An Afterword for BANNEKER BONES AND THE GIANT ROBOT BEES Part Three: Let's Talk About Bees (and economics)

This is the final part of a three-part afterword for Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees. If you read the first two parts, surely you've read the book by now, but if you haven't (why not? It's so much better than these blog posts), beware of casual spoilers ahead. In the first part of this post, I discussed race and my inspiration for the novel. In the second part, I told you my wacky beliefs about writing being magical rather than a rational artistic process involving the subconscious, which it probably is, but man it sure feels magic. So that just leaves us with a discussion of Richard Adams, robot bees, and economics (naturally).

So, as I explained in agonizing detail last part, Banneker took over my story and made me change the whole thing, bumping my planned plot involving alligator people to book two. Probably, that's just as well. Alligator people are an involved antagonist and Banneker had declared himself an antagonist for much of this first story. When Banneker did what he did, he changed the whole genre I was writing in. This was no longer primarily a science fiction adventure/mystery, though it's still all of those things as well. It was (spoiler and don't let young boys read this lest it kill sales) a love story.

No, really. Although there's a kidnapping and a great deal of action involving jet packs and robot bees, the plot of Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees is that of a romance novel. It's a Bro-mance. I can show you my original outline and notes (maybe someday I'll stick them in a special edition release), but the giant robot bees don't make their first appearance until Chapter 37, nearly halfway through the book, and I barely even mention them before then. If this were simply a mystery plot involving a ransom, halfway through the book is way too late in the game to introduce the villains. I'd never get away with it if the primary plot wasn't about something else, and it is.

The primary plot is introduced in Chapter 1, as it should be. Ellicott Skullworth is a lonely boy setting out on an adventure, the shy heroine of any first romance. When he arrives at Latimer City, he meets a dashing rogue in Banneker (also lonely) and naturally they hate each other, but the reader just knows by the last chapter they're going to be friends. Obviously, there's no kissing or stirring of passions, but there is a culminating bro-hug complete with back patting. Not all love is romantic love and a best friend is something every eleven-year-old boy, too young yet for actual romance, longs for. Mrs. Ninja is the love of my life, but Adam Smith, who illustrated the novel, has been my best friend since the third grade. There's never been any romance between us (I could do better), but our relationship means a great deal to me and he knows things about me Mrs. Ninja doesn't by virtue of having been around longer.

Before I wrote books, I wrote screenplays and I started my writing journey in film school. I wrote 8 screenplays before I realized I liked writing more than movie making (less compromise) and became a barely employable English major. My favorite of all my screenplays was one called Giant Robot Bees From Outer Space (best title evah!). I liked it so much I've promised myself I'll still make the movie one day even though I know I won't. It was a tale of beekeeping brothers in love with the same woman who discover the honey of the giant robot bees from space who've recently arrived is delicious and the brothers attack their hive for one big score. Man, it would've made a good movie if I had the budget to pull it off (never got close), but it wouldn't work as a horror novel for adults. Movies can be funny and scary at the same time, but I think books (outside of Stephen King's hilarious satire Needful Things) have a harder time of it.

But the giant robot bees seem perfectly at home in middle grade and the nice thing about writing books is I don't have to worry about a production budget. Should someone ever be crazy enough to make a live-action Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees movie, they have my sympathy trying to afford all the robot special effects in this story. I don't have to worry about how much it costs to bring the bees back in sequels, so I probably will. The lesson here for writers is never throw anything out. Always keep a copy of your previous work because you never know when you might find a good idea or two worth transporting to a fresh story.

I've said Banneker Bones is a lot like me, and he really is. I feel connected to Ellicott also, but unfortunately for my parents, I was much closer to Banneker at age eleven. One way in which we are exactly the same is in our aversion to bees. I've written horror for older readers, but nothing in those stories scares me as much as bees.

Back when I was making movies on no budget, I devised an overhead shot by sitting on the edge of a five-story parking garage and filming the actors below. All went well until a bee flew into my face, causing me to panic and topple over the edge. I didn't fall because Adam Smith caught me (and swatted the bee away), which is one of many reasons it's nice to have a best friend. If I could explain my irrational fear of tiny insects to which I'm not allergic (I think, though I've always run screaming before I could be stung), it wouldn't be an irrational fear. To this day, when a bee flies close, it requires every ounce of willpower I have to remind myself I'm a grown man and running would be embarrassing.

Another quality of Banneker Bones is that he's very wealthy, which comes in handy as I'll need him to have all sorts of gadgets and resources. As he's modeled after Batman (though nowhere near as glum as Banneker's parents are very much alive), I haven't deviated from the formula that he has no superpower apart from cold hard cash. I've always thought of the Bruce Wayne archetype as extremely optimistic. Wouldn't it be nice if the super-rich and affluent devoted their time and considerable resources to improving society and benefiting the least of us the way most of us like to think we would do in the same position?

If I were a different writer, I might be able to ignore the fact that Banneker is a member of the richest 1%, but economics are a passion of mine. On top of the wealth of the Bones family there are robots in Banneker's world, displacing human workers the way automation has been steadily displacing them in the real world. If I currently made my living driving a truck, a cab, or a bus, the emergence of self-driving vehicles would make me very nervous indeed. Younger readers are growing up in a time of complete social revolution, so the issues of Banneker's world are the issues of their world.

