Touch Blue, by Cynthia Lord

Title:  Touch Blue
Author:  Cynthia Lord
Publisher:  Scholastic
Year:  2010
Pages:  192
Genre:  Realistic Fiction
Themes:  Family, Hope, Happiness, Loss
Age Range:  3rd through 6th Grade


Summary:  from Goodreads

The state of Maine plans to shut down her island’s schoolhouse, which would force Tess’s family to move to the mainland--and Tess to leave the only home she has ever known. Fortunately, the islanders have a plan too: increase the numbers of students by having several families take in foster children. So now Tess and her family are taking a chance on Aaron, a thirteen-year-old trumpet player who has been bounced from home to home. And Tess needs a plan of her own--and all the luck she can muster. Will Tess’s wish come true or will her luck run out?

Review:

I thought that Touch Blue was a completely charming book, though I will admit to being predisposed to like it from a setting point of view.  While I grew up in the Midwest and consider Chicago the greatest city on earth, my family is from Rhode Island, and I feel like at least part of my heart is with my aunts, uncles, and cousins in New England.  And, I have always thought it would be really amazing to live on an island that you had to get to by ferry.  I realize this is in direct contradiction to my love of the Dunkin' Donut's drive thru, but  I think the peace and beauty and easily accessible seafood might make up for it!

At first I was a little bit put off by the islanders basically using those foster kids to keep their school, but given some of the foster parents I've had experience with over the years I can say first hand there are worse reasons to go into foster parenting!  What sold me was how much the islanders wanted the children to feel welcomed, and how hard they worked to make them feel at home.  Of course, children who have been displaced as many times as these children have been are bound to be skittish and unsure-why make relationships or develop feelings for people you can be snatched away from at any moment?  Aaron's demeanor and reactions to his new situation felt very authentic to me.

Tess's superstitions about luck were amusing at first, but it quickly became clear that it was all an effort to control her own feelings of worry about change in her own future.  First, the change of a new child coming into her family, but also worry about whether her best friend who had moved away still liked her, worry about having to move off the island if the school closed, worry that Aaron's mom would take him back.  Her father said it best when he reminded her that she is more than where she comes from-she carries her own happiness inside of her, if she can just let go of some of her fear and recognize it.

This book introduces the concept of foster care in a fairly benign way.  So many stories of children in foster care are tragic and sad.  This story has it's emotional highs and lows, but it portrays those working in the foster care system as caring individuals who consider the needs and desires of the children the serve.  This is not always the case, and caseworkers are often portrayed as neglectful/clueless/mean/absent.  I think it would help upper-elementary-age kids who haven't had experience with foster care understand what it is supposed to be.  This book would be a good addition to a unit on family, since a lot of it deals with exactly what makes a family.  One of the central questions Tess's family had to face was how to make Aaron feel welcome and included in their family without dishonoring his own biological family.  There is a lot of good discussion fodder in this one.

Teacher Resources:
Grand Canyon Award Teacher's Guide
TeachingBooks.net Teacher's Guide

The Mailbox, by Audrey Shafer

Title:  The Mailbox
Author:  Audrey Shafer
Publisher:  Yearling
Pages:  192
Genre:  Realistic Fiction
Age Range:  5th-8th Grade




Summary:
Gabe is an 11 year old boy who has seen a lot in his short life.  After his mother died when he was two, he was bounced around from foster home to foster home until his Uncle Vernon, a reclusive Viet Nam veteran, was located when he was nine.  Two years later, Gabe comes home from his first day of sixth grade to find his uncle dead.  Wracked with grief and unsure what to do, Gabe does not report the death, and leaves for school the next day as if nothing has happened.  When he returns home at the end of the day, his uncle's body is gone, and there is a mysterious note in the mailbox that says, "I have a secret".  Thus starts a mailbox correspondence between Gabe and the mysterious stranger-and a journey towards finding the one person who needs him as much as he needs them.

Review:
I picked up this book on an impulse from the book fair at school, and I am so glad that something told me to check it out.  The story is compelling, and the characters are complex and flawed in a way that just begs discussion.  Uncle Vernon's misanthropic veteran is a gruff old man with many, many scars.  It is fair to say that most of him never came out of the jungle.  Gabe is a confused, frightened boy with scars of his own.  All of the more minor characters are completely believable and well-written. 

This is the first middle grade novel that I have seen that deals with any aspect of the war in Viet Nam, and it does so with a real sense of compassion for the veterans who fought there, while at the same time highlighting how war damages those who participate in it.  Not one of the veterans who is featured in the book has been able to entirely leave the experience behind them-and Uncle Vernon and the mysterious stranger are perhaps more damaged than most.  The book also deals with the foster care system and the effects on children who are bounced around from home to home.  Gabe himself had been through a sort of war before he came to his uncle, and he was also scarred by the experience.  It explains why he told no one about his uncle's death-he did not want to go back to not ever being secure in where he would lay his head that night.   

There is some raw language (though no actual swear words) and mature subject matter in this novel, but the readability is pretty low, so I'd say this book would be good for mature 5th and 6th graders, average middle schoolers, and high schoolers who need high-interest, low readability.


Teacher Resources:

The Mailbox Classroom Guide


William Allen White Book Awards Discussion Guides