Children in the Aftermath

The Pack
by Tom Pow

New Milford, CT: Roaring Brook Press, 2006, ©2004

Tom Pow's The Pack is like a children's primer for Cormac McCarthy. It is a story of desperation and identity, set in a bleak, post apocalyptic setting which is just recognizable enough to be truly disturbing even to veteran fans of the genre. This book occupies a nebulous place between childrens' and young adult literature; though it is ostensibly about children, its themes are somewhat more mature than typical juvenile fiction. Pow's writing style does not coddle his readers, whatever their age, and the subject matter is starker still.

The story in The Pack centers around three feral, orphan children living with wild dogs on the edge of what's left of civilization. The children are named after the storefronts they were found in front of, Bradley, Victor and Floris (the 't' was broken), while the dogs are meaningfully named Hunger, Fearless and Shelter. The pack survives under the tutelage of an old woman, whose stories teach them to retain the last shreds of their humanity. When Floris is kidnapped by a local warlord, the rest are forced into a quest to save her, for their own sakes as well as hers.

There are two reasons that this book is best for advanced readers: one, the story is written in a tone of unflinching brutality, devoid of comfort or ease; two, the literary eloquence of the book, while beautiful, can also be abstract in the extreme, and requires a well-developed sense of reading comprehension. The brutality comes in several forms; one of the crucial turns in the plot centers around a pair of dog fights, described in graphic detail, and several times during the story, characters defend some atrocious behavior by claiming it was necessary to survive.

As for literary abstraction, the main character, Bradley, explicitly follows the form of the Hero's Journey. Though the term itself is never directly invoked, the constant references to stories and dreams (not to mention the narrative style) make it clear that this is the form the pack's movements take. Also, the question of identity is brought into play, as is the barrier between human and animal, boy and girl, civilization and collapse. Finally, there is a level of social commentary which I won't describe in detail, because it is integral to the "big reveal" at the end of the book. Suffice it to say, the Invisible City and its surrounding Zones bear a shocking resemblance to the world as it already is, placed in a smaller sandbox and given a different context.

To what extent the childrens' world is actually "post apocalyptic", in the traditional sense, is never made perfectly clear beyond vague allusions to the "Dead Times". By the end of The Pack, the nature of the world these children live in is less defined than it was at the beginning, and that mystery is part of its charm. In the words of the old woman, repeated as a refrain throughout the book, the world is made of dust and ashes, but stories cannot crumble, burn or be broken.

Spaghetti, Squash, and One Hungry Spook

The Ghost of Sifty Sifty Sam
By Angela Shelf Medearis
New York: Scholastic Press, 1997

In this book, as can be the case in scary stories, the spookiest part is the anticipation. We get worried about the suspense and get overwhelmed with fear of what happens next. Or as our character Chef Dan from The Ghost of Sifty Sifty Sam might say, we get caught up in a plot that thickens like standing fatback in a fry pan.

In this story, a brave chef takes up the challenge to spend the night in a haunted house. It is told that in this house lives a horrible ghost and anyone who can spend the night in the house without fleeing will rid the house of the ghost forever. To sweeten the deal, the realtor in charge of the house offers a hefty reward for anyone who can cleanse the property of its supernatural resident. Dan enters the haunted house hopeful and excited, with an armful of groceries to keep him cooking throughout the night.

The storyline builds rhythmically and quickly in this picture book. In the style of short stories like What Do You Come For? and Me Tie Dough-ty Walker! (both short folktales retold by Alvin Schwartz in Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark), the ghost of Sifty Sifty Sam appears piece by piece. With each turn of the page, we see a new incarnation of the spook and a more intense feeling of fear registers with our beloved chef. As we get closer and closer to seeing the entire ghost, the suspense builds and readers wonder what will be Chef Dan’s fate upon meeting the ghost in full form. While the first face-to-face meeting shows a cowering chef and a very intimidating ghost, readers will be surprised by Dan's craftiness as he appeases the spirit and the two forge a friendship in a light-hearted and silly climax.

The watercolor illustrations in this text do a wonderful job of representing the soul of both Chef Dan and Sifty Sifty Sam. Dan is wrapped in warm layers of whites, yellows, browns, and pinks. Sifty Sifty Sam is portrayed with cool blends of blues, whites, grays, and black. Throughout the book you will notice this contrast between the ghost and Chef Dan. This artistic element plays upon the underlying theme of the differences in the realm of the living and the realm of dead. Overall I think this was a fun and quick picture book that would be appropriate to share with children of varying ages.

