The Truth About Sparrows

Rating:
Summary: Richie's Picks: THE TRUTH ABOUT SPARROWS
Review: "I pushed myself up and startled a sparrow. It flew down the road and took up a new roost near a large cardboard box nestled in the cedars. Something stirred, and it flew again. I looked closer and recognized the man Mama had fed last night asleep inside the box. He shifted and pulled his knees up closer to his chest.
"I stared at him a long time, watching him sleep, wondering if he was hungry, wondering what sorrowful thing had led him to make a cardboard box his home. I thought about our tar-paper shack and remembered the relief on Daddy's face when he told us about it."

It's the summer of 1933, and twelve-year-old Sadie Wynn has (reluctantly) arrived with her family at a bayfront encampment on Texas's Aransas Bay. Shortly thereafter, her daddy purchases a little shack behind the seawall. Sadie's parents were forced to sell their longtime Missouri home for "a piddling amount," because there was no more work for her father--a talented mechanic and carpenter--now that the Dust Bowl had driven away the community's farmers. Among those to previously leave was Sadie's beloved best friend, Wilma, whose family headed to California.

Now Sadie's dad plans to build a small boat and become a fisherman. Until school starts, Sadie is allowed to accompany her new friend Dollie in lining up at four A.M. for a chance to peel shrimp for a nickel per bucket.

"I looked back at the door and saw people being turned away. I remembered Daddy saying, 'These are hard times, Babygirl,' and I wondered if the whole world was like this--too many people and not enough jobs."

Prior to their decision to leave Missouri, Sadie had clearly been cocooned in a loving, sheltered childhood. The story's first surprise for us--and first eye-opening moment for Sadie occurs on the drive to Texas, when they stop at a store far from the home they've left.

"If Bobby hadn't lost our map in the river and Daddy hadn't taken a wrong turn, we would've never had to stop at that store. I guess that was the first time I really saw Daddy the way strangers saw him. Until then, I thought the world was full of daddies like mine. "We parked near the storefront and stirred up a cloud of dust that hung in the air thick as fog. I rubbed my stinging eyes and reached for the door, but Mama said no. Jacob and Emily huffed their disappointment. Bobby whined. I leaned back and turned my attention to the handful of men sitting on empty crates beside the screen door. They watched us, too, through the settling dust but kept on talking.
"Daddy grabbed the handle on his open car door, swung himself out, and sat on the ground. The men hushed. Bags of tobacco gaped open, and cigarettes hung from their lips.
"Daddy's shriveled lower legs lay folded in the dirt. He wore heavy socks on his twisted feet, and his shortened pants legs were tied up with cording. He wrapped it all around his small calves and over his knees every morning to keep the extra cloth out of his way. I watched him lean forward and fix his palms in the dirt. Then, using his strong arms like crutches, he lifted himself off the ground, swung his body forward, and sat. Then he did it all over again. His dangling calves and feet trailed limp beneath him with each swinging stride. "The men never said a word, but their wide-eyed looks followed Daddy right through the screen door."

THE TRUTH ABOUT SPARROWS has a decidedly gentle tone to it, as Sadie learns about friendship and about being in the same boat as everyone else. It's a book that will appeal to many 4th, 5th, and 6th graders.

I'm curious to see how those readers react to Sadie's proud attitude about who she is:

"...[I]t didn't take long before I noticed a rift deep as a canyon running between our side of the tracks and the town kids. To be fair, lots of them were nice...but plenty others never talked to us, never even looked at us unless they thought we weren't watching. Then I'd hear snickers and whispers..."[B]eing lumped into the same stewing pot with everyone on that bayfront made me mad. They were good people who didn't deserve to be treated so poorly, but we weren't like them at all. We had a nice home once, one I planned to see again someday."

Despite that gentleness and the virtuousness of Sadie's life lessons, I was thoroughly engaged by this story. I loved to see that the result of Sadie's dad being so personable, so skilled, hard working and determined was that people the family encountered were quick to see beyond his disability. And I really enjoyed the picture that the author paints of life on the Gulf for these people during the Depression: salt air and close families, the Cannery and the hurricanes, the shacks and the flour sack clothing, and the cracked red hands from lye soap and shelling shrimp.

Back in 1933, they only had to smell the fish and that shrimp to insure that it was safe to eat. These days, seafood often comes with warning labels like cigarettes. Back in 1933, you could trust in having plenty of fresh water, even if you had to hand-pump it, or carry it from a neighbor's house, as Sadie's family has to do. These days you need a chemical lab to determine what you're getting with your H-2-O. And that's assuming that someone hasn't drained the river or aquifer before the supply reaches you.



Rating:
Summary: A touching and satisfying story, even for adult readers
Review: From the opening pages of this book, twelve-year-old Sadie draws us into the world of a family fighting to survive during the Depression. When Sadie's father decides to move the family from Missouri to Texas to find work, Sadie is angry over leaving her home and best friend behind. She's determined to find a way back to her home, and promises her best friend that she won't forget her or make anyone else her best friend. Life on the road is challenging for Sadie's family. Her father's physical disabilities are woven seamlessly and compassionately into the story. We learn much about Sadie by seeing her brothers, sisters, parents, and strangers they meet on the road through her eyes. Sadie is a likeable character and her ambivalent feelings of love and resentment toward her family draw the reader into her world. Sadie takes steps toward independence by finding work in the local shrimp cannery and showing an interest in a lonely man, but her life takes many surprising turns and she is forced to change and grow as she deals with new friends and tests of her loyalties, poverty, a hurricane, and the unexpected arrival of a new baby.

I really enjoyed this book. Sadie is a strong character with a strong narrative voice, reminiscent of another Texas writer of the past, Loula Grace Erdman. The reader learns the realities of life for migrants who lived on the Texas coast during the Depression (a story I'd never heard before) but history is woven into the story in a way that seems natural and the details provided are all integral to the plot. Readers in 4th through 6th grades will find the story intriguing and Sadie an interesting character who will be real to them. But I bought this book for myself as an adult reader and found myself caught up in the story as completely as any child reader. I noticed this is a first novel for the author - I'm hoping she'll write more books and I know I'll be looking for them. (I'm even hoping for another story about Sadie and her family.)