Ida B : ...and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World

Rating:
Summary: Ida B: a real gem!
Review: Ida B. Applewood is a delightful character who is sure to inspire and amuse young readers. Ida B. is a touching and humorous story about a quirky little girl living an idyllic life in the country. She is home-schooled by her doting parents, and the whole earth is her classroom. Her family, the trees, the brook, and her animals are all the companionship she needs. Ida B.'s life drastically changes when her family faces a crisis and she is forced to start attending public school. Ida B.'s response is to harden her heart and shut out the world. We get to experience her internal struggles and see the messes she creates for herself with her new tough-as-nails demeanor. A caring teacher slowly helps peel away the layers so the true Ida B. Applewood can shine again.

Rating:
Summary: Could be a Newbery Medal contender
Review: After a bad experience in public Kindergarten, Ida B.'s world revolves around the trees in her orchard, whom she knows individually by name, the brook, her slobbering dog, cat, and two adoring parents who oversee her home-school education. When a family crisis causes her carefree world to crumbles, this delightfully articulate fourth grader shuts down emotionally and struggles to contend with feelings of betrayal and loss.

Katherine Hannigan has created an unforgettable character who experiences a full range of human emotions and does an outstanding job of expressing the motivation behind the character's thoughts and actions. Young readers may experience some self-discovery through Ida B.'s wrestle with the conflicts she faces (and a few that she creates herself).

Rating:
Summary: Kids love this book, and I do too
Review: I have recommended this book to half a dozen elementary school age kids, and all of them have loved it. And in contrast to the views spotlighted above, several of them have also read Kate DiCamillo's "Because of Winn-Dixie" and think that "Ida B." is a much better read, and I agree. This is the rare book that creates a direct connection between the reader and the protagonist's emotions and motivations; the children I know who have read the book all have remarked about how the author allowed them to "get inside" the protagonist's head in ways they hadn't experienced before. Ida B. has all the runaway emotions and issues of self-control that elementary school children struggle with -- anger at her parents for not fulfilling all of their promises, anger at her schoolmates and teachers for not allowing her to fit in, anger at the very environment around her for not staying perpetually the same. She has moments of elation and moments of deep depression. She comes up with creative ways to "punish" her parents for breaking their promises. In other words, she's a real child and not the usual paragon that we typically find in children's fiction. Eventually Ida B. manages to reconcile herself to her surroundings in different ways -- by the end of the book she is able to make peace with herself and those around her in ways that rang true to me and to the children I know who have read the book. Ultimately, the book's message for children is an optimistic one -- don't despair, because no matter how hard things seem, you will find ways of coping, and this too shall pass.

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful book
Review: I read this book aloud to my two boys, ages 6 and 9 and it made quite an impression on all of us. Beautifully and skillfully addresses issues of love and fear and loss in a simple and accessible way. Ida B. is a memorable, imperfect little girl, full of spunk and hope, and we often refer to her in our home as if she were a personal friend. I highly recommend this book. We are looking forward to Ms. Hannigan's next novel.

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down!!!!
Review: Some books try too hard. Now it is a very difficult thing to write a heartfelt children's book full of magic, life, and light. Few books have ever pulled off this combination well, usually ending up too sticky sweet or just unbelievable overall. One of these rare exceptions is the rather good, "Because of Winn-Dixie" by Kate DiCamillo. It's no coincidence, therefore, that Katherine Hannigan's pale copy of "Winn-Dixie" earned itself a DiCamillo recommendation on its cover. "Ida B" is many things in this world but it would be difficult to call it good. Reading it is rather like hanging out with a person who keeps trying to make you happy but only succeeds in getting you increasingly annoyed. It's a vaguely painful experience.

