This Book won`t Grow on You
By: Ann Walsh, Flower Power, 1942, Orca Book Publishers, children’s fiction.
Flower minus the Power, this book had no impact what so ever. The book “Flower Power” left me unsatisfied. It’s unrealistic and over exaggerated. Ann Walsh I feel has not done a good job this time. This book is about a young girl named Callie whose mother has chained herself to the tree in their back yard. In this book they say that TV channels and newspapers come but I don’t believe that the news would really be interested in a little fight between two neighbours about a tree in the backyard.
Early Saturday morning Callie woke up with a not so nice surprise she finds her mother outside her bedroom window sitting in their tree house chained to the tree. Her mom tells her to go downstairs the kitchen and call the phone numbers, and say to each person what her mom wrote down. So she does it first thing. She ends up calling news channels and newspapers, to tell them about her mom in a tree for the right to keep it standing. Although it is partly their tree house it is not their tree it belongs to their neighbour Mr. Wilson. Callie`s mom and Mr. Wilson built the tree house together when they were young. The reason for Mr. Wilson wanting to cut it down is that he wants to build a new garage to put it new motorcycle in, and the tree is going to be in the way of the new garage. But from my opinion that doesn’t mean that Callie and her mom have the right to control what he does with his property. Later on men and women from the news start showing up to see what’s going on. It turns from Callie`s mom wanting Mr. Wilson to keep the tree to a Front page story about singers and bikers coming out to help with the fight for the a measly willow tree. Callie`s Gran even comes over to help.
A young girl named Callie whose real name is Calendula is a girl almost like everyone else, she doesn’t like to be embarrassed and she would not want to be on TV before she has even brushed her teeth in the morning. Although one of the things that separates her from her friends is that Instead of her being excited to has TV reporters in her backyard she’s hiding inside and unplugging the phone so that nobody calls her about the big commotion. She is a boring character and they should have added something special to her instead of just an original and interesting name. Because when she was introduced it didn’t make me want to hear more about her.
More important characters in Flower Power are Callie`s mom and Callie`s Gran. The reason for the title “Flower Power” is that there names are all names of flowers. Callie`s name is Calendula, her mom`s name is Rose, and Callie`s Grams name is Dianthus. This is also something that the reporters are using to make the situation more interesting. Callie`s Gran doesn`t live with them but she does rush over when her daughter Rose called her for back up. She is very helpful and she goes out and get a group of people to help her daughter. Rose has strong determination and she wants what she wants, but also makes thinks into a big deal when they didn`t have to be. Mr. Wilson their neighbour is somewhat gutsy. He has just joined a biking (motorcycle) group and has bought a motorcycle so he needs a place to work on it and keep it so he arranged a someone to come and cut down the tree where his garage will go.
The book was unrealistic and an over exageration of what would really happen in that situation. A woman sitting in the tree in her back yard doesn`t make the news, but yet in this book it did. The ending was predictable and I know this because I guessed what was going to happen and I was right. I found this book boring with nothing special or exciting. Compared to other books of its type I would only recommend it to a younger kid that has an imagination to make the book more interesting and that hasn`t read many books, for the reason of its lack of originality.
The authors message was don`t make things into a big deal when they don`t have to be, if you work together and think about a solution you will find one. She could have shown this a lot better by making a bigger problem that nobody thought could get repaired and the little young girl figures out a way to fix things for everyone. If the author could have just made into something a little bigger and added some better characters in it could have been better. In Conclusion this book wasn`t so good. This story-line was plain and simple. And reading it again, is not in my future.