Kathi Appelt

Two parallel stories set in the swamps of eastern Texas meet. One story begins 1,000 years before the other when the daughter of Grandmother Moccasin, a shape-shifter, falls in love with a human and gives up her serpent form. Grandmother’s jealousy over her daughter’s happiness leads to her daughter’s death. Hawk Man, the daughter’s husband, imprisons Grandmother in a jar and buries the jar under a loblolly pine tree. In the present day story, a calico cat's owners abandon it by the roadside. The lonely baying song of an old hound dog brings her to a tilted house that has only known cruelty and sorrow, but there she bears her kittens and finds love. The dog, the cat, and the kittens live under the house's porch- in the "holy underneath." The only dark spot in their lives in Gar Face, an angry man who kills and skins animals to buy the alcohol that keeps him alive. Gar-Face wages an age-old battle with the ancient swamp alligator. Ranger, the hound dog, warns the cat that Gar-Face will use the kittens as bait if he catches them. Heedless of the danger, the kitten Puck can’t resist the warm sunshine of Gar-Face’s broken yard. One day, Gar-Face catches him and his mother when she tries to defend her kitten. The cruel man throws them in the river. Puck survives and finds refuge in the roots of a loblolly pine tree where Grandmother Moccasin has been imprisoned in her jar for over 1,000 years. When fate frees her, the snake chooses to help the innocent animals imprisoned by Gar Face.
©2024 Kathy Maxwell at https://bookskidslike.com… (altro)

The night of the blue moon held so much promise for Keeper's friends and family. Mr. Beauchamp's night-blooming cereus will burst into color and fragrance. Dogie will sing his two-word song to Cigne-- "Marry me. Marry me." And they will all feast on Cigne's wonderful crab gumbo. Unfortunately, none of these wonderful events happened on blue moon night. The day's disasters start with ten "stupid crabs" that clack and snip and call to Keeper's mer-blood and beg to be set free. She races to do their bidding before Cigne returns from town. Then, one bad thing after another happens until Keeper has destroyed all of the beautiful things that were supposed to take place on Blue Moon Day. Not able to face the people she wronged, Keeper runs away on the high tide in search of her mermaid mother who swam away from her seven years before.
©2024 Kathy Maxwell at https://bookskidslike.com… (altro)

Is 2016 shaping up to be the Year of Sad or what? (See: [b:Raymie Nightingale|25937866|Raymie Nightingale|Kate DiCamillo|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1446751148s/25937866.jpg|45835163] and [b:Pax|22098550|Pax|Sara Pennypacker|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1434493048s/22098550.jpg|41443759].)

By the way, total tangent, I unofficially dubbed 2015 the Year of the Grandparent: [b:Listen, Slowly|22477286|Listen, Slowly|Thanhha Lai|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1418764650s/22477286.jpg|41725865], [b:Circus Mirandus|23281919|Circus Mirandus|Cassie Beasley|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1415585333s/23281919.jpg|41824344], [b:Goodbye Stranger|23615709|Goodbye Stranger|Rebecca Stead|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1439670673s/23615709.jpg|43219487], [b:Gone Crazy in Alabama|22836574|Gone Crazy in Alabama (Gaither Sisters, #3)|Rita Williams-Garcia|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1417982385s/22836574.jpg|42391493], [b:Bayou Magic|23197281|Bayou Magic|Jewell Parker Rhodes|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1413130729s/23197281.jpg|42742269], [b:Sunny Side Up|24612600|Sunny Side Up|Jennifer L. Holm|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1423543976s/24612600.jpg|44223650], [b:The Lightning Queen|25205301|The Lightning Queen|Laura Resau|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1457104810s/25205301.jpg|44917987], [b:Great Ball of Light|20537712|Great Ball of Light|Evan Kuhlman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1425975239s/20537712.jpg|37781711], [b:In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse|24795887|In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse|Joseph Marshall|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1425594754s/24795887.jpg|44431922], [b:Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer|22639675|Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer|Kelly Jones|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1404420425s/22639675.jpg|42139665], and saving the best for (ahem) last, [b:Last Stop on Market Street|22521973|Last Stop on Market Street|Matt de la Pena|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1453342770s/22521973.jpg|41969141].

That was fun! I'd much rather list books I enjoyed last year than dwell on how depressed I am by this year's books. Honestly, Maybe a Fox isn't a bad book. Raymie and Pax aren't bad books either. But they're all so depressing. (Though not one of them actually made me cry, and I'm a crier.)

So here we go. This is a book about grieving. There are not one, not two, not three, but four deaths in this story. (I'm counting Sylvie's and Senna's deaths separately. I can't believe that poor girl had to die twice.)

There's a unique kind of spiritualism running through this book. You can call it mythic. You can call is animism. You can call it fantasy. It's hard to pin down and I suppose that's what makes it interesting. Jules and Sylvie often like to guess at what happens when you die. Maybe you turn into a star. Maybe you disappear. Maybe you fly to another planet. I don't think they ever say, "Maybe you go to heaven," or "Maybe you turn into a ghost," like one would expect. The clue to what actually happens in this book is right there in the title.

This is undoubtedly beautifully written, especially if you're into Appelt's signature style of simple, poetic repetitive phrasing. It did leave some loose ends dangling (they never find Sylvie's body, and the Zeke/catamount story fades away without resolution) but the main plot ties up in a mostly satisfying way. I think this will be appealing to fans of [b:The Underneath|2768169|The Underneath|Kathi Appelt|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347371015s/2768169.jpg|2793892] but I doubt I'll be recommending it unless a kid comes into the library and says, "Do you have any good books for morbid animal lovers?"

I listened to the audiobook, which I thought was very well done as read by Allison McGhee.… (altro)