Ida B has the perfect life. She lives with her mama and daddy on a land containing sprawling acres. She has her own brook, apple orchard, and mountain (which is to say, a mound of earth too tall to be considered a hill). Life is pretty good for little Ida B. That is, until troubles come. These troubles are in the form of Ida's mama coming down with cancer. The cost of the treatments means some of the land must be sold and that her mother is now sick and tired all the time. Worst of all, however, is the fact that Ida B's father just doesn't have time to homeschool his daughter anymore and her mother's too exhausted. Faced with the torment of attending public school, Ida B rebels every way she can think of, shutting down her heart to any and all comers. It's only through the intervention of the good people around her that she can learn to open up and feel once more, while remaining true to her own sweet self.

It's hard to pinpoint the exact moment this book lost me. First of all, it's written in a very particular vernacular that echoes "Because of Winn-Dixie" pound for pound. As we soon learn, Ida B is in fourth grade. Just the same, she's prone to statements like, "Mama, this will not do", and "I have a desperate need that must be taken care of immediately". I could probably believe she's some sort of child prodigy prone to such statements. Unfortunately, her method of speaking is rife with continual attempts to charm the reader while offering tidbits of childlike wisdom. If there is one sin I cannot forgive a book for, it is the sin of expressing syrupy Prescious-Moments type faux adorableness. Author Hannigan takes moments that, if done well, could be very touching and instead whops you over the head with a truckload of cutesy-pie platitudes. A good example of this is when Ida B goes walking with her father and he says, "We are the earth's caretakers" and she replies "I think the earth takes care of us too". oog. This book is trying desperately to win your heart and mind. Instead, it leaves you with a slightly sour taste in your mouth.

Worse still is the main character Ida B. Now, here we have a child that's been homeschooled since she decided that Kindergarten was not for her. She's lived a carefree existence playing in nature, talking to trees, and doing pretty much whatever she wants. When her mother comes down with cancer, you feel bad for her. Who wouldn't? Poor little kid. Ida B, however, doesn't really care much for what her mother and father are going through. All she cares about is the fact that her father has sold some of their land and that she has to go BACK to school. So she decides to become the most awful person imaginable. For most of this book we watch evil little Ida B attempting to make everyone who loves her, miserable. And she succeeds brilliantly. As a result, the book is either attempting to woo you with its half-penny wisdom or it's asking you to sympathize with its self-absorbed heroine. How far can you really identify with a child that can look at her mother, bald from radiation treatments, and feel nothing but self-pity for herself? Ugh.

To sum up: The book is a pale rip-off of a better written novel. It tries to be cute and fails. It tries to be wise and fails. It's heroine is concerned only with her own needs and never gives half as much thought and attention into caring for the people around her (preferring instead to talk to trees). "Ida B" is author Katherine Hannigan's first novel. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Certainly if she stopped trying too hard to make her heroine likable she might come up with some truly interesting writing. As it is, this book falls short of the mark. It is not particularly good and it is not particularly well-written. If you want a book that touches you, read or reread, "Because of Winn-Dixie". If you want a book that goes for cheap emotions and doesn't even have much of a payoff at its end, go on and read, "Ida B". I suspect that someday Hannigan will write a great book. She simply hasn't gotten there yet.


Rating:
Summary: Richie's Picks: IDA B.
Review: The first of this year's Gravenstein apples are piled up in crates and bins over at Andy's Farm Basket, which sits alongside the road halfway between here and downtown Sebastopol. Driving to the feed store yesterday morning, I passed a pair of lumbering flatbeds hauling huge harvest boxes that were brimming with what has long become my favorite apple in the world.

The Gravenstein apple has maintained its star status in Sebastopol since local plant guru Luther Burbank turned Nathaniel Griffith on to them in the late 1800s. For more than a hundred years now, our little community has sponsored an annual Apple Blossom Parade with dignitaries, floats, fire trucks and marching bands, as well as an annual Gravenstein Apple Fair. (This year's fair is August 14-15 and John Dawson will be bringing out his Twenty-first century version of New Riders of the Purple Sage on that Sunday afternoon.)

