines, but hackberries, tupelos, water oaks, winged elms, mulberries, cedars, cypresses, yaupons, bois d'arcs." (p.83)

"And the other trees, the yaupons, the beautyberries, the red oaks shiver [...]" (p.34)

"It's the trees who keep the legends. Ash, beautyberry, chestnut - they know the one about the hummingbird." (p.82)

"In the well-kept records of trees, would you find the joining of Hawk Man and Night Song a thousand years ago? Yes, the magnolias and blackjacks and beautyberries, they would tell you [...]" (p.111)

"Trees are the keepers of stories. If you could understand the languages of oak and elm and tallow [...]" (p.3)

"If Puck knew the code of the winged elms and wax myrtles, the blackjacks and chestnut [...] (p.160)

"If you could ask the trees about them, the sweet gums and tupelos, the sycamores and oaks, oh, if you could decipher the dialects of tallow and chestnut and alder [...]" (p.311)

"If she had understood the languages of willow, birch, and bitternut, they would have told her about him. Here, in this pine forest. If she could have heard the tales spun by blackjacks and water oaks and junipers, they would have shared his story." (p.89)

"Trees send out their own messages. Here, in the languages of cottonwood and beech, of holly and plum [...]" (p.40)

"The song of a siren has no words, at least none that anyone can understand, except perhaps the trees, the willows and yaupons and sycamores, but no one else." (p.62)

"The trees, the alder and magnolia, the laurel and flowering ash, know about missing. They miss the passenger pigeons and the woodland bison. They miss the panthers and the black bears." (p.103)

"All of us have favorites. The sky has favorite comets. The wind has favorite canyons. The rain has favorite roofs. And the trees? Because they live such long lives, their favorites change from time to time. But if you could ask a longleaf pine or a mulberry or a weeping willow [...]" (p.138)

"Animals sing for reasons. Coyotes howl to set down the sun. Nightingales warble to please the emperor. Prairie dogs bark to attract a mate." (p.95)

"Cats are built for naps [...]" (p.201)

"Some mysteries are hard to divine." (p.61)

"Before a man becomes a man, he has to be a boy." (p.48)

"There is hardly anything that grows faster than a kitten." (p.54)

"It's a fact that kittens are hard to manage." (p.71)

"At some deep level, we're all of us connected." (p.97)

"For a cat there is only one god, and that god is the Sun." (p.72)

"There are many kinds of messages." (p.40)

"Memory is a slippery thing." (p.109)

"Lightning is not the only thing that strikes." (p.12)

"It takes a long time for a hundred-foot alligator to grow." (p.26)

"A cat who has been nearly drownt needs some time to recover." (p.100)

"The world is made of patterns. The rings of a tree. The raindrops on the dusty ground. The path the sun follows from morning to dusk." (p.150)

"This forest is older than any history, it predates the dinosaurs and mastodons and the giant ferns that touched the sky with their pointed fingers." (p.175)

"Trees are always the first to know about storms." (p.237)

"There is not much a tree can do besides stand still under the sun and stars, or bend back and forth in the wind. But here and there, perhaps once every thousand years, those who know trees agree that a tree can, if it chooses, take matters into its own branches." (p.266)

"A snake who has lived in a jar for a thousand years knows something about hunger." (p.290)

"Only once every thousand years or so, give or take a century, do the trees call up their own sort of magic." (p.298)

"For trees, stories never end, they simply fold one into another." (p.310)

In addition to the kinds of repetitive passages listed above, there are also times when nearly the exact same phrases are recycled.

"She had no truck with humans." (p.59)
"vowed to have no more truck with humankind." (p.287)

"She is cousin to the mermaids, the ondines, the great sealfolk known as selkies [...]" (p.35)
"There are those from the sea: the selkies, the mermaids, the ondines." (p.61)
"those magical selkies, those enchanted ondines, those lusty mermaids, those lamia [...]" (p.97)
"the ancient shape-shifters of the waters, the mermaids, the ondines, the lamia [...]" (p.157)

"Anger has its own hue, its own dark shade that coats everything with a thin, brittle veneer." (p.155)

"so black they looked blue" (p.48)
"so black it looked blue" (p.59)
"so black it looks blue" (p.69)
"so black the blue of them glowed" (p.93)
"so black it looked blue" (p.148)
"so black it looks blue" (p.164)
"so black it looked blue" (p.190)
"so black it seemed blue" (p.267)

We get it already. I have to think that the author and all her readers and editors think this redundancy is a good thing. I firmly disagree, however.

