DBRLTeen

Girls growing up in Texas in 1899 weren’t expected to have careers. They were expected to get married. But Calpurnia Tate loves nature, and longs to be a scientist. Her grandfather, an amateur scientist himself, is the only one in her family who supports her.

from page 220 – “I had never thought my future would be like theirs. But now I knew this was untrue, and that I was exactly like other girls. I was expected to hand over my life to a house, a husband, children. It was intended that I give up my nature studies, my Notebook, my beloved river. There was a wicked point to all the sewing and cooking that they were trying to impress upon me, the tedious lessons I had been spurning and ducking. I went hot and cold all over. My life did not lie with the Plant after all. My life was forfeit. Why hadn’t I seen it? I was trapped. A coyote with her paw in the trap.”

As Mr. Darwin wrote, “It is most difficult to remember that the increase of every living being is constantly being checked by unperceived injurious agencies…”  But you will have to read the book for yourself to find out if Calpurnia still feels trapped at the end.

So DBRLTeen recommends The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly.  Although fiction, it illustrates the struggles so many young women went through in the past to achieve their goals, blazing the trails that young women today can follow so much more easily.

Read an inteview with author Jacqueline Kelly by clicking here.

Go to http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/dbrlteen and double-click anywhere to leave a stickie on our Teen Comment Wall – suggestions, complaints, likes, dislikes?  Just let us know!

“Homer, Hero, and Zeus were strictly Outside Dogs.  They all knew this, but it didn’t stop them from good-naturedly crowding the front door every time it opened, every single time, despite the fact that they were never – ever - let into the house.  I loved this particularly fine thing about the dogs:  Despite a lifetime of denied entrance, hope never died in their hearts.”

from The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly, page 52, which DBRLTeen hasn’t finished reading yet, but can already tell its a fabulous book (but its not about dogs).

Calpurnia is 11 years old, growing up in Texas in 1899. (But this isn’t a kid’s book – its in our Young Adult collection.)  She is the only girl out of seven children in the family.  She develops an interest in nature, and wants to read Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, but the local librarian tells her “I wouldn’t keep such a thing in my library!”  (Then, as now, evolution was controversial…)  Calpurnia discovers her grandfather, who lives in the same house as her, but who has never spoken to her, has a copy of his own, and thus begins their friendship.

Granddaddy’s story of his encounter with a bat during the Civil War in Chapter 3 is very moving, although the chapter is titled “The Possum Wars”.  Great writers can bring a tear to your eye even when they’re writing about bats! 

What if you only had one year to live…and you knew it?  That’s what happens to 18-year-old Ben Wolf.  He finds out he has a blood disease that will almost certainly kill him in a year.  The recommended treatment may extend his life by a short time, but will be debilitating and ruin his last year.

So, realizing he’d “rather be a flash than a slowly cooling ember”, Ben decides to skip the treatment, and live his last year of high school the best way he can.  Knowing of his impending death, he tries things he wouldn’t have dared to do before,  trying to live a whole lifetime in one year.

Why do his parents let him do this?  They don’t know.  Ben doesn’t tell them; in fact, he doesn’t tell anyone.  Is that a good idea?  Read and find out.

Don’t worry, we haven’t spoiled the book for you.  Chris finds out about his disease in chapter one, but there are lots of surprises to come.  So DBRLTeen recommends Deadline, by Chris Crutcher, because we all need to think about what we’d change in our lives, if we knew we weren’t going to live forever.

This book is one of the 2009-2010 nominees for the Missouri Gateway Readers Award.

See author Chris Crutcher’s website here.