i remain in a world apart

BOOK REPORT for criss cross by lynne rae perkins

bff charm: yay!  yay!  yay!
swoonworthy scale: 6
talky talk: vacation brain
bonus factors: illustrations, dubs true, suburban life
 relationship status: chaste first love

the deal:

Debbie is a 14-year-old girl living in the small town of Seldem in the early 1970s.  She wishes something, anything, would happen to her.  Something good.  She wishes that her mother wouldn’t be so old-fashioned, and insist she wear checkered jumpers and blue jeans with bunnies on them.  She wishes that Dan Persik, high school football hero, would notice her.  She wishes she weren’t in Seldem.

Hector is also 14 and also lives in Seldem.  He wants to get up the nerve to talk to Meadow, the girl with the dancing eyes and glowing skin.  He wants to learn to play the guitar.  He wants to experience the little joys all around him.

Both Debbie and Hector spend late spring and early summer trying to transform from their caterpillar selves into butterflies.

bff charm:  yay!  yay!  yay!

Oh, man, Debbie, I want to be your BFF so that we can lay outside on lawnchairs in the backyard trying to tan, and try to parse the behavior of the cute football player, and drink Tang and basically do exactly all the things I did do when I actually was 14.   (Yeah, I drank Tang.  Hey, if it’s good enough for the ASTRONAUTS, it’s good enough for me!)  I want to give you a hug and tell you, with the benefit and wisdom of my age, that you will get out of your little town someday, but that until you do, you should love it for all the things it is and has.  And I would tell you that you should quit mooning over Dan Persik and take a look at my boy, Hector!  Or Lenny!

Hector doesn’t even need my BFF charm, because he has an AWESOME older sister, but I’m forcing it upon him anyway.  Oh, Hector.  I just want you to be my spiritual guide throughout my life.  The way you can find beauty all around you – your delight at watching the christmas lights come on at the used car lot once sun sets, your interest in what the old nun down the street is doing today, the songs you write about squished worms – I really feel like you’re the kind of friend who would remind me to stop and remember how wonderful the world is, instead of complaining about how shitty it can be.

Lenny!  Lenny, you mechanical genius, please be my BFFFFFF.  Because that’s how awesome you are, and how in awe I am of your smarts, and also because if you were my BFF, I could call you up and tell you that I’m vaguely concerned that my car is making A Noise, and can you please come over and take a look?

There honestly isn’t a person in this book I wouldn’t give my BFF charm to, not because they’re all awesome people, but because Perkins draws them so realistically that you feel like you already know them.  I even found myself rooting for Dan Persik, who could just be the dumb jock, but whose eternal struggle to become a person instead of a jackass is detailed so delightfully that I can’t help but cheer him on.

swoonworthy scale: 6

People who have read this book may be astonished by the fact that I’ve given this book a 6 on the ol’ swoon-a-meter, since there’s absolutely no sexytimes fun, but hear me out!  Part of the swoonworthiness of a book, as we’ve always said, is whether it accurately captures the little things - the stolen glances, the confusion, the yearning – that proceed the hot Gettin’ It On times.  And boy, this book knows how to capture a first crush.  The black hole that overtakes Debbie’s brain when she tries to talk to Dan, the way she struggles to tell her mother about her feelings for Peter, how everything that Hector tries to do to impress Meadow comes out wrong – all of it makes me pump my fist and yell “dubs true, girlfriend!” like some sort of wacky comedy relief in a Katherine Heigl movie. 

Perkins knows just how to explain the butterflies, the confusion, and the missed opportunities that come with first love (or, hey, the second, third and fourth loves).

talky talk: vacation brain

So, I have this thing that I call “vacation brain” – basically it describes how attuned I am to the little things when I’m in another city or country.  You know how it is; with nothing but time on your side, it’s suddenly easy to notice the little miracles all around you: the way the snow falls into a pattern on a random stray dog, the taste of ice cream on your tongue, the crunch of leaves under your feet.  I always tell myself that I’ll practice vacation brain in my everyday life, but real-life concerns always get in the way.