I myself am extremely wealthy by world-wide standards (so are you, probably, if you're reading this in North America) and by historical standards, there are kings who haven't lived as extravagantly as I do (I have a PS4, after all). I'm writing this from an air-conditioned home office after breakfast and before lunch. Mrs. Ninja and I have two cars, smart phones, and we've lived into our thirties without contracting a terrible disease. In the lottery of birth, we landed in the United States where we were taught to read and write (no need for this afterword without that), so in the grand scheme of things, we're doing pretty well for ourselves. Like most Americans, we don't appreciate this nearly enough.

For a decade, I've been working various financial consultant positions, so I can also appreciate how many people have a whole lot more money than us and I was working as a stockbroker in 2008 when economics jumped to the forefront of everyone's mind. I read Wall Street news each and every day and during 2008 I became utterly fascinated by how our financial system actually works (not the way we're told in school). It's no coincidence that at this same time I became interested in conspiracy theories, given the vast and sickening conspiracies the actual news was reporting. And when I read these smug banking CEOs explain why it was okay they'd stolen from America and betrayed the country, they frequently referenced the work of an important author and philosopher: Ayn Rand.

So I read some of her books and my blood ran cold. Actually, at first I laughed because surely no one could've taken this poor insane woman seriously. But, of course, many important people had, including such key folks as former Chairman of the Treasury Alan Greenspan. And as I looked at the world around me, suddenly it made sense. Atlas Shrugged is like a decoder ring for understanding the way our present society has formed.

The bottom line for most every major problem in America is someone thinking it's okay to put profit above the well being of others. Sure, soda and processed food companies are poisoning children and weakening the entire country, but they're making a lot of money; sure, trickster bankers destroyed lives and communities, but they made a lot of money; sure, for-profit American prisons have the largest incarceration numbers in the world, but they're making a lot of money, etcetera, ecetera forever. Not every issue boils down to greed, but most do, and so it makes sense that many Americans would champion the work of the philosopher who framed selfishness as a virtue.

Astute Readers may notice there is a character in Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees named Mr. Rand. I assure you, this is a complete coincidence. Although she didn't make the final cut for this first book, in the coming books we'll meet Mr. Rand's dog, Ayn. This name is also a complete coincidence and in no way relevant to the promised economic parables to come in this series--because younger readers love economic parables:)

But not to worry. The thing I love most about The And Then Story is that there's always another adventure ahead. Fun and excitement will always be my first, second, third, fourth, and fifth concern. But I do feel that so long as I have an audience, particularly a young audience, I should make sure that whatever I say to them is worth saying. As they're inheriting this mess America finds itself in, one message I want to proclaim is selfishness is not a virtue and its not okay. We need to rethink our national idea of wealth as it relates to an individual's value and though I don't have any answers, I intend to continue asking the questions in this series.

And that's it, except to talk about Richard Adams. Regular Esteemed Readers know that I interviewed Richard Adams for this blog in 2011 and that I was able to tell him what his book, Watership Down, meant to me. After the interview, I told him Watership Down was actually referenced multiple times in the book I had on submission to publishers and offered to send him a copy. He was so amused by this he offered me the blurb on Banneker's cover (and every other place I could paste it).

I remember the day I got a response from him featuring his blurb as one of the proudest, happiest moments of my writing life. I sent his words to my agent and my wife and then I cried just a little. Only another writer can really understand the pain of spending hours upon hours alone crafting manuscript after manuscript, hoping and praying that someone, somewhere will think you're not crazy, only to be rejected by editors and agents for reasons that don't seem to make any sense. Future writers may not be able to relate ("Wait, you mean writers once had to beg publishing conglomerates to take total control of their lifetime rights in exchange for a pittance and minimal marketing? Really? And writers put up with that!?!"), given that anyone, anywhere can now publish their work.

But the day I got Richard Adams' kind words about my writing, I knew this story would find readers, somehow, someway. There were a lot of protracted discussions with publishers that followed, so many "yes's" followed by "no's" that I prefer not to relive them all here. Through it all, I had Richard Adams' words and the words of the students who read early copies to convince me I wasn't crazy, and one day this story would find readers.

Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees is the fourth book I'm publishing, but it's the reason I published the other ones at all. As much as I love my scary stories, I only published them first so that I could make any newbie mistakes with them. All Together Now was a sacrificial lamb to clear the way for this story, which is the story I've always wanted to tell. As of now, it's available around the world to readers of all ages and it will find them, somehow, someway.

Richard Adams gave me the gift of hope. If it hadn't been for his endorsement, I might've put Banneker back on the shelf and tried traditional publishing again with some other book (possibly with an all-white cast). And I would've always regretted it. Instead, with the confidence that the author of Watership Down thought my book worthy of reading, I did something different.

The version of Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees now available with a brilliant cover by Steven Novak and wonderful illustrations by Adam Smith is the book I dreamed it would be. It's the reason I spent all those years rewriting and reworking it. It's my heart, made print. It's a book I placed on my son's shelf and when he gets old enough to read it, it will be waiting for him.

Book of the Week: WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams

I’m so excited, Esteemed Reader, because this week I get to share with you one of my most favorite books of all time. I’m not sure if I could ever possibly pick an absolute favorite book, but if I did, Watership Down would surely be a strong contender for the top spot. And that pretty well concludes my review: I love Watership Down. If you haven’t read it, stop what you’re doing and read it now. If you have read it, it’s probably been a while and you need to read it again. I've read this book at least ten times and I have it on audio book to entertain me while I sweat at the gym.