There are occasional dumb misuses of words in an attempt to be "deep" or something:

"Wrong was here." and/or "Wrong was everywhere." (pp.9, 73, 168, 170, 174)

"Mistake was all around him" (p.188)

"Yes, missing is all around." (p.139)

"He was so full of Missing that he almost missed the tree." (p.270)

"A surge of happy streamed through the old dog." (p.302)

Chapter 32 has "No no no!" (mostly as an entire "paragraph") no fewer than five times. (pp.73-74)

And chapter 23 has this annoying repeated thing with "Quiet. Oh so quiet." and "small. Oh so small." and "down low. Oh so low" and "Patient. Oh so patient." and "Unaware. Oh so unaware." (p.56)

There is a story in there, somewhere. Unfortunately, it's not a very good one. It combines fantasy with reality, except the reality isn't very real. Thousand year old trees are one thing; thousand year old snakes and alligators are another. A snake that lives for a thousand years trapped in a jar? Please. If those were in the fantasy part of the story (where hawks become men and snakes become women), it would be one thing. Elsewhere we have a man who lives on his own with no job and no income and yet he is able to buy bullets for his rifle, gas for his car, food for his dog, and more. We are told his only interactions with society are when he trades pelts for alcohol at a local tavern. Not believable. The parts about the cats and the dog (which are supposed to be the main story, it seems) were ridiculous in how they attributed human thoughts and feelings to these animals. It just was too much.

In terms of the audiobook, the narrator had problems with the word "draught" (just say "draft," please), and I disliked her cat yowling and cat voices in general. She also didn't make the snake hiss long enough, in my opinion.

This book does not merit an award. It merits an editor. We get a full page of acknowledgments ("A novel does not happen all by itself. It takes a village." - more of those godawful "truisms" - and then we get the list of all the author's friends and students, none of whom apparently were able to convince her to burn this misguided experiment.

[Julia L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A novel for children, young people and yes, an old gal like me. I found this story to be almost poetic in its telling. It certainly is full of the cliches of poetry: music of nature, the sound of great symphonies heard in the wind of trees, the kettle-drum rage of a storm and the purity of death coming to take one away from the pain of living when it is necessary... in the shape of a glowing hummingbird.
Its short chapters seem to me to be purposfully written that way to carry us along quickly from scene to scene...telling this harrowing tale just long enough for us to be able to bear the cruelty experienced. I have never read a book where the sorrows of life, the ugliness is expressed in such a way that just when it is about to become too much, Kathi interrupts it with something of great beauty, softens the scene with something inherently gentle, kind and lovely.

I am not a technically educated person about writing. So I can't tell you all the proper, educated things about this book and the craft of writing if you put it to that test.

I can only tell you that reading it I was surrounded by the forest, the characters from nature and carried back and forth with wonder from the first thousand years to the evil present. It was fascinating to see how it all came together so ingeniously at the end.

I recommend it for kids over ten and maybe some younger. Sorrow is a fact of life, evil is a fact of life, so is the will and the power of love to overcome those things and triumph. This book triumphs.

Julie

[Kristi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hmmm, couldn't decide whether to give this 1 star or 5. A lyrically written book however devastating the words may be. Rumor has it that this might win the Newbery this year (why I read it). I can't imagine ever giving this book to a kid. There's child abuse, animal abuse, animal death, betrayal, every bad thing a human could do to another human or animal. Hard to read if you are a dog/cat lover. Can't imagine who this book was written for....however well done the writing.

