Whales on Stilts

Review

M.T. Anderson’s delightfully weird Whales on Stilts delivers on the promise of its title – there are plenty of whales, plenty of stilts, plenty of whales ON stilts, and enough lasers to light up a small, uninhabited Pacific island. It’s a young adult novel that doesn’t talk down to its target audience, but rather engages them in a fun, semi-educational story that also serves as a fine introduction to postmodernism, absurdism, satire, and metafiction. There’s enough in here to please adults who enjoy these literary elements as well, but it isn’t multilayered in a suggestive, double entendre-ridden sense. Whales on Stilts can be enjoyed as a tongue-in-cheek throwback to the pulpy fantasies you enjoyed as a kid.

The story focuses on Lily Gefelty, an understated, supposedly unremarkable young girl who visits her father at work - where he constructs stilts for whales with gleeful obliviousness – and grows suspicious of his comically absurd boss Larry. A rubbery blue man in a grain sack mask and a penchant for dumping buckets of brine over his head, Larry reigns over his corporation with evil visions of WHALES EQUIPPED WITH EYE LASERS WALKING ON STILTS (quite possibly the most amazing phrase I will ever type in this blog) dancing in his head. It’s up to Lily and her friends Jasper Dash and Katie Mulligan to stop the invasion before humanity falls victim to these spiteful cetaceans.

 Jasper and Katie are perfect representations of Anderson’s use of lighthearted satire. Each pays a comedic homage to a different genre of children’s literature, with Jasper filling in as a steampunk interpretation of boy adventurers like Johnny Quest while Katie’s life on an absurdly traumatized street is pure Goosebumps. In a hilariously meta twist, the two option their stories out to writers from Harcourt who make beelines towards them at the first sign of exploitable action, then twisting the situations into more profitable fare. Then there’s Anderson’s amazing send-up of reading guides and author interviews…and the footnote that spans seven pages…and the fake ads…Yeah. Whales on Stilts probably contains more outrageous, overblown fun than most of the books I’ve read as of late, even if it’s skewed towards a younger audience. And there’s nothing the matter with that!

Bibliographic Information

Anderson, M.T. Whales on Stilts. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2005.

Further Reading

Whales on Stilts is a great bridge between the likes of Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith’s The Stinky Cheese Man (and Other Fairly Stupid Tales) and comparatively darker young adult books by the likes of Roald Dahl and Paul Jennings. Both authors take a satirical and intelligent approach towards young adult literature, but apply it in considerably more acidic tones that may frighten or overwhelm some kids. Uncanny! is a great short story collection by Paul Jennings, though any of his Un- series of books (Unbelievable!, Unreal!, Undone!, etc.) are twisted classics in their own right. Uncanny! just happened to be my favorite of the bunch, but obviously others may think differently. And what more needs to be said about Roald Dahl’s Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Almost all of his children’s books are necessary reads, but those two form the lynchpin of his oeuvre. And they, in turn, pave the way for enjoying scathing and entertaining satires aimed for adults later on in life.

~Riot

Seedfolks

Review

Newberry Winner Paul Fleischman’s Seedfolks may be slender (only 69 pages) and skewed towards a younger demographic than my usual literary intake, but that doesn’t mean it has little to offer. I found it on a bookstore’s shelf of required reading for local schools and was, admittedly, initially intrigued by its cover design featuring faces and vegetables. It looked like the sort of book I’d have liked to have read in elementary or intermediate school had it been published five years earlier. Were I currently a parent or elementary school teacher, I would be exposing my children or students to works such as this.

Set in a dilapidated Cleveland slum, Seedfolks is comprised of thirteen interconnected stories revolving around a vacant lot treated as if a dump and its gradual transformation into a lovely community garden. The cast encompasses a wide variety of ages, life experiences, ethnicities, and nations of origin, and each one relates a story of how participation in the nurturing of the garden helped foster their sense of self and their role in the community as a whole. One of my favorite stories revolves around Leona, a mother of two who marches with a bag of garbage into the Public Health Department in order to illustrate the issue of careless waste disposal on the part of Cleveland’s citizenry. Her determination to beautify at least one corner of the city after witnessing some neighbors using the garden as their own personal dumpster is a perfect summary of each featured character’s deepening commitment to themselves and their city.

Though it is targeted towards children, Fleischman adds texture and conflict to his book by touching briefly upon themes concerning violence in schools, teenage pregnancy, homeless youths, unfaithful romantic partnerships, and the struggles of immigrants trying to integrate into American society with sensitivity and poignancy. No individual is ever demonized, and each one who feels as if they have made a mistake eventually finds redemption and comfort in their hard work and the advice and support of fellow gardners. Love in all its forms as the ultimate solution to curing society’s ills may seem quaint and oversimplified, but as this book is intended for a younger audience I think it is an appropriate foundation to be providing for children. The only difficulty that readers will face is likely the colloquial dialects Fleischman employs for his immigrant characters. Depending on where a chapter’s featured character hails from, they will be met with Korean, British, Indian, Guatamalan, and other accents which may initially confuse younger kids.

Bibliographical Information

Fleischman, Paul. Seedfolks. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

Further Reading

Parents and teachers interested in exposing children and students to other cultures and helping them understand local and global communities may also like to supplement these lessons with Anabel and Barnabas Kindersley’s nonfiction work Children Just Like Me. Where Seedfolks hilights unity as may be found on one street corner, Children Just Like Me attempts to find commonalities among kids in countries all over the world. Older audiences intrigued by plots which interweave characters and lives within one community would do well to read Edgar Lee Masters’s classic Spoon River Anthology, which delves into comparatively more cynical perspectives on some of the issues Fleischman presents.

~Riot