From the jacket: “Ledger Kale always dreamed of the awesome magical power he’d get when he turned thirteen — the day when folks in his family inherit an extraordinary talent called a savvy. But Ledge’s dreams are soon in pieces. And so are the toaster, the television, and the wipers on the family minivan.”
My take: Ingrid Law’s debut novel, Savvy, was one of my favorite books of 2010, so when I heard she’d written a second novel, I was excited to read it.
Described as a companion book, Scumble offers up the story of Ledger Kale, an average middle-school boy whose world has just turned upside down with the arrival of his 13th birthday. The thing that sets his family apart from others is that as they become teenagers, they each gain a “special” talent. Ledge has been hoping to suddenly gain the ability to run really fast, but it turns out instead that he destroys things — turning him into a human bulldozer of sort.
Unfortunately, his birthday arrives just before a wedding several states away. A family reunion (even one where the bride can float and the groom can cause storms) is rarely considered fun by teenagers, but one occurring right after you’ve discovered you can inadvertently break everything in sight is a thing of nightmares.
And a nightmare is exactly what the day becomes. Ledge nearly destroys the family minivan, knocks down a building, and causes an explosion of sorts in the town center — right in front of an annoying girl reporter who’ll do anything to get her story.
So Ledge is not surprised when, the next day, his parents leave him and his younger sister on his Uncle Autry’s ranch for the summer. They’re hoping he’ll be able to use the spacious Wyoming scenery to find some control over his new power — to find the key to scumbling his talent. Plus it’s not like anyone there will find him too odd: Autry can control insects, Autry’s twin daughters work together to zoom objects around the air, and Mibs Beaumont’s brothers (from Savvy), Rocket and Samson, can channel electricity and turn invisible, respectively. And dear, old Grandpa controls the earth — or, at least, he could when he was younger, when he regularly added new mountains and chasms to the landscape.
With all these savvies in the family, surely someone can teach Ledge how to scumble, so he’s safely able to return home at the end of the summer. If he can’t learn to control his gift, will he have to stay at the ranch forever?
Just like Savvy, Scumble is a delightful book. It is, however, definitely a boy’s story, so readers should not worry that it’s too twee. Ledge is missing his three buddies at home. He finds himself thinking, at the oddest moments, of the hair of Sarah Jane, the young reporter he literally runs into his first day in town. He works hard to use running to control his emotions (and his savvy) — and as training for the half-marathon he and his dad have entered together. And he worries he’s a huge disappointment to his dad and a huge imposition on his cousin Rocket, in whose sparse house he’s now living.
Like Savvy, I recommend Scumble highly. After all, who amongst us doesn’t have some part of our personality that we’d like to control a bit better?
Pages: 400
This book fills the folklore category of the Once upon a Time VI reading challenge.
You may have heard part of this in a Chipotle ad, but that doesn’t make Willie Nelson’s cover of the Coldplay song, “The Scientist,” any less moving.
ETA (Tuesday): Had I realized this last night, I would certainly have linked to it then, but Willie Nelson’s new album, Heroes, dropped today. You can legally stream it for free here. In addition to “The Scientist,” the album features performances with former Highwaymen (not the folk group) collaborator Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard, Snoop Dog, Sheryl Crow, and his two youngest sons, among others.
A last-minute invitation to join Susan, Phillip, and Holden for dinner.
A repeat viewing of the Sherlock season premiere — this time with less interference from traffic blotting out the clever lines and plot points.
Knitting — a pair of Rudi’s socks made some serious progress.
Reading — Scumble has sucked me in.
Chores, but too few.
Gardening — the first strawberries have been harvested, there’s a solitary pod amongst my pea flowers and two tomatoes growing on the low-light plant, and the dozen plants we purchased last weekend were jammed into the plot. The lack of progress among spinach and lettuce varieties remains puzzling.
A trip to Estonia seems appealing.
Farmers market — morels and strawberries and potatoes are the highlights.
A 12-mile bike trip (longest of the season!) along the C&O Canal. No ducklings or deer this trip, but lots of turtles and five families of geese with a total of 22 goslings.
Cupcakes.
Calls home.
A dance party in Dupont Circle — hula hoopers and urban dancers whose breakdancing and African dance skills would have tickled the heart of Lydia Grant.
I’m so confused. I keep thinking that today is Wednesday, but it’s not. So I’ll share three beautiful things with you, right on schedule:
1. Okay, so the dentist visit itself was not beautiful, but I have learned the way to manage my anxiety about these semi-annual appointments is to make an afternoon of it. After the exam was over, I wandered through the Eastern market shops, moseyed through a bookstore, and bought some bubbles. Then I stopped by the library to pick up a couple books and the kitchen store to buy some popsicle molds (to go with the book I bought last month). Then I took myself out for a milkshake (with fresh strawberries) and a homemade PopTart (blueberry cheesecake), bought a couple macarons to take home for dessert, and hung out in a park knitting and reading. Almost makes the dental cleaning worthwhile, wouldn’t you say?