I know what you’re thinking, Esteemed Reader. Classic middle grade? That means we won’t have an interview with an author this week. But that’s where you’re wrong! Richard Adams will be here at this very blog this Thursday to face the 7 Questions. So for goodness sake, be back here Thursday, wear a nice shirt, comb your hair, and make sure there’s nothing in your teeth.

I've got to tell you, starting this blog and declaring myself a ninja has to be one of the smartest things I've ever done aside from marrying Mrs. Ninja. It’s opened all sorts of doors for me and put me in contact with some amazing people, including you, Esteemed Reader. I’ve been thrilled to chat with every author we've had here and I've enjoyed chatting with literary agents as well. But Richard Adams is my hero and receiving his email has been one of the most exciting experiences of my life.

You know how sometimes you read a book that’s just so amazing you want to find its author and tell them everything their book meant to you? For most readers, this is perhaps just a thought, but it’s something I get to do on a pretty regular basis. And now I've had the chance to tell Richard Adams how much his work has inspired me and how it’s the measuring stick I use against my own work. I even sent him an excerpt of my current manuscript as Watership Down is the favorite book of my protagonist and a bully threatening to rip out its pages incites him in a pivotal scene. I’m not certain if Mr. Adams enjoyed the scene, but I certainly enjoyed sharing it with him.

I’m going to get to the meat and potatoes of discussing this book in a moment, but I want to share with you the circumstances under which I first read Watership Down. I didn’t read it as a child and that’s too bad for me. Three years ago, after a particularly nasty ice storm, I slipped in a parking lot late at night  and lost consciousness. When I came to, I was in bad shape, but I drove home, took some Tylenol and went to bed (bad idea, but it’s what I did to avoid the bankrupting cost of American health care). I even got up the next day and went to work, though I couldn’t hear and I could barely walk. I figured it would pass.

It didn't pass. My boss sent me to the hospital and it was a good thing she did. A cat scan revealed I had cracked my skull and bruised my brain. For three days I was under close observation and throwing up pretty much all the time. The doctor told me and a far more distraught Mrs. Ninja (then girlfriend Ninja) that we would have to wait and see when the swelling stopped how much of my cognitive function would remain. It’s a terrible thing to sit and wait to find out if the thoughts you’re thinking are the last clear thoughts you’re ever going to have.

I assure you, if I had been up to it, I would have spent that time finishing the novel I was working on as to die, or worse, go vegetable with an unfinished manuscript is a great fear of mine. But I wasn’t up to it, so I read instead. Oh, I told my girlfriend and my family I loved them and comforted them as much as I could, but I was there for three days and that’s a long time to go without a book. Mrs. Ninja understood and she bought me a copy of Watership Down.

As I read Watership Down, I knew it was perhaps the last book I would ever be able to read, and I was okay with it. It would have been a great book to go out on. I’ll stop with the melodrama as it came out all right. My balance has never been the same and I have some slight hearing loss, but all things considered, I got off quite lucky. I even finished that silly manuscript I was working on and have since written a better one and as you know from reading this blog, I have read many fine books since.

But never before had the power of a great book been made clearer to me. Richard Adams took me out of that place and away from my worries, which were considerable. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he did. I forgot about the nurses and the doctors and all the dreadful possible outcomes I was facing and was transported to the world of Hazel and Fiver and Bigwig and the wonderful rabbits of Watership Down. I forgot my own concerns and focused on my concern for those brave rabbits and their struggle.

For those three anxious days, I was not at the hospital. I was in England in a warren. Never before had I so badly needed to be swept away and Watership Down did that for me. And in my more cynical moments when I’m convinced no one reads anymore and we writers are a relic unaware that our time has passed, I remember that experience and know that literature is as important and powerful as it ever was. I don’t care that most Americans watch reality television instead of reading (well, I do, but what can be done?). I need great books in my life and as you’re reading this blog (possibly while watching The Real Housewives of Atlanta), I can’t be the only one.

I almost don’t want to tell you about Watership Down. It’s an amazing experience that every reader should have at least once and if I tell you about it before hand, it may diminish it somewhat. How some readers feel about Lord of the Rings (I never did care much for all the eating and singing those hobbits did), how my mother felt about Gone With the Wind, how Stephen King fans feel about The Dark Tower (which contains multiple references to the work of Richard Adams)—that’s how I feel about Watership Down. I love it as much as I love Batman, and if you read the blog regularly, you know that’s a lot:) So I’ll repeat: if you haven’t read Watership Down, stop reading this review and go read it. For those of you who have read it, I have a job to do and it’s time for me to get to it:

Watership Down is the story of a group of misfit rabbits who leave their warren when they learn, courtesy of a psychic revelation, that their home will soon be destroyed. Fiver is the high-strung rabbit who has the revelation and he has many more before the novel is done, all of them useful. And why not? Humans have these intuitive revelations all the time. Don’t believe me? Then why is it that airline reservation cancelations consistently go up ahead of a crash? I myself have had a few odd moments that caused me to alter my path and as a result, I avoided catastrophe (didn’t happen when I was walking in that parking lot, though). These odd moments are the subject of another, kookier post, but I’ll bet many of you Esteemed Readers, if you’re honest, could tell me stories of having similar moments of intuition.

