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On Bones and Kat Leyh's Snapdragon

To visit a natural history museum is to find yourself keenly interested, perhaps unexpectedly so, in bones. You may have thought plenty about the dusty archeologist who discovered those bones, but you might not have spent much time considering the person (or people) whose work is to assemble those bones into the shapes you see in the museum. Those bone-constructors bring the creatures back to life, resurrecting them in our minds-eye, into something we can imagine with flesh and fur, body and spirit. And imagine we do. We all know what a Stegosaurus looks like. Or a Tyrannosaurus Rex with his tiny arms? The bones are what give us access to that picture; however, there is much we assume when we add to the bones. Perhaps the leathery skin of the stegosaurus wasn't grey or brown but rather iridescent? Perhaps the skull was covered in long, flowing hair? Does that change the way we see, understand, and feel about the stegosaurus?


Kat Leyh's new graphic novel Snapdragon is a great example of what happens when we all choose to focus on the bones, the stuff of ourselves, the true beings we have inside that may or may not match what can be seen on the outside.

Oh, and there's also a character who puts skeletons together. She may be a witch. She is definitely more than she appears. In fact, all the characters in this book defy expectations. The main character is named Snapdragon, following the family tradition of naming your daughter after your favorite flower. Snapdragon is the perfect floral name for this girl as she is anything but sugar and spice. At one point, her mom asks, "Do you feel like you're a boy? Like the way Lu's a girl?" And Snapdragon replies,

No, mama. I'm just . . . I'm not like other girls. I wondered if maybe I was really a boy, like Lulu's a girl . . . but that don't feel right, either. . . I feel like a girl. . . . I just don't act right.

What follows is powerful, and it occurs again and again throughout this book. Snap's mama turns off the car, turns her body all the way to her daughter, and says,

Let's get one thing straight. You stood up for yourself, and your friend, against a bully - - so you act just fine. I'm proud of who you are, baby - - and I don't want you actin' any other way. Got it?

What's remarkable about this story is that the "differences" each character is dealing with are not the main tension of the story. There's a moment, but that's all it is. After the moment of recognition, those around him or her just keep right on, hardly blinking in their insistence that whoever you are is just right. Over and over, I kept wondering what it would be like if every child grew up in a world like this one, where "different" was the norm, each set of bones covered over with love and acceptance.


So, if the differences aren't the main tension of the story, what is? More accurately, what ARE the plot points around which this story spins - because there are plenty. Suffice it to say there is unexpected friendship, love over and across years, family complications, dogs, possums, ghosts, and magic. I told you about the witch, right? If that all sounds like more than one graphic novel can reasonably manage, think again. It's all there, and it all works. Just like an intricate skeleton giving shape to its living thing, the bones of this book are complex yet sensible, mysterious yet relatable, solid and sure and sometimes completely unexpected.


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The 2021 Newbery Medal selection committee spends the whole year considering titles. As always, I will be reading and reviewing along with the committee, keeping one eye on today's young readers and the other eye on each book's prospects. After each review, I'll offer my one-sentence take (OST) on medal-worthiness.


OST: There will be lots of voices championing Snap and her fellow wonder-characters, but I doubt the committee will go with graphic novels two years in a row.


Previous titles under consideration:



 

The best books spark the best conversations! If you have thoughts to share, please feel free to email me at sarabethwest52@gmail.com. I promise a reply.

Every Wednesday, I send out something of a hodgepodge of ideas, a gathering of thoughts on books, culture, and unexpected moments of joy. Sign up here to stay in the loop!

On Tides and Brandy Colbert's The Only Black Girls in Town

To stand on a strip of sand or rock or shell and to look out into the vast expanse of ocean is to reckon with a force completely beyond your control. The persistent wind couples with the breaking waves to induce a state of near-hypnosis that some find meditative and others find suffocating. If you visit the beach, you might pay heed to the tides mostly as a matter of curiosity. If you live by and with and in the ocean, the rhythm of the tides are as constant and familiar as the traffic patterns on your morning commute. And if you surf, well, the tide is everything.


If asked to conjure an image of a surfer, someone along the lines of Keanu Reeves or Matthew McConaughey is very likely to be the result. In The Only Black Girls in Town, author Brandy Colbert helps us remember that surfers (and families, and friends, and neighbors) come in all shapes, sizes, and colors.

Alberta lives in a Ewing Beach, CA with her two dads, and she surfs; in fact, she's one of the best surfers in town. She's also the only black kid in her grade until Edie moves in across the street just a few days before seventh grade begins. Edie, too, pushes back against stereotypes with her all-black wardrobe, combat boots, and black lipstick. Despite their differences, both girls take refuge in their shared blackness, finding friendship and navigating the tumultuous realities of seventh grade. And after they find a stack of mysterious diaries from the 1950s in the attic, they discover they aren't the first to feel like they didn't belong.


One of the most powerful forces in literature for young people is the ability to break down barriers. We talk about representation, and of course, this book brings loads of reminders of how important it is to see yourself and be seen as yourself in a book. The obvious answer here is that yes, black girls can be California surfers or New York goths, can have gay dads or be vegetarian. But there are other, perhaps smaller but no less important, forms of representation here. When Alberta describes her interactions with new people, she says

"Even people who don't have a problem with nontraditional families have so many questions. . . . I've watched Dad and Elliott talk to other adults about it, and by the end of the conversation, they always look like I feel: a little frustrated and completely exhausted."

To any child in any nontraditional setting, this kind of recognition is so important. To hear in a book that explaining is ok, even somewhat understandable, but it does make one tired - to feel heard in that way is like releasing a held breath. And yes, cover images are so important, but so are tiny elements like mentioning a sleep cap or putting lotion on your elbows or figuring out how to be vegetarian without being the weirdo in the room. Small, familiar acts made real in a book: that's life-changing.


Of course, this book is not only about race or family structures or differences. It's also very much about seventh grade and friendships and the tidal push-pull of adolescence. No matter how prepared you are with your charts and your schedules, the lived reality of the ocean is unpredictable. The very fact of the changes, the certainty of them, is part of what unsettles. When Alberta observes the way her best friend, Laramie, seems to be growing up faster than she is, it isn't surprise that things are changing that trips Alberta. It's that you can never really be prepared for exactly how and when the current will shift. It's the way you can feel and sound so grown-up and simultaneously still feel scared and small.


Like any middle-schooler -- and any surfer -- knows, success demands a certain sensitivity to change, a flexibility that allows you to shift your position slightly without changing your core balance. The tide will always be there. You can't control it, but sometimes you can ride it.


 

The best books spark the best conversations! If you have thoughts to share, please feel free to email me at sarabethwest52@gmail.com. I promise a reply.

Every Wednesday, I send out something of a hodgepodge of ideas, a gathering of thoughts on books, culture, and unexpected moments of joy. Sign up here to stay in the loop!

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