Back in the mid-1980s when I purchased this farm, up here in the coastal hills, it was bordered on three sides by Gravenstein orchards. The fourth, downhill side still reveals a panoramic view of valleys and hills, extinct volcanic mountains, The Geysers (which are now pretty well played out), the city of Santa Rosa, and the old Gravenstein cannery which is nowadays leased out in little segments to small food processors and industrial fabricators.

Over my twenty years in Sebastopol, the established Gravenstein orchards have gradually been replaced to a large degree by new vineyards. I used to be hedged into the middle of a blossoming springtime fairyland; now the Gravenstein trees on my north and west sides have been torn out, burned, and replaced by grape trellises. (Yes, it was a nasty, dusty, sad couple of years while that was happening.)

I can gaze out past Laguna Road, where Nathaniel Griffith got it all going during the Victorian era. There, too, the apple orchards vie with vineyards and upscale horse pastures to maintain a toehold.

"I tell you life is sweet
in spite of the misery
there's so much more
be grateful"
--Natalie Merchant, "Life is Sweet"

Ida B. likes Macintosh apples best. (They actually used to also be my favorite, prior to my moving to California and discovering Gravensteins.)

" 'Come on, Rufus,' I called to Daddy's old floppy-eared dog, who was napping under the table. 'You can come, too, so you'll have some company.'
"Now, a school of goldfish could go swimming in the pool of drool that dog makes while he's sleeping. But as soon as he heard his name and saw me heading for outside he jumped up and cleaned up the extra slobber around his mouth, and in two and one-half seconds' time, he was waiting for me at the back door."

Ida B. Applewood is a precocious and rambunctious young lady growing up in Wisconsin who regularly converses with the old apple trees and the lively brook that share her parents farm. Her dad has taught her that credo about leaving a place better than you find it, and she fully expects that the farm will one day be hers. Ida B. has bestowed names on each of those beloved trees, in the same manner that you'd name a dog Rufus, or a cat Lulu.

Ida B. is also a child who takes comfort in the consistencies in her life and can catch a case of the blues when faced with uncertainty.

"I stared down at all those little raisins that used to seem so happy bobbing around like they were swimming, but now they looked like they were drowning in a sea of milk."

Since suffering an emotionally traumatic start to kindergarten--thanks to a teacher with too many rules and too little understanding for this unusual girl--Ida B.'s parents have provided her an alternative, working to properly homeschool her while still leaving Ida B. plenty of time to enjoy her personal dreamland out in the apple trees.

But then her mother gets sick and Ida B.'s whole world comes crashing down.

"That cancer was like bugs in a tree: one day you don't see them at all and the next it seems like they're everywhere, eating the leaves and the fruit. And it won't work to find them and squish them one by one. You have to do something drastic.
"So Mama went to the hospital for treatments, and when she'd come home she'd be so tired, she had to work just to say, 'Hi, baby.' "

Because Ida B. doesn't live in one of those civilized nations of the world that provide universal health coverage, her parents must sell off part of the farm (containing some of Ida B.'s beloved wooden confidants) in order to pay the medical bills. And on top of Ida B.'s despair because of her friends getting chainsawed to make room for the new owner's new house, as well as having to now share some of her special places with the kid in that new house, Ida B. is forced amid these terrible circumstances to begin attending the public school that had caused her such distress four years earlier.

It was a teacher who screwed up Ida B.'s school experience the first time around; it will be an educator of a very different stripe who will try to guide Ida B. through having to deal with her attitudes and deep fears when she walks into the public school now.

IDA B. is a charming first novel by one of Kate DiCamillo's writing students. It's a wonderful rhapsody about the American family farm. (Hopefully some of the young readers will, indeed, ponder why it is that in America so many families are forced to "sell the farm" if someone gets sick or injured.)

Meanwhile, I've been busy thinking up names for the eight young Gravenstein trees that I--ever the contrarian--planted in-between the house and the goat pasture a few years ago, after seeing my good friends next door hacked down in their prime.