Fiver convinces his buddy Hazel that they need to get out of town. First, the two try to convince their chief rabbit that the sky is falling. They are not taken seriously, of course, and in the end only a few rabbits high-tail it out of there, all of them boys—which turns out to be a real problem later. The rabbits rough it for a bit, attempt to join another warren, visit another, and eventually decide to start their own. But, of course, if their warren is going to last more than the current generation, our heroes are going to need some girls. The second half of the novel is some dude rabbits on a quest to get some chicks—what tale could be more universal than that?

And that’s the plot of Watership Down. Our protagonists have a clear goal and it’s one readers will relate to: they are on a quest for a sustainable life where they can be free of death and harm. There is considerable opposition on all sides. After all, these are rabbits and there are farmers and foxes and trains and birds on all sides—everybody wants to kill these poor rabbits. At times, the oppositions seems insurmountable and that is the key to what makes Watership Down so very readable. Incredible opposition facing scrappy heroes that will do anything to achieve their universal goal. Write that formula down. If you want to have a hope of writing a novel with even a fraction of the longevity of Watership Down, and I do, I do—that’s how it’s done.

Adams never lets up on these rabbits. They are always being chased or imprisoned or otherwise threatened and I assure you the pages will turn themselves. Thug life? Try Bunny life. This is my favorite thing about Watership Down: it is first and foremost a good story well crafted. Adams gives us lovable characters we can relate to and then shoves them in harm’s way repeatedly. This probably isn’t what makes Watership Down a classic, and in a moment I’m going to talk about theme and metaphor and all that other stuff your English teacher lives for. But notice, all of that is secondary and readers only invest time considering it because their primary need for a good story has first been met.

The thing about Adams’ rabbits is that they are truly rabbits. These aren’t Disney characters who drive in cars, or watch television. They are rabbits and their world is the world of a rabbit. Their concerns are food, shelter, mating, and avoiding harm—which are the primary concerns of humans, no matter how much we like to otherwise trump up the importance of our actions. Every simile Adams employs is a simile from nature. Here’s one of my favorites:

He pretended to go back, but suddenly turned, rushed upon the shadows and plunged into the nearest hole faster than a raindrop into the ground.

Adams would never write “he leaped into the hole like a car whipping into a garage,” partly because that’s a terrible simile, but mostly because rabbits have no knowledge of cars or garages. The rabbits’ thinking is entirely grounded in their world, and therefore the narration is as well. The rabbits have names like Blackberry, Dandelion, Cowslip, and even Prince Rainbow. You won’t ever encounter a rabbit in Watership Down named Milkshake, or Lucky Penny, or Toilet Paper (too bad).

The one conceit of Watership Down is that Adams’ rabbits, though rabbits in every other respect, have the ability to think, reason, and communicate like humans. To be fair, given that they have this ability, it’s a wonder they haven’t developed air conditioned warrens or rabbit cars to drive into rabbit garages—but I’m making too much of this. After all, it’s just a story, and if the rabbits were not human-like in their reasoning, we would not find them relatable characters over such a long novel. Humans are deeply narcissistic and we want to read about humans even when we’re reading about rabbits.

The difference then is that Adams’ rabbits think and reason in rabbit terms. For example:

The kind of ideas that have become natural to many male human beings in thinking of females—ideas of protection, fidelity, romantic love and so on—are, of course, unknown to rabbits, although rabbits certainly do form exclusive attachments much more frequently than most people realize. However, they are not romantic and it came naturally to Hazel and Holly to consider the two Nuthanger does simply as breeding stock for the warren. This was what they had risked their lives for.

Don’t worry. The female rabbits think of themselves this way also and they’re cool with it. Before you start shouting about sexism, Esteemed Reader, two things: 1. These are rabbits, dude, not people, so chill 2. Although the first half of the book is boy heavy, there are some very strong-willed girl rabbits in the second half every bit as capable as the boys at many things, and better than them at other things (such as cooking and cleaning—I kid, I kid, and Mrs. Ninja just smacked me in the back of the head, which forced me to remind her of my gravely serious brain injury).

All right. This is clearly the longest review ever, so I want to talk about three more things and then we’ll call it a day. First, although it is perhaps unfortunate that the rabbits have done away with romantic love, it opens up the possibility of greater love. The rabbits love and fight for each other. They do not want does for themselves alone, though they will fight over them if there are not enough to go around. They want the does for the good of the warren. Everything the rabbits do they do for each other and they are stronger for it. Their warren reminds me of a hive in Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, and I yearn for this sort of community in humanity.

Second, the main theme of Watership Down is a stroke of genius. The real story here is of the contrast between the different warrens the rabbits visit. In each instance, we are presented differently constructed communities, their strengths, and their weaknesses. What sets our heroes apart is the manner in which they will construct their community differently than these flawed societies. I will not speculate that these warrens are really metaphors for some known human society. Some may think that the final, mean and nasty warren the rabbits visit is a rabbit stand in for Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Russia, but I don’t. I think the different warrens are simply communities of rabbits with qualities similar to the worst human societies. Oddly, there is no capitalism-gone-mad society of rabbits, perhaps because rabbits are far too clever to ever take serious the silly writings of Ayn Rand.

