The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm. Nancy Farmer

The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm
Nancy Farmer.
Orchard Books: 1994.

In Africa 2194 AD, the top General's three kids are too over-protected by their parents and not allowed out. They finally escape and during the course of the story are kidnapped several times - by a slaver, a ransomer, a commune, and evil gang. Meanwhile, Mother hires three mutant detectives (see title) to find them.

Story centers around maturing of 13-year old boy and on Arm, the psychic-sensitive detective. In both cases, sensitivity to others is shown to be a handicap: Tendai is too sensitive to be a brave warrior, and Arm is so sensitive that he turns into a baby when he's near one. Tendai loses his compassion for the enemy during a final battle scene, and Arm actually dies during the battle: when he comes back to life, he has lost his psychic sensitiviy. Not sure if I like this message for teens, but it is still a good story. Main flaw is that it spends too much time teaching us the vocabulary and customs of the future and traditional Africa -- overdone and it slows the reading down.

Truckers. Terry Pratchett

Truckers
Terry Pratchett
Delacorte: 1990.

The first in a new series for teens, Truckers has the usual (though a bit toned down) Pratchett humor and wacky mythology. This mythology is a biblical-sounding one based on the store (in which these little guys live) being the universe, and the store's founder being God. The creatures in question are "nomes," 3-inch high people who don't live very long -- but they live fast. Thus, a minute for us humans is like an hour for the nomes.

Some rural nomes are forced to move and they wind up in a store which is like a great metropolis with rival families and guilds. However, none of the store nomes believe there is a world outside of the store. Various political battles ensue, and soon it is revealed that the store is about to close down. So Masklin, our hero, gets everyone together and they steal a truck and make it to a quarry, their new home.

As it turns out, they arrived on this planet a long time ago, but have since lost all knowledge and technology -- except the Thing, which turns out to be a super intelligent computer that helps them.

Good, not his best, and definitely for teens.

The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy. Terry Pratchett

The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy
by Terry Pratchett.
Doubleday: 1992, 1993, 1996

Humorous trilogy, geared for teens:

Only You Can Save Mankind. Johnny is sucked into a video game world, while the country is bombing Iraq. What is war and why are there rules? What does it mean to kill someone? Do fighter pilots feel like they're playing a game?

Johnny and the Dead. Johnny tries to save the local graveyeard from being built upon by a mega-corporation. The spirits become "free" because of Johnny and eventually don't care about the graveyard, because they're ready to leave. Johnny still wants them there because their history is important.

Johhny and the Bomb. Local bag lady has shopping-cart time machine, which Johnny must use to save the town from being bombed during WWII. The lesson here is that all of your actions have consequences.

The whole triology has great side-kicks, and are well-told stories. Thought-provoking yet humorous.

The Thinking Machine: Adventures of a Mastermind
by Jacques Futrelle.

Originally written during the first decade of the 20th century, the Thinking Machine stories introduced one of the first story-book scientist-detectives (alas, they don't really make them like this any more.) Professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Deusen, a.k.a. The Thinking Machine, uses his great powers of logic and deductive reasoning to solve crimes and other problems.

These stories are great fun and although they require some stretches of imagination, they are on the whole well thought-out. The best puzzle was the secrety who was stealing company secrets by typing memos in such a way that her key strokes were Morse code translations of the memos she was typing. Awesome!!

These stories are written for grade schoolers, and are entertaining & thought-provoking. Interestingly enough, Futrelle went down with the Titanic. Lost with him were several unpublished Thinking Machine stories.

The Cure
by Sonia Levitin

A teen novel about cultural diversity, specifically anti-Semitism. A boy in the distant future, when everyone wears alike masks and chants "harmony is happiness," finds he loves music -- which is against the rules. The elders have to "cure" him by sending him to the past - Strasbourg in 1348 when & where anti-Semitism is rampant, and the Jews are being blamed for the Black Plague.

Like Snow Falling on Cedars, the racism in this book is always blatant: never the subtle & more devious (not to say realistic) sort. As a result, the book comes off preachy to an adult reader -- would teens be able to detect subtlety or do they need in-your-face depictions? I assume they are smarter than many authors give them credit for.

Unfortunately, the author is best at depicting the future world. The past world seems a bit lacking in authenticity (does that mean I think her future world is more authentic?); yet the bulk of the story is set in the past. Overall, however, a fairly interesting if not engrossing read that preaches that ethnic diversity is more difficult, but that society and its individuals would ulitmately be happier.

January 27th, 2005

Father's Arcane Daughter

E. L. Konigsburg. Atheneum: 1976.

Teenage novel about a woman who claims to be the long-lost & kidnapped daughter, and the effects of this claim on the family. The teenage son and handicapped pre-teen daughter have a very close relationship which is interesting to watch change, complete with realistic conflicting emotions in the boy.

The book is, in the end, perhaps too simplistic: the stepmother has kept the handicapped child secreted away, thus making her more socially & emotionally handicapped, and therefore making it more important to keep her separate from society. However, in the context of the novel, especially as it is written for teens, it works well enough.

A curious side-show is whether or not the father really believes the returned daughter is his - and the semi-incestuous feelings he has. Not really sure what the author is driving at with this.