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

In alternating chapters and using alternating perspectives, Kathi Appelt spins a heartbreaking tale in The Underneath, following various creatures caught up in a dance of cruelty and kindness, love and hate, community and solitude. Weaving in and around one another, the various story strands here include that of a tiny calico cat, pregnant and abandoned by her human family; the hound-dog Ranger, chained up for years by his abusive owner, who in his loneliness adopts the cat and warns her of the dangers of his small world; and the cat's kittens, Puck and Sabine, who are born and raised in the eponymous 'underneath,' the space beneath the derelict shack where Ranger's owner lives. Here too is the story of that owner, the human Gar-face, an angry and malicious soul whose inner nature matches his deformed face, itself the product of the terrible abuse he suffered as a boy. The ancient Alligator King, the cunning survivor of a thousand years in the bayou; and Grandmother Moccasin, a lamia - a mythological being who is half snake, half human - trapped in a buried jar for that same time, also contribute their stories to the mix. Scenes from the present alternate with flashbacks to the past, as Grandmother's rejection of love in favor of vengeance, many years before, which resulted in the destruction of her daughter's family, is paralleled by the struggles of Ranger's canine-feline family to stay together despite seemingly impossible odds.

Terrible things happen in The Underneath, such terrible things, and so many of them, that I often found myself wondering, whilst reading, whether it would make a good selection for young readers. Certainly, those of a more sensitive nature will be traumatized by the cruelty to be found within these pages. There is a darkness to many of the characters, especially Gar Face and Grandmother Moccasin, that can be very hard to take, particularly as it is so unrelieved. Although Grandmother Moccasin does have her moment of redemption toward the close of the book, Gar Face, the only human character, is depicted as wholly evil, even when a still child. There aren't really any happy endings here, and although a few characters do escape total destruction, most die during the course of the book. Despite the dark and disturbing content, this is a beautifully written book, one with a poetic cadence that I found intensely rewarding, as I continued to read. Each chapter opens with a philosophical observation, or a note on the realities of living in the world, which does sometimes give the book a contemplative feeling, although the visceral experience of suffering is never too far removed. "The world is made of patterns, one chapter begins, continuing: "The rings of a tree. The raindrops on the dusty ground. The path the sun follows from morning to dusk." Another opens with the observation that "Anger has its own hue, its own dark shade that coats everything with a thin, brittle veneer." Appelt spends a great deal of time considering the lives of trees, and their role in the story, and one of my favorite chapters begins: "Trees are the arbiter of time, gathering up the hours and days and years, keeping them in their circular rings."

This book seems to have really divided readers and reviewers, with some praising its poetry and its depiction of tragic realities, while others bemoan its false promises - that cute, winsome, deceptive cover, with its promise of a sweeter story! - and lack of hope. For my part, I am glad to have read it, and think that for some children it could be an immensely moving experience. I myself would have devoured it as a girl, and pondered its story of suffering and (in some cases) survival long after. I think that it's a book which improves the further in you get, not because it becomes less dark, but because the beauty of the language and the continuing striving of the characters against the soul-crushing tragedy of life, prove so powerful.

[Victor The Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story takes place in an alligator bayou near the Louisiana border where we first meet an aged hound named Ranger who is chained near the bottom of his owner’s house he calls “the underneath”. Ranger’s owner is Gar Face, a very experienced animal hunter who also has a very cruel demeanor following a harsh childhood and is obsessed with capturing a legendary alligator. Ranger’s life changes when he rescues a pregnant cat who gives birth to twin kittens he names Sabine and Puck who he’ll protect from Gar Face who might use them as bait. Later we also meet an Indian serpent spirit who wants revenge against her grown son and granddaughter.

“Underneath” is a harsh but bittersweet novel about survival, family and hope. It basically follows two different stories with both involving danger, emotions and even a little magic. Ranger is pretty much the heart of it as his story is already a sad one before the kittens as he’s being neglected by his owner and unable to leave. Gar Face is definitely a very spiteful and heinous villain for his hunting obsession and wallowing in his own selfish ways. Grandmother Moccasin’s stpry is much about revenge but slowly turns to one of acceptance.