For me, the most interesting warren is the second the rabbits visit. The rabbits of this warren are eager for more rabbits to join because they are living a lie. They live in a nice garden with plenty of fresh veggies and free from predators because they are protected by a human farmer. The catch is that the farmer buries wire snares all around because he is also farming rabbits. The rabbits of this warren accept that a few of them will die every year so that the rest can live in utopia (paging Lois Lowry), and they are eager to welcome new rabbits because the more rabbits there are, the better the odds on not getting snared. Here is what the prophet Fiver has to say about these rabbits:

Don’t you see? The farmer only sets so many snares at a time, and if one rabbit dies, the others will live that much longer. You suggested that Hazel should tell them our adventures, Blackberry, but it didn’t go down well, did it? Who wants to hear about brave deeds when he’s ashamed of his own, and who likes an open, honest tale from someone he’s deceiving? Do you want me to go on? I tell you, every single thing that’s happened fits like a bee in a foxglove. And kill them, you say, and help ourselves to the great burrow? We shall help ourselves to a roof of bones, hung with shining wires! Help ourselves to misery and death!

Third, I must comment on the ending, though I’ll try not to spoil it. In the final act, Adams hits us with a Deus Ex Machina, which we know from dutifully reading our Aristotle is a major no-no. A key rabbit character is saved at the last minute by a human stepping in to help out. She is a god descending on the battlefield at the last second to make everything all right. This is this sort of shenanigan that ruins lesser works, but Adams gets away with it because his god from the machine does not resolve all of the conflict or even the most pressing conflict. Also, the poor rabbits go through so much hell for most of the novel, that in this particular instance the reader is likely to be okay with our hero getting one free lunch.

I lied! There’s a fourth thing, and then I really am done: Watership Down is an honest book, which is probably why it’s been banned so often. I hope to one day write a book so effective it gets banned:) I said before that these rabbits are not Disney characters. Their world is real, and the real world is often a nasty, violent place, especially for rabbits. Adams is not willfully nasty, but he tells the truth and as always, the truth is somewhat unpleasant. For this reason, Watership Down is probably not appropriate for very young readers (although, neither is the world). However, Watership Down started life as a story Richard Adams told to his two young daughters on a long drive and I can’t imagine the violence, or even the implied rape in this story, is any worse than what children have been exposed to already and certainly no worse than what they will be exposed to as they grow up.

Whew. This may be my longest review ever and it is done. Make sure you come back on Thursday when Richard Adams, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, is going to be here to face the 7 Questions. And come again on Saturday for an interview with a surprise literary agent. And now, as always I leave you with a few of my most favorite passages from one of my most favorite books, Watership Down:

They climbed not over but through the sun-red grass, among the awakened insect movement and the light ablaze. The grass undulated about them. They peered over anthills and looked cautiously round clumps of teazle.


“It all comes from men,” said Holly. “All other elil do what they have to do and Frith moves them as he moves us. They live on earth and they need food. Men will never rest till they’ve spoiled the earth and destroyed the animals. But I’d better go on with this tale of mine.”


Hazel’s anxiety and the reason for it were soon known to all the rabbits and there was not one who did not realize what they were up against. There was nothing very startling in what he had said. He was simply the one—as a Chief Rabbit ought to be—through whom a strong feeling, latent throughout the warren, had come to the surface.


“Well, I can’t quite make out,” answered Bigwig. “But if I understand him properly—and I’m not at all sure that I do—he says that where he comes from there are thousands of his kind—more than we can possibly imagine. Their flocks make the whole air white and in the breeding season their nests are like leaves in a wood—so he says.”

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Book of the Week is simply the best book I happened to read in a given week. There are likely other books as good or better that I just didn’t happen to read that week. Also, all reviews here will be written to highlight a book’s positive qualities. It is my policy that if I don’t have something nice to say online, I won’t say anything at all (usually). I’ll leave you to discover the negative qualities of each week’s book on your own.

Book of the Week: SAVVY by Ingrid Law

Did you have a nice Thanksgiving, Esteemed Reader? Are you worn out from Black Friday shopping? Not me. I avoid stores at all costs on Black Friday, which means I miss out on amazing bargains, but am less likely to be trampled to death by folks trying to reach toasters at half off. The Ninja is willing to pay full price for his toaster and considers the extra money spent to be purchasing the right not to have to shop among the insane hordes.

This week we’re back in business to discuss Savvy, one of my new favorite middle grade novels, and Thursday one of my new favorite authors Ingrid Law will be here to face the 7 Questions (yea!). And Saturday we’ll have a surprise literary agent drop by to see us.

I’ve got a lot to say about Savvy and there’s no way we’re going to get through it all. I highlighted so many passages to share with you that if I reproduced them all, you probably wouldn’t need to read the book. So we’ll dispense with the review early: Savvy is a fantastic read and should be enjoyed by anyone who likes middle grade fiction, and I assume that’s you, Esteemed Reader, or you wouldn’t be here. There’s a reason it was recognized by the Newberry and has become a best-seller, and if you’re a writer hoping to duplicate Savvy’s level of success, you need to read this book. You also need to tune in on Thursday to read Ingrid Law’s advice to writers.

Here is one of the finest opening lines in a book for adults or children I have ever read:  

When my brother Fish turned thirteen, we moved to the deepest part of inland because of the hurricane and, of course, the fact that he’d caused it.

It would take a tremendous dullard not to want to read beyond that first sentence to find out just how a thirteen-year-old boy is capable of causing a hurricane. And by the time you get far enough along to find that out, Law’s got her hooks into you and you will finish the book.

There’s not a chapter in Savvy that ends without leaving an unanswered question in the reader’s mind or otherwise builds expectation in the reader about coming events. The reader is like Al Pacino in The Godfather Part III: Every time he thinks he’s out, Law pulls him back in. That’s sort of an odd reference to drop in a blog about children’s books, but I’m just going to go with it.

