Dingus

Written by Andrew Larsen
Kids Can Press
978-1-77138-661-6
208 pp.
Ages 9-12
May 2017

Dork. Doofus. Dingus.  Variations on a theme.  But Andrew Larsen’s narrator, eleven-year-old Henry will have no problems accepting that final moniker after the conclusion of his fifth grade and the beginning of a summer holiday that seems to hold no promise.

Though Henry likes his Gr. 5 teacher Mr. Buntrock–with his stories, laughter yoga and word-of–the-day–the school year has been one of multiple changes, not the least of which is his growing estrangement from his best friend Max.  Though the two boys have always relished their differences–Max is smarter, taller and wealthier–Max has become so immersed in his winning chess team that he has little time for Henry.  Worse still, Max seems to take pleasure is teasing Henry about wearing Max’s cast-off clothes and more, making Henry the butt of his chess team’s jokes.

At home, things are similarly in flux.  Mom who’d had baby Sam a year ago is returning to work which will require more travel, starting with a trip to Las Vegas the last day of school.  Dad, who’d lost his job just before Sam’s birth, has stayed at home to care for Sam and, by default, Henry. And, of course, there is less money for everything and anything, including a pair of much-admired Chad Baker sneakers.

I was mad at Max. I was mad at his new friends. I was mad at my dad for getting me Chad Fakers instead of Chad Bakers. I was mad at myself for being so mad.
   My life officially sucked.
   I was mad at that, too. (pg. 45)

Adding insult to injury, Max gets to go away to his much-loved chess camp while Henry  sees a summer of nothingness ahead of him.  What Henry doesn’t realize is that Dad’s idea of a staycation will bring him a new set of experiences like outdoors movie night, Elvis sandwiches, and bottle rockets, suggesting that change really is as good as a holiday.

It must be rough being a kid for whom everything feels like it’s going sideways.  What’s worse is when it’s things you can’t control like money, baby brothers, and friends as well as  things you can but don’t because you’re a dingus.  But Andrew Larsen realizes that change, like that of the puberty lessons Henry has to endure at the end of Grade 5, is inevitable and rolling with it rather than fighting it is probably a lot easier.

I know there’s a million middle-graders out there right not who are wondering about their summers, the changes their bodies and minds are going through, and the direction that friendships are heading.  It’s a lot on their plates, especially since things don’t always work out at planned.  But, take solace in that, even if you’re a Dingus–and we are all such goofs some time in our lives–that it’s rarely fatal and often educational, just like mistakes and school.

The New Normal

by Ashley Little

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-459-80074-8

222 pp.

Ages 12+

Release date March 2013

Reviewed from Advance Reading Copy

This is my reality.  I was sixteen and being hunted by a drug dealer.  My hair was falling out and my sisters were dead and my parents were broken and there wasn't a goddam thing I could do about any of it. (pg. 28)

This is The New Normal for teen Tamar.  And the drug dealer bit is the very least of her worries. Really. She can handle that and she does.  But the other repercussions of her twin sisters' deaths (in a car accident while driving with drunk boys who played road chicken) - her hair and her damaged parents - are not as easy to handle.

It's only been a few months since the death of her younger sisters and Tamar and her family have been falling apart.  Neither of "the parents" have worked since the accident.  Mom throws herself into yoga and more yoga.  Dad spends a lot of time in his bathrobe on the couch. And Tamar has been losing her body hair, in clumps, while she sleeps, on towels.  Though she keeps up her routines, attending school and playing with the chess club, false eyelashes and hats or bandanas are now part of her style.  Keeping it a secret has been manageable; her dad hasn't even noticed and her mom knows but tosses it off.   But when her friend Roy Lee, a Grade 12 student in the chess club, pulls at her bandana and reveals her lack of hair (luckily this happens away from school), Tamar tells him of her mysterious hair loss.  Fortunately Roy who cares for Tamar is more concerned about her health than her appearance.

Tamar continues to find ways to manage: looking for a job to help pay for a wig;  auditioning for the school production of The Wizard of Oz and earning the role of Auntie Em; starting to go out on dates with Roy; and working at the Cruisy Chicken.  Of course, she can't predict that the play's Dorothy would bully her about her sisters and tell Tamar she's not good enough for Roy, then pull off her wig and get Tamar suspended from school.  Or that Dad would fall off the roof and injury himself and need extra care.  Or that Mom would decide to take off for six weeks to study yoga and meditation at a retreat on an island off the BC coast.  But Tamar has a good head on her shoulders (even if it is becoming hairless), recognizing that, after an especially terrifying situation,

"the whole experience had made me feel lucky to be alive, and I hadn't felt that way in a long, long time." (pg. 213)

Even though Tamar and Roy are in their mid-teens, The New Normal is a great middle-grade novel, having less of the urgency and edginess of young adult novels.  Ashley Little has found the means to knit the grief of loss with the innocence of first love, both times of confusion.  With that first love, Tamar doesn't even realize that she's starting to care for Roy, that he has asked her out, or that there are others who see them as a couple.  Similarly, Tamar isn't sure about expressing her grief.  She continues to have flashes of memories, tender or nasty, of her sisters, but in many respects she is suppressing that grief, unlike the parents who are inundated with it.  For Tamar, that grief can only come out as a physical symptom, but it allows her to see her sisters' deaths in a different context and as part of a bigger picture.  It goes beyond the sadness and anger and lets her continue to live.  She might not embrace The New Normal but she knows it is what it is and doesn't try to make it otherwise.  Her parents should have paid attention to her a little sooner.