The View from Saturday

Rating:
Summary: Not the best
Review: I had to read this book for school. I found it very confusing and hard to follow. There were too many flashbacks. I felt the plot was boring and there was no climax in the story. This is not how 6th graders act, very unrealistic. The characters in this book actually didn't interrupt each other. Don't bother reading The View from Saturday, unless you like plain boring books.

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorites
Review: This is a marvellous book. Sure, it's not plot driven, and there's not much action. But it's a book about character, and about that time between childhood and adolescence. The four central characters grow up and discover the kind of person they want to be. Noah, Nadia, Ethan, and Julian are students in Mrs. Olinski's first homeroom in 10 years. All five of them are drawn together by the Academic Bowl. But the Souls were drawn together because they were meant to be.

The author is very creative with the tea parties on Saturday and the way each character's story relates to questions on the Bowl. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is mentioned frequently in many different contexts. Many contradicting questions are answered with a simple "Yes!" The title is also very well thought out, and extremely appropriate. It is a very cute book.

What makes this book unique is that it grabs hold of your attention and continues to do so until the very last word of the very last page. Each main character is developed fully, with fears and dreams, so the reader really gets to know them. You want to cheer them on, hoping that they can all reach their goals.

Characters that really stood out were Nadia and Ethan. Nadia has relationship problems with her hovering father (and probably others) after The Divorce. She is angry that the world is keeping little things from her. She feels left out. After the divorce, she lost her family and her friends. Then, her grandfather remarries, and she can't stop comparing Margaret Draper to her dear Bubbe. She has a dog named Ginger, who is a genius.

Ethan is a lonely boy who has be overshadowed by his elder brother, Lucas, all his life. Everyone is always talking about Luke, and how great he will be, and this has a great effect on Ethan. He has become a guy who would rather listen than talk, which means he mostly stays silent and not very social. Ethan also wants to design costumes and sets for theater, but knows that no one will support his dreams. Konigsburg hints at his possible feelings for Nadia, the girl with all those halos, aka his almost related friend.

The two other Souls, Noah and Julian, are less multi-faceted, except that Noah really likes calligraphy and Julian, magic tricks. Mrs. Olinski is their teacher who always has good answers. There are other characters, like the mysterious Mr. Singh, the mean Hamilton Knapp, and Micheal Froelich, a boy who changes from bad to good.

But the details of personal problems are not the not really discussed after each character has a go with their story. In fact, you can tell that the problems have yet to be solved (ex, Ethan, during a rehersal of the play). What happens to Mrs. Olinski and her feelings on being paraplegic? Why does Mr. Singh know so much? You are left wanting more and wishing for more conclusion. This would be the one downfall of the book. However, this hardly takes away from the charm of the book. After the four stories, there is not much "action" at all. The rest of the book is a fast-paced run through of the final round. The book is predictable, The Souls win, but again, the point of the book is not the plot, or outcome, but the journey four friends took together to get there.

This book is very much character driven, so if you are looking only for action, this will not be much. However, this book is simply splendid with the amount of thought given to it. There are many subtle themes that have a lot to do with how one should act towards others, and also that anything, no matter how improbable, can happen. A very feel-good book and very much recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Teaspoons and afternoons
Review: As you may know, the Newbery Award is the highest honor a children's book can garner in the United States. Newbery winners are a touch and go lot, and a lot of kids avoid them like the plague. I've always been particularly interested in those award winning books that appeal to kids just as much as they appeal to the adults that shower them with praise, moolah, and awards. For instance, many adults felt that the book "A Single Shard" was well written, while a host of kids looked on it as dulldy dull dull. Both children and adults have agreed that "Holes" and "The Tale of Despereaux" are great books that are fun to read. Then you come to "The View From Saturday". Honestly, I thought this was a fabulous book. It was the rare children's novella that took the great risk of offering wisdom to its readers. It dares to make you think about life, the world, and how one interacts with other people. I can tell you a million reasons to love it, but I honestly haven't a clue if kids would enjoy it. Therein lies the mystery.

"The View From Saturday" follows the lives of four sixth grade quiz bowl champs and their paraplegic coach/teacher. Alternating their final quiz bowl championship match with short stories about the different journeys each kid has had to make, the book is adept at distinguishing between each individual in the group. We begin by listening to a story told by Noah. Noah reminded me of nothing so much as the spaz boy in the spelling bee documentary "Spellbound". A bit of a nerd, but pleased with his own inventive thoughts and ideas, Noah becomes the best man at a geriatric wedding. Then we hear Nadia's story about staying with her divorced father and newly remarried grandfather (hence the Noah connection) in Florida. This flows nicely into Ethan's story. His grandmother married Nadia's grandfather, and he overcomes his reluctance to interact easily with others with the help of his new friend Julian. Julian is the least troubled of the bunch, a boy of Indian heritage who is coming to America after living on a cruise ship. Together, the four band together into a group called The Souls. They are selected by Mrs. Olinski (though for a long time she doesn't know why) as her newest Quiz Bowl team and work effortlessly together in a group as friends and teammates.

A synopsis of this tale really doesn't do it justice. Konigsburg is an adept writer and she knows exactly how to balance a story with both emotion and humor. I was particularly taken with Nadia's tale about living in Florida. Somehow, the author was able to conjure up feelings of being ignored and abandoned perfectly. As Nadia feels an (in my opinion) entirely justified sense of self-pity, we as readers understand what she's going through perfectly. Little triumphs are measured with small defeats. One of the things this book dares to say, and says so well, is how awfully mean people can be. That's a pretty loaded idea. Books today enjoy showing a mean person and then revealing the back story to their crimes. Here, we understand that sometimes a person's just mean to be mean, and it makes them unsuitable as friends as a result.

Then there's Konigsburg's usual jabs at adults in positions of authority. In this particular case she's aimed her sights at people who naturally expect themselves to be smarter than children, yet constantly make mistakes regarding multiculturalism, grammar, pronunciation, etc. And she doesn't drill this idea home by ever putting the adults in situations where they spar with the kids. Instead, they tend to spar with Mrs. Olinski, assuming that because she is a) Just a teacher and b) Confined to a wheelchair she must therefore be less worthy of intelligent human discourse. The result is usually both funny and profound.

Funny and profound is a good way to describe this entire offering, actually. It has its oddities, that's for sure. You have kids in this book saying sentences like, "Oh, that is too bad. Dad is picking me up before supper, and he will be disappointed if I do not eat with him". Not a contraction in sight. Do sixth graders actually act like the ones in this book? Probably not. Will you be amused by them anyway? Probably so. Will actual living breathing sixth graders be amused, intrigued, and challenged by this book? I have absolutely no idea. Maybe yes, maybe no. Whether or not they will, the book is fabulous, fun, and wise beyond its years. It's like a little dose of Zen religion without hokey mysticism or flowery prose. This book respects you, it respects your opinions, and it respects your sense of self-worth. If you have any desire to read something that accomplishes all this and more, pick it up for a glance.