There’s something different about the Beaumont family, our narrator, twelve-going-on-thirteen Mississippi Beaumont tells us. On their thirteenth birthday, a Beaumont child discovers their “savvy,” which is actually an old slave word I don’t know the meaning of and am too lazy to Google, but in the context of this story it means “mutant super power,” like the ability to control electricity (or grow andamantium claws). Fish is a non-Haley-Berry Storm and that’s why he caused the hurricane.

I wish I could tell you that all of this super-power having led to a galatic battle between heroes, but that’s another story. Here, the powers, or savvy’s (savvies?), though used as super-powers, are metaphors for something more true to life. Here’s a passage I think clears up all you need to know about savvy’s and their metaphorical significance:

Momma said that lots and lots of ordinary folk have a savvy, but most simply don’t recognize it for what it is. “Some people know they feel different, Mibs,” Momma told me. “But most don’t know quite what makes them that way. One person might make strawberry jam so good that no one can get enough of it. Another might know just the right time to plant corn so it’s juicy and sweet as sugar on the hottest day of the summer.” Momma had laughed then, and I wasn’t too sure if she was telling me the truth or pulling my leg. “There are even folks who never get splashed by mud after a rainstorm or bit by a single mosquito in the summertime.”


But as I grew up, I began to understand that a savvy is just a know-how of a different sort. Some people get called whiz kid or prodigy because they can do puzzles or play music better than anyone’s supposed to, or they can recite the numbers of pi, 3.141592653… on and on for hours without a hitch. There are those who can run fast and win medals, and others who can talk anyone into buying anything at all. Those things are all just a special kind of know-how.

Ingrid Law’s savvy is writing books better than most of us. There are tons of points I want to make about Law’s craft, but as I see we are already halfway done, I’m going to limit myself to just three. The first is that she is every bit as much a master of the set up/pay off as Bob Gale or J.K. Rowling. Bob Gale, for those of you who don’t know, wrote the Back to the Future movies with director Robert Zemeckis.

Almost everything in the first half of a Back to the Future movie is dropping in bits of seemingly unrelated information, such as a flier for the town’s clock tower having been struck by lightning years ago, that pay off huge in the second half. As for Rowling, she spent two novels introducing us to Scabbers the friendly rat only to reveal a huge pay off in the third Harry Potter novel that is perhaps the most amazing and unexpected twist I have ever read in any book.

In the first chapter of Savvy, Law drops in a bit of info about Mibs's little brother Samson and his pet turtle. No one has the heart to tell Samson his turtle is dead and they let him go on feeding it. This is sort of humorous (if you’re not the turtle, that is) and it characterizes Samson nicely, and that’s all there is to it… for a time. Law goes on to tell us about other interesting things and to introduce other characters.

Just before Mississippi’s, or Mibs’, thirteenth birthday she is told how: Poppa’s car had gotten crushed up bad, like a pop can under a cowboy boot, and how he’d gone and forgotten to get out before it happened, landing himself in a room and a bed at Salina Hope Hospital, where now he lay broken and asleep, not able to wake up. Therefore, Mibs’s birthday is to be held at the church, which could be a disaster as Mibs has no idea what her savvy will turn out to be. It could be dangerous, and whatever it will be, she doesn’t want it to be public knowledge.

The morning of her birthday, Mibs discovers Samson’s turtle is moving again. Could it be her savvy is the power to raise the dead and/or comatose? I’m not going to tell you if she’s right or not as it would spoil the story, but in any case, Mibs hides in the back of a Bible salesman’s bus with friends and they set out for Salina Hope Hospital so Mibs can wake up Poppa.

Now Law could have waited to tell us that Samson’s turtle has been comatose the morning its awake, but it wouldn’t have the same impact if she had. It’s better when the reader knows something and then is surprised with new information in a set up/pay off. Some characters have tattoes, which seems like mear characterization until… but I’ve promised not to spoil. Still, it is fascinating to see how Law is able to establish a villain over several chapters before she is actually physically introduced to the story through a method I would again have to spoil the book to reveal.

My second point, or observation, is that Savvy is a prime example of how to successfully discuss religion in a mainstream story intended for readers of all different faiths (or lack thereof), without marking the book as “religious.” There is nothing more irritating than a story that serves only as a vehicle for some important “message,” which is a problem that plagues much religious fiction. I’m looking at you, Left Behind. People who agree with the important message may love the book, but the writer is risking alienating readers who do not agree and were hoping for just a good story, not a sermon.

For a non-religious example of irritating, on-point writing that creates a hollow shell of a story that serves only to reinforce a particular philosophy, see the collected works of Ayn Rand, which focus on a message so misguided surely no one could take it seriously as to do so could lead to financial policies that wreck the economy and create a small number of elites with such great wealth and influence they could purchase our democracy and subvert our government. Wait, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan was an objectivist and devotee of Ayn Rand the entire time he was making major economic decisions? Dang it! You’ve won this round, Rand!

Unlike the dreadful Ayn Rand, the wonderful Ingrid Law does not preach. Many writers simply avoid the subject of religion altogether in middle grade fiction, which is fine. But the Ninja lives in the Bible Belt and grew up in youth group and knows that a majority of Americans come from a somewhat similar background. And for people in general, religious beliefs and religious activities (whatever they may be) play such a huge role in day to day life that to leave them out of fiction would be to leave out a huge part of who human beings are at this time in our history.