Of Hateful Hippos and Hissing Cobras

Never Smile at a Monkey
by Steve Jenkins
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2009

If legendary children's author Eric Carle ever developed a grumpy side, he would have written something similar to Steve Jenkins' misanthropic animal book, Never Smile at a Monkey, a compendium of some of the world's most malicious and dangerous animals.

This book is for the more skeptical child, who recognizes that, behind all the soft fur and cute noises, most of our world's most adorable animals are also brimming with spite. Steve Jenkins pulls no punches, and writes with the sort of brutal honesty a growing child needs; after all, in a world that contains such horrors as the duckbill platypus, we should always remember to stay on our guard. In addition to the brief descriptions of the horrifying reality of each animal's life, Jenkins helpfully includes an appendix which tells you where not to go if you want to avoid these malevolent creatures, plus additional information in case your first encounter didn't quite convince you.

A sort of anti-Brown Bear, Brown Bear, the creatures in Never Smile at a Monkey could have been created by Bill Martin Jr.'s evil alter ego; they aren't quite bathed in blood and vitriol, but some of them wear expressions that tell you they soon might be. My personal favorite is the hippo, whose brown, hateful eyes make it look like an angry drunk on a bender, though the spitting cobra is clearly having none of it. Even the stingray, whose eyes are beguilingly innocent, resonates with danger. These illustrations are hilarious in their sincerity, as if they are daring you to laugh. It's hard to look at that glaring monkey face and not laugh, and therein lies the true danger of this book. Because, really, you shouldn't ever smile at a monkey.

Our Eyes Glow in the Dark... with Love!

While You are Sleeping

by Alexis Deacon

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006

The imagery in While You are Sleeping gives me what I can only describe as warm chills. The inside cover flap is papered over with your standard (normally innocuous) collection of toys and stuffed animals, except that some of them appear to be floating creepily, and they are all staring directly at you. The vague sense of friendly dread this imagery instills is a great emotional summary of the rest of the book, which has a touching, even heartwarming story even as it is subliminally unnerving.

The story itself is touching, and multilayered. On surface it is a story of reassurance, a letter written in the second person to a child from her toys. They stay awake, protecting you from nighttime terrors as you sleep. Of course, the idea of all my toys coming to life when I was a kid, even to protect me from things I was afraid of, would itself have inspired fear. On top of this, there is a story of indoctrination; there is a new toy (the cuddliest little lion), who must pass muster to remain part of the group. He does, of course, but what would they have done if he failed? I shudder to think.

This book sits in a position of delightful ambiguity. Though I have called attention to the strangeness of it, I should also make clear that the characters are endearing, in a soft and understated way. The illustrations are very warm, with a classic fuzzyness that makes you want to give them all a hug. Overall, this book is absolutely perfect for reading under a blanket, with a flashlight, just before bed. Just try not to look to closely at the eyes, glowing golden in the night...

Revolting Fun

Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes
by Roald Dahl
Illustrations by Quentin Blake
New York : Knopf, 1983

Roald Dahl’s taste for the macabre has always shown itself in the wonderfully revolting villains of his children’s novels (the disgusting subject matter of The Twits and The Witches comes to mind) and in the twisted parables for a more mature audience found in his short stories for adults. Revolting Rhymes is Dahl’s take on the traditional fairy tales of old. The results are hilarious and disturbing. Goldilocks is a spoiled brat who pays dearly for an act of home invasion; the three little pigs learn a painful lesson about home construction; Jack discovers that personal hygiene can be a matter of life and death when dealing with giants; Cinderella finds relationships to be gruesomely complicated; Snow White and the Seven Dwarves take on the world of gambling; and we see the darker side of Little Red Riding Hood.

I first heard Revolting Rhymes during a story hour from my Language Arts teacher when I was in the third grade and it quickly became a favorite. The subversive tone behind the stories matched well with an interest in creepy fiction (courtesy of Alfred Hitchcock’s anthologies for “younger readers”) that I was cultivating at the time. “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” stuck out for me the most because of the poetic fate that Papa Bear decides for the greedy little girl who slurped down his son’s porridge as her final act. Each tale is told as a poem and Dahl’s lyricism makes these stories great to read aloud. Quentin Blake’s illustrations complement the verse perfectly in their portrayals of Dahl’s bizarre and often grotesque characters.

Although Dahl offered his own twist on these classic tales, his sardonic humor definitely echoes some of the darkness found in some of the original source materials. Particularly in the Brothers Grimm anthologies, repugnant characters met with gruesome ends and life lessons were often harsh, even in the land of make-believe.