Perkins, however, has crafted a story entirely of vacation brain.  She highlights the little charms of little towns perfectly and whimsically.

bonus factor: illustrations

Lynne Rae Perkins got her start as an illustrator, and she illustrates Criss Cross in such a way that the illustrations tell part of the story.  The drawings are sparse and witty and clever, and I want to live in them just as much as I want to live in this book.

bonus factor: dubs true!

SO MANY TIMES in this book I found myself pumping my fist and shouting “Dubs True, Perkins!”  Which was occassionally embarassing in public, but I’m used to that.   Perkins just has a way of writing things that speaks straight to my heart.  Check it:

I felt ten years old and a thousand years old, but I didn’t know how to be my own age.  I had never felt that way before, but now I feel like that a lot.

and

It bothered Patty that electrons were so constantly in motion.  It made the whole world seem like a place on the verge of disintegration.  What if the molecules in this chair got all excited and spun apart?  What if they realigned themselves and decided to be something other than wood?  . . . . It gave her the creeps.

and what about Peter’s “Bhuddist self” theory:

“I think,” he said, “that it’s a good thing to get out of your usual, you know, surroundings.  Because you find things out about yourself that you didn’t know, or you forgot.  And then you go back to your regular life and you’re changed, you’re a little bit different because you take those new things with you.  Like a Hindu, except all in one life: you sort of get reincarnated depending on what happened and what you figure out.  And any one place can make you go forward, or backward, or neither, but gradually you find all your pieces, your important pieces, and they stay with you, so that you’re your whole self, no matter where you go.  Your Buddha self.  That’s my theory, anyway.”

bonus factor: suburban life

I find, as I get older and older, that the books I connect to the most are those that detail the basic hum-drum days of suburban life.  Oh, sure, it’s exciting to read about rich kids in big cities, or dystopic nightmare landscapes, but it’s kind of hard to connect with those sorts of books.  I’m still the girl who played pick-up baseball on the streets, skinny legs sticking out of shorts from last summer.  I still sit in lawnchairs at the top of the driveway at my parents house; the only change is the alcohol content of the drink I sip as I chat with neighbors who stop by.  I remember playing “Murder Mysteries” with the neighbor kids in the front yard, and the loud drone of cicadas in summer, and the smell of the neighbor’s gardenia bush.  Neighborhood Night Out, and free reign through the neighbors’ houses, and adopting frogs that we named Jumpy (there were about 14 Jumpys in my childhood) and trying to teach it to do tricks.  As much as I might pretend to be cosmopolitan and posh, those streets and that childhood are the bones of my body, each point connecting to another in a succession of memories and relationships, making me the person I am.

casting call:

Hector is a chubby redhead who looks, as his older sister Rowanne says, not unkindly, like a hedgehog.  I instantly thought of my favorite British ginger who isn’t a royal.  He’s too old to play a 14 year old, I guess, but I can wish.

Chloe Moretz is in everything!  Why not this, too?

relationship status: chaste first love

Someone wrote on posh’s deal-breakers post that their dealbreaker was Newberry Medal winners.  I feel the exact opposite.  I don’t think I’ve ever picked up a Newberry winner I didn’t like.   I mean, come on!  The Giver!  The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler!  THIS IS QUALITY STUFF.  I remember being a kid and looking out for that little gold seal in the library, sure that whatever I found would be awesome.  So when I saw this book in the store, its little gold seal called to me, and I bought it without knowing anything about it.

And boy, Criss Cross didn’t disappoint me.  From the first page, I felt like I was falling in love, slowly, sweetly, chastely.  Its whimsical and gentle portrayal of everyday life – the little vignettes that make up our story as people – made my heart swell until it nearly burst.  Other books will come and go, and I’ll love them more passionately or dramatically, but I know I’ll always hold a place in my heart for this tender little story.

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