Definitely one of the most intense and surreal middle-grade stories I’ve read, yet a breathtaking story that has our hound going above and beyond the surface to find him and his kittens salvation. A (100%/Outstanding)

[BookishStitcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story of an unlikely trio is so incredibly sad. I did love the magic that was woven throughout. I read this for extra credit for one of my classes.

[babyhippoface · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished this book about 4 hours ago, and I'm still a bit bumfuzzled about how to respond to The Underneath. I need to be able to choose three-and-a-half stars.

I had read so much lofty praise that perhaps my expectations were too high. Don't get me wrong. I liked the book. I think I reacted to much of it as was expected: I loved the calico cat, Puck and Sabine, and the first line killed me (and I don't even like cats); I loathed Gar Face and Grandmother Moccasin, the Alligator King made me very nervous, and I especially loved the noble Ranger. I wanted to keep reading; I wanted to know how everything would end. It just took so darn long to get there.

By the time Grandmother Moccasin became mobile, I was quite weary of her. My thinking was along the lines of, "Somebody smash the stupid jar already, and have a big, sharp hoe handy."

...and I think I just figured out why I was not enthralled by this book as so many others have been: I would have liked it better without Grandmother Moccasin, Night Song, Hawk Man, and all that came along with them. Oh, I know, she played an extremely important part in the story, but couldn't someone else have played that part? Couldn't the two stories have stood on their own, separately? And then I could've skipped cranky old Grandmother. That part just didn't interest me. I could've read about Puck, Sabine, Ranger, and nasty old Gar Face, and had just as good a time.

And on top of that, I'm not sure very many kids will read this. There's something about it that makes it... well, I don't know... different. Odd. Even with all the action it's very cerebral, and I'm not sure your average kid will stick with it.

I'm sure others will disagree, and that's the thing about books. No book is for everyone. Not everyone likes Harry Potter. Not everyone thinks Love You Forever is the sweetest book ever. >>involuntary shudder<<. Not everyone likes the same books (although I'll admit that it is quite annoying when people don't love certain books as much as I do).

I liked this one, quite a bit. I just didn't love it.

And if I have any say in the matter, our next dog will be named Ranger.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. I wasn't sure about all of the "magical" themes because I was planning to read it aloud to my 10-year-old and my eight-year-old. But we really enjoyed it. They were so enthralled by the story and the rhythm of the prose is really captivating. I think this book is best enjoyed when read aloud. So many children's books are written so awkwardly that they're just not fun to read aloud. So glad we tried this one and I'm planning to read other books of hers my girls! Warning animal lovers: There is some descriptive heart wrenching animal cruelty in this book.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. The Underneath is one of the best children's books I've read in a long time.
How'd she do that?

I'll be posting an interview of Kathi Appelt asking her just that.

Here's the link:

Please take a look at my interview of Kathi Appelt, author of THE UNDERNEATH, on the
Imaginary Blog.

http://lynnhazenimaginaryblog.blogspo...

Lynn

[Leah Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this one for book club. I did not enjoy. It’s hard for me to imagine a child enjoying this book. While it can bring up many important topics for discussion it would be hard to put a child through having to read this. I felt like it was a bit odd. I didn’t love it. It did provide for a good conversation though.

[Charlie Headley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a sad story, but don't worry...it gets better!

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Appelt, Kathi. 2008. The Underneath.

The Underneath is a novel that I would have avoided (at all costs) as a kid. I was a wimp. Big-time. Seeing the dog and two kittens on the cover? That would have made me suspicious or wary from the get go. Reading that it is for folks who love, "Sounder, Shiloh, and The Yearling" would have sealed the deal. I wouldn't have gone near this one. No way. No how.

As an adult, however, how can I help but fall in love with The Underneath? It's beautiful. It's simply beautiful. Like a love letter to the English language. Appelt's poetic style suits this prose novel achingly well. (Appelt has written several poetry books, a short story collection, and more than a few picture books. I've had the pleasure of meeting her as well and have quite a few autographed copies.) Appelt's storytelling is powerful, effective, and oh-so-magically spellbinding.