Law introduces religion into her novel only as a means of characterization. Savvy isn’t a religious story, but rather a story that contains some religion—and to be fair, could serve as a religious metaphor, but only if the reader so chooses to interpret it in that way. Characters go to church, they pray, and they even ride around in a Bible bus, but it is not imperative that the reader do any of these things to relate to them. Here is a excerpt revealing some of Mibs thoughts on God that convey a sentiment I believe most atheists could relate to:

“…Don’t you worry, Mibs, I have connections.” Miss Rosemary pointed one finger up to the ceiling, though I guessed she was really pointing up toward heaven. Apparently, she was going to get God to help her plan my party. I figured God had much, much better things to do, like keeping people from starving to death or from killing each other, or helping my poppa, and so I hoped He’d just stay out of it.

And that’s it, Esteemed Reader. Be sure to check back on Thursday when Ingrid Law will be here to face the 7 Questions and on Saturday when we’ll have a surprise literary agent. What’s that? Oh, I promised three points and I only made two? But this review is already so long and I wasted so much time with that Ayn Rand stuff. Okay, fine.

My third point, or observation, is that Law also has a savvy for writing great descriptions. She reaches far and beyond to find similes that are fresh and interesting without ever laboring them and she does this as a finishing touch after crafting an excellent story that hooks the reader from start to finish. I’ll leave you with some of my favorites:

Rain pelted us like gravel thrown by a playground bully...


The itty-bitty town of Bee, Nebraska, was just about the size of a yellow striped bumbler; it could buzz right by you if you blinked too slow.


...a grinning giggle spread through the ranks, turning into a gut-busting crackup as the day's tension released like waves hitting shore.


I felt as though someone had punched me in the stomach and pulled out all my bones, turning me into a queasy, useless blob of Jell-O.

(when Mibs is faced with a boy who wants to do some snogging--MGN) Will looked back at me, startled, and I kept my heart muscle strong, feeling something inside me shiver like a pale green flower shoot just waking up for spring. But whatever that thing was, it was still too new to feel ready to bloom; it wanted time to send down roots. Someday soon I was going to bloom like crazy, and then I'd have what I needed to keep me standing tall.

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Book of the Week is simply the best book I happened to read in a given week. There are likely other books as good or better that I just didn’t happen to read that week. Also, all reviews here will be written to highlight a book’s positive qualities. It is my policy that if I don’t have something nice to say online, I won’t say anything at all (usually). I’ll leave you to discover the negative qualities of each week’s book on your own.

Book Review: A CRACK IN THE SKY by Mark Peter Hughes

Greetings, Esteemed Reader! Happy Mockingjay day. Rest assured I have my copy and as you're reading this review I am likely enjoying the final Katniss adventure on audiobook. I don’t anticipate reviewing the books here, but I’ve loved The Hunger Games trilogy as much as anyone. I was Team Gale, but I’ve come around on Team Peeta, and so long as the evil government pays for all, I’ll be happy with the ending.

It must be hard to be any other book aimed at younger readers coming out just now, which is why I want to do my part to promote another dystopian Science Fiction novel that also releases today. This week’s book is A Crack in the Sky by Mark Peter Hughes. I’m not sure if it’s upper middle grade, or actually tween, or perhaps even YA. Its protagonist is a thirteen-year-old boy, but its page count is 397 and many of the themes are aimed at older readers who have been reading the increasingly bad news over the last decade. Either way, adult, teen, or younger reader, if you find time to read two books this week, I recommend this one and Mark Peter Hughes will be dropping by to face the 7 Questions on Thursday.

A quick side note, Mrs. Ninja and I saw The Other Guys this weekend. It's a very funny movie in the vein of Anchorman, but the reason I bring it up is because its plot revolves around the rich robbing the poor. Amazingly enough, the end credits of the film consist of statistics about the growing gap between the super rich and everyone else. You know things are far gone when even Will Ferrell movies devote their running time to protesting our current economic model.

 A Crack in the Sky is an angry book, so much so that I don’t think Mark Peter Hughes will mind me taking up so much of this review with a discussion of economic injustice. Or perhaps I’ll recieve an angry email from him:)

Either way, I wanted to take a moment to establish what I see as a clear link between populace rage and the rise in popularity of the dystopian novel. A reader who spends their day inundated with news stories of financial scams, corrupt political officials, and oil spills, and who has either lost their job, knows someone who has, or is otherwise feeling the pinch of the recession, a reader who lives in America right now and isn’t part of the top 1% is more likely to relate to a story in which children are forced to murder one another in competition by a government who controls all of their nation’s prosperity and diverts it to the few at the top.

But that's The Hunger Games again. Without further delay, let us discuss the plot of A Crack in the Sky and see if you can’t pick up on our current political and economic model seeping into the tale of a future society that has otherwise never existed:

Thirteen-year-old Eli Papadopoulos lives in a futuristic dome city. I don’t want to give everything away, but in the future the environment is so bad that humans can’t live outside, so we all gather in domes. Citizens of the domes are assured this is not a permanent situation. They are waiting for the Cooldown at which point they can go back outside, though there are those who believe the Cooldown may be a myth.

At the heart of all things is Infinicorp, the major corporation responsible for all aspects of life in the dome cities. Their slogan is “Don’t worry. Infinicorp is taking care of everything,” and as you might expect, the slogan takes on deeper meaning as the story progresses.