2. Sherlock is back.
3. We stumbled upon musical performances from The Keegan Theatre as we were crossing Dupont Circle. I don’t know what show the Irish folk singer was with (An Irish Carol seems a likely contender), but he was excellent.
How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?
This week’s Ten on Tuesday topic is 10 Favorite Comedy Movies. She personally opted to discard romantic comedies from her list, but as I see them as a sub-genre, I’m keeping them in. Plus, screwball comedies are the best comedies ever written!
The Thin Man — This lives on my iPod, in case I am someday stuck on a train or just need a quick pick-me-up. I like to describe this film as screwball noir, much to the frustration of my friend Michael, who once said in exasperation, “It’s not film noir just because it’s filmed in black and white!”
The Princess Bride — This may well be my favorite movie and is definitely the movie I can quote the most lines from. It has something for everyone.
My Man Godfrey — William Powell and Carole Lombard, whose on-screen chemistry lasted long past their off-screen marriage.
Duck Soup — The incomparable Marx Brothers at their best. In case you are under the surprisingly common misconception, The Marx Brothers are nothing like The Three Stooges or Abbot and Costello. The Marx Brothers are smart and funny and you should watch this film.
It Happened One Night — Cary Grant and Claudette Colbert on a road trip.
The Pink Panther — Karen knew, despite our disagreements on some other key films, that I would love Peter Sellers. Once I understood this wasn’t remotely like the cartoon, I was all in.
A Grand Day Out — The funniest of the Wallace & Gromit films. Another series I once refused to watch because I confused it with another (in this case, Gumby).
L’Auberge Espagnole — The comedy of living abroad.
Pirates of the Caribbean — Pirates are hysterical. Especially when they’re modeled after 1960s rockers.
I finished the first sock of the latest round of Sock Madness this evening. I’m about a third of the way through the second sock, but only three slots remain for our team. I suspect I will be knocked out by mid-day tomorrow (okay, technically today, but you tell time your way and I’ll tell time my way). And either way — advancing or ending my competition — I’m okay with it. I’ve knit some great socks, and this colorwork technique — mosaic knitting — is totally new to me. So it’s a win all around.
Anyway, I’m turning in for a little shut-eye before we head off to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival in a few hours. I’d hate to doze off during the sheepdog demonstrations!
We’re in the round of Sock Madness where large numbers of competitors really start being eliminated, so I’m knitting frantically, but not optimistically, along. Luckily, I’m also learning a new technique at the same time, so it’s exciting as well as stressful.
However, it’s not just sock knitting all the time around here. There are also beautiful things tucked in here and there to help keep me upbeat. Here are just three of them from the last week:
1. Rudi and I pack a Thermos of tea and some cookies (maple syrup pecan shortbread) to take with us to the garden. We snack on them as we dig, water, plant, and harvest. Spring eating at its best.
2. I purchase a peony. It is a swollen, hot pink bud on Sunday. Each day it opens a bit more until this morning it is a gigantic, pale pink, crepe paper blossom as big as my head. Such a cheerful addition to the kitchen!
3. Five ducklings paddle along the canal with their parents. Periodically, they stray a bit too far from mama, and then they have to wind themselves up, pull out all the stops, and speed along on the surface of the water to catch up.
How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?
This has been my earworm for the last week. I don’t know what exactly it is that drives the incessant overplaying in my head, but I suspect it’s that repetitive call and response guitar/bass motif (ba da da da dum? ba da da da dum.). (Rudi would probably tell you it’s just that I love anything with jangly guitars in it.)
Anyway, I offer up to you this morning, as a glimpse of what’s been going on in my head this week, The New Pornographers performing “Sing Me Spanish Techno”:
We headed down to the garden this afternoon to plant see how our plants were doing.
We planted four plants I bought this morning at the farmers market (three tomatoes and a sweet pepper), as well as some seeds (lettuces, spinach, beans, and two types of squash). We also set some seeds aside for fall gardening, some to try growing from seed in my window at work (cucumber seeds and microgreens), and some to plant in the next few weeks (quinoa, more beans, and some herbs).
Lots of things were blooming:
Our chives from last year have turned into full-fledged spring onions this year and are growing these gigantic alien-like flower heads.
I like to cheat by buying tomato plants that have tiny buds on them. This one was planted two weeks ago and is flourishing. It’s a low-light tomato, so it’s toward the back of the garden.
The sage is covered with purple flowers, even after Rudi hacked half of it off a few weeks back.
The potatoes I planted two weeks ago were up above the ground. I added three types of beans to the bed — edamame, purple, and yellow.
The chard had gone a little crazy in our two-week absence from the garden and had reached knee level, so Rudi cut off a bag’s worth of chard as this week’s harvest (along with a spring onion). This is what’s left from the front bed.
We will have an excellent strawberry crop, which is comforting given how much of our plot we’ve given over to them. I expect the first ones to turn red in about a week.
This is our plot. Looks pretty and green, doesn’t it? Want to see what or where we’re growing? Click on the picture and that’ll take you to Flickr, where I’ve annotated the heck out of it. (Move your mouse over the picture and boxes will pop up.)
Scumble, by Ingrid Law