There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for a while, and then abandoned on the side of the road. A small calico cat. Her family, the one she lived with, has left her in this old and forgotten forest, this forest where the rain is soaking into her soft fur. (1)

The Underneath is about friendship, about love, about hate, about sacrifice, about revenge, about death, about life in all its shades and colors. It's bittersweet but beautiful. It's sorrows and joys are pure and heartfelt.

For cats, a hound is a natural enemy. This is the order of things. Yet how could the calico cat be afraid of a hound who sang, whose notes filled the air with so much longing? But when she got to the place where the hound sang, she knew that something was wrong. She stopped. In front of her sat a shabby frame house with peeling paint, a house that slumped on one side as if it were sinking into the red dirt. The windows were cracked and grimy. There was a rusted pickup truck parked next to it, a dark puddle of thick oil pooled beneath its undercarriage. She sniffed the air. It was wrong, this place. The air was heavy with the scent of old bones, of fish and dried skins, skins that hung from the porch like a ragged curtain. Wrong was everywhere. She should turn around, she should go away, she should not look back. She swallowed. Perhaps she had taken the wrong path? What path should she take? All the paths were the same. She felt her kittens stir. It surely wouldn't be safe to stay here in this shabby place. She was about to turn around, when there it was again--the song, those silver notes, the ones that settled just beneath her skin. Her kittens stirred again, as if they, too, could hear the beckoning song. She stepped closer to the unkempt house, stepped into the overgrown yard. She cocked her ears and let the notes lead her, pull her around the corner. There they were, those bluesy notes.
Oh, I woke up, it was rainin',
But it was tears came fallin' down.
Yes, I woke up, it was rainin',
But it was tears came fallin' down.
Can't you see I'm tryin'? Can't you hear my cryin'?
Can't you see I'm all alone?
Can't you throw this old dog a bone?
Then she realized, this song wasn't calling for a bone, it was calling for something else, someone else. Another step, another corner. And there he was, chained to the corner of the back porch. His eyes were closed, his head held back, baying. She should be afraid, she should turn around and run, she should climb the nearest tree. She did not. Instead, she simply walked right up to this baying hound and rubbed against his front legs. She knew the answer to his song, for if she could bay, her song would be the same. Here. Right here. Ranger. (9-11)

I really can't recommend this one highly enough.



© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's good, if you're in the mood to be patient with poeticness. Contrary to what this seems like from the cover, you don't have to be an animal lover. Actually, if you are an animal lover, it might be too much for you--or if you're someone who gets very emotional about books.

Usually, when I read a book, I have a pretty secure feeling that even though terrible things might happen to the characters, it's all going to turn out all right in the end.

But when the worst happens early in the book, you just don't know that anymore. After the worst happens, ANYTHING could happen. I could not stop little moans of dread coming out of my throat at several points in this book.

Let's start with the fact that it's being marketed ALL WRONG. I was expecting The Incredible Journey, here. It isn't like that, and it isn't anything like Shiloh or Sounder, both of which are mentioned in the jacket matter. Probably I'll wake up in the middle of the night with a good book to compare it to, but it won't be an "animal" book.

Maybe The Bell Jar.

It is very, very poetically written. It took me a few minutes after finishing to be able to step out of the spell of the writing--and it was a real effort. The story is mostly interesting, and it's difficult to stop reading. The sense of setting is so strong as to be overwhelming.

I'm sure there's a lot of conflict about whether this book is really suitable for children, and that's really the main thing that would or could affect whether it's chosen for Newbery honors. I'm not sure, myself. I'm interested to hear what children think of it--whether it's too sad and scary. So often, children's books are sadder for adults; the kids take things in stride. I've noticed this myself when rereading childhood favorites. But you also hear the stories about kids who are really upset by Charlotte's Web. I don't know. My feeling about this definitely isn't strong enough to want to take it out of contention.

Most of it was drawn out a little too long; the book could have been shorter and, I think, equally powerful. There were a couple of times when I felt sort of manipulated, like I could see "oh, the author wants us to be scared here" and then it turns out okay--kind of like when it looks like a beloved television character has been killed, except right after the commercial, it turns out he's fine.

I hated, hated the illustrations of Hawk Man that made him look like an Indian out of central casting--I don't know whether the illustrations are accurate to what the Caddo wore, but I preferred the amorphous image I had in my head.

