written by Mary Amato
Invisible Lines has a narrator quite unlike any other, though comparable to Julius Zimmerman, titular character of Claudia Mills' You're a Brave Man, Julius Zimmerman. The book reads in a warmly funny and stingingly honest style reminiscent of Andrew Clements, with a highly likable and humorous narrator in Trevor Musgrove. While parts were slightly predictable in a way often found in children's books, there are plenty of completely unforeseen plot elements. Everything about this book is enthralling, the humor and realness keeping the readers' attention the whole way through. There is a perfect balance struck between seriousness and humor. Issues such as a missing father figure and domestic violence are dealt with, but in a child-friendly way that is both honest and appropriate. Interestingly enough, many scientific facts are easily picked up through reading this book, and the reader learns about the fascinating world of mushrooms right along with Trevor. There are some inappropriate words used for a book whose target age group is about 8-12 year olds, but if you can look past that, this is a book that should definitely be on classroom library shelves.
Rating: 5/5
I got this book from...:LibraryThing EarlyReviewers
Interesting that you mentioned objectionable language. Readers will find none of that in the published book; it's only in the ARC. Here's the story. I happened to be doing an author visit at a library when the librarian talked about how, sadly, he couldn't have certain books in the elem. school library because of objectionable language and particularly mentioned the word "crap". I was shaken up by this because that word and a few other possibly objectionable words were in my soon-to-be-published book, Invisible Lines. I went home and re-read the book, looking closely at each word. After realizing that removing the words would not diminish or dilute Trevor's voice, I decided to do one more revision. I found that I came up with even better ways of phrasing certain lines and am very happy with the result.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the great, thoughtful blog. Oh, and you might enjoy looking at the new video I posted about the writing process.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCGYIY87aR0