Infinicorp manufactures and sells all products and own everything and everyone. At age thirteen, citizens of the dome cities officially become employees of Infinicorp and they work out their lives in service to the corporation. Not our Eli, though. He’s being groomed for upper management. His grandfather founded Infinicorp and his family runs things. It is fascinating to read the parallels Hughes draws between kingdoms of old and the corporate structure.

Anyway, prince Eli, if you will, is sitting pretty. He is in the top 1% and all he has to do is mind his manners and he could one day rise to CEO if he can survive the rivalry of his cousin. Of course, something comes along that changes Eli’s world forever, or there wouldn’t be a book. Hughes takes his time in fully revealing what that something is, so I won’t spill the whole story here. But for those of you fellow writers looking for a way to work in conflict from the first page on, you could do worse than the first line from A Crack in the Sky (not counting the prologue):

Something was wrong.

While sitting in class being taught by a robot instructor (awesome), Eli witnesses an explosion in the dome sky. There is no need to worry, of course. Infinicorp is taking care of everything. But Eli does worry and he sneaks out of class to investigate, leading to an encounter with an Outsider. Outsiders are people who live outside the dome cities in the harsh desert heat of a destroyed environment. They are not fans of Infinicorp and are dismissed as

"practically animals… Cannibals, cutthroats, and criminals… if starvation doesn’t get them, brain fever rots their minds away. It’s very sad.”

At this time, Eli also finds a copy of Alice in Wonderland, which is appropriate. This encounter leads to further encounters with the Outsiders and Eli chases them down the rabbit hole where he gains a new perspective on Infinicorp and how their actions impact the rest of the world.

Here is what one Outsider has to say, and I’ll let this speech stand for all the rest:

"Consider how Insiders are kept sedated with hollow jobs and empty aspirations. They're distracted with products and meaningless entertainment. Have you ever asked yourself what the purpose is?" Behind the mask the boy narrowed his eyes. "It's a diversion, Eli. A reassuring ruse to maintain a semblance of the old ways. For now it appears safe, but the fantasy comes with a cost. The Great Sickness wasn't the end of the trouble--it was barely the beginning. Harsh reality is still building up out there. It's knocking at the door, rattling the domes' foundations. It won't be ignored much longer--you can be sure of that. But you already sense this. I can see it. It's not Outside that's dead. The wasteland is the only truth we have left, the land of the real survivors. Look around. It's your world that's a living death."

There is more plot than what I have described to you and I haven’t even touched on the revolutionary Tabitha Bloomberg, but you get the idea. The plot of this first book in what promises to be an exciting series is a little like The Matrix. Eli, like Neo, with the help of outside revolutionaries discovers that everything he knows about the world around him is wrong. Perhaps a giant corporation controlling the lives of an entire society isn’t so great after all.

And it’s no coincidence that the novel cleverly opens with a falling bit of “sky.” Eli is a chicken little of sorts and of course his revelations are not really intended for the employees of Infinicorp, but for the readers who live in a corporate controlled environment with disaster impending from all sides. The metaphor holds and provides Hughes with an opportunity to satirize and criticize our own world. Fun stuff.

I don’t want to spoil this book for you, Esteemed Reader, so I’ll stop now. But I will spoil one small thing that is revealed in the first fifty pages anyway. Eli has a pet mongoose. The mongoose had a chip implanted in her head in an illegal operation that enhances her in some way, though no one knows how. Well, it turns out she is telepathic and can have mental conversations with Eli. How awesome is that? In a world of fiction riddled with every type of cliché, Hughes finds all sorts of original twists on conventions. Better yet, he occasionally tells the story from the perspective of the telepathic mongoose. Love it!

I see we are way past our word count. I went over because I felt bad for taking up so much of this review with rantings about how Ayn Rand was wrong (of course she was; virtue of selfishness indeed) and the wealthy don’t always use their cash to provide a greater world for the rest of us, holding industry upon their mighty shoulders like Atlas holds the world. Sometimes they use it to play money grabbing games on the market and bankrupt the country. Sometimes they blow it on every selfish desire they have, including paying Justin Bieber to sing at their daughter’s sweet sixteen party while their fellow Americans lose their health insurance, their jobs, their homes, and slide into oblivion.

But A Crack in the Sky is a great read. You’re going to the bookstore today anyway to get Mockingjay, so why not pick up this book and make it a week of dystopian rage? Come on, everybody! We’re as mad as heck and we’re not going to take it anymore! I, for one, will be demonstrating my populace rage by continuing to review children’s books:)

Let me close with one last observation from a book filled with witty observations because I just really liked this one. Projected on the dome's ceiling is not only the sky, but also various advertisements. At one point, Eli sees something on the ceiling that is projected, but not selling anything, and he is lost as to why anyone would want to project something without a sales pitch. Fascinating stuff. I shall leave you with an early quote from the text regarding the advertisements that I think resonates:

"Nurturing a customer's sense of well-being through positive message repetition," Dr. Toffler was saying, its voice cracking with age, "not only encourages complacency but is also a useful tool that ultimately leads to widespread respect for authority and obedience to rules."


STANDARD DISCLAIMER: All reviews here will be written to highlight a book’s positive qualities. It is my policy that if I don’t have something nice to say online, I won’t say anything at all (usually). I’ll leave you to discover the negative qualities of each week’s book on your own.