I was relieved by the ending, but I wasn't totally convinced by Grandmother's thoughts and actions there.

Newbery: probably.

[Autumn · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is a lot of animal abuse and animal suffering in this book, and every time I think of it it makes me feel worse. Not a fan of the energy contained in these pages. This book will stick with me though, and so I guess it brings readers’ attention to animal causes (though I think most already know) . My son picked it up from the school library for a class, and I got a copy for myself so that we could talk about it together (we both are huge animal lovers). Both him and I were floored when it wasn’t an animal bonding story and we were mortified that so much descriptive animal cruelty takes place. I feel like animal abuse happens so much in real life, and currently it feels like the whole world’s on fire, so the reading experience with this novel felt too overwhelming for both of us. This is the long way of saying we did not enjoy it.

*Note* I read sad, depressing books often… but this one didn’t feel like it needed to be so heavy…it was just too much awfulness for little reason (imo).

[Hope Baugh · Rating 2 out of 5]

I confess that I only read the first 25 and (unusual for me) last 7 pages of this book. I read that much and just couldn't read any more. Even if the overall message of the book is one of love and redemption or whatever the professional reviews promise, I just can't tolerate what I'd have to do to get there. (I.e., read the whole thing.)

I mean, the illustrations are charming. The shamanic themes are intriguing. The writing is beautiful and powerful and therefore very effective, which makes reading about the animals' suffering all the more heart-breaking. In fact, it is unbearable. The pleasure of reading the good writing and interesting double story structure is outweighed, for me, by the characters' misery. This is just going to have to be one of those award-winning books that I skip. For me, this is just not a good read.

However, I'd like to see if this author has written something else that I might like more. I do admire her writing ability.

[Edie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is hard to know where to begin in describing this book as it has some many different pieces, a survival story, a love story, a myth, told from many different perspectives. It is getting rave reviews and the writing is lyrical, the story line original and complex but also appealing. Who can resist a sweet old dog who has been badly treated or two kittens just learning how very cruel the world can be. Then there's the 1,000 year old snake with her memories of love and loss, her desire for revenge, and the monster beneath the water, hunted by the twisted old man, Gar-Face. It took me a while to get into this book but ultimately I was caught up in the story whose ending is ambiguous. But I think that you have to give it to a very special reader in order to have it be fully appreciated, or even finished.

[Melody · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found Appelt's comma-infused writing repetitive and very distracting. The writing, it was so full, round, globular, and it distracted. Distracted, it did. Yes. Very distracted, I was.

Aside from that (which actually had me cursing aloud at more than one spot) I found the story to be very Newbery-like. With that many tragedies and the plethora of dead/evil parents, how can the committee resist? It's a shoe-in.

I can see that the story was essentially sweet and ended in a hopeful fashion, but I was not particularly moved by it.

I think maybe I need a break from fiction, I'm sensing a trend wherein I become crankier as each book goes by.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

My daughter read this book in school and went on and on about it for weeks. And, like a good mother, I responded with, "uh huh, that's nice dear" while really thinking about other things.

Then I bought her a copy and decided to read it myself. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn't believe my daughter liked it so much because she is an insane animal lover. Her whole world revolves around knowing and preserving every animal species alive today.

But this is a good story, and probably more realistic than we'd like to admit (well, except for the plotting alligator). It was powerfully sad, and although I loved it, it will be awhile before I have the emotional stamina to read it again.

[Betsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous Young Adult book. I will later post an excerpt about "memory being like a soft blanket..."

"Memory is a slippery thing. When something terrible happens to you, like the loss of someone you love, like the loss of a mother or a father, or perhaps a twin sister or an old hound, memory can turn into a soft blanket that hides you from the loss." Kathi Appelt

[Rikke · Rating 4 out of 5]

God, this was beautiful. And heartbreaking. Equally suspenseful and delightful, it had me on edge right from beginning to end. It is poetical and atmospheric, and yet there's this impending sense of doom hovering above every word.

I had no idea how it would end. I just devoured every word.