Savvy, by Ingrid Law

From the jacket: Mibs Beaumont is about to become a teenager. As if that prospect weren’t scary enough, thirteen is when a Beaumont’s savvy strikes — and with one brother who causes hurricanes and another who creates electricity, it promises to be outrageous … and positively thrilling. But just before her big day, Poppa is in a terrible accident. Suddenly, Mibs’s dreams of X-ray vision disappear like a flash of her brother’s lightning: All she wants now is a savvy that will save Poppa.”

My take: The Beaumonts are a perfectly ordinary family, just like other people. “We get born, and sometime later we die. And in between, we’re happy and sad, we feel love and we feel fear, we eat and we sleep and we hurt like everyone else.” That’s what they tell people, anyway. But when they turn 13, their power appears. Mibs’ older brothers have the ability to direct wind, rain, and electricity. Her grandfather moves land. Her mom is not, as Mibs believes, perfect, but has a knack for getting things right — even when it turns out she is exactly right at getting things wrong. A great-aunt can open locks, but uses her savvy to help herself to others’ belongings. And her late grandmother could pluck music and voices right off the radio and bottle them up for repeated listenings.

So it’s understandable that Mibs and her whole family are excited — and a little nervous — about her impending birthday. When one brother’s savvy caused a hurricane on his 13th birthday a few years earlier, they’d had to move far away from their beloved home on the shore and move to the middle of the country, far away from any body of water where he could cause disasters. What would Mibs’ gift be? Would it, too, cause problems?

But, then, a phone call brings her whole world falling in around her.

Her father has been in a life-threatening accident and her mother and eldest brother must go to Salina to the hospital, leaving the four younger kids in the care of their elderly grandfather. Mibs returns from her final day of public school (you can’t be expected to sit in a classroom when you might, at any moment, cause a storm to rip the roof off if someone upsets you, after all), to find their preacher’s wife setting up shop in their kitchen, intent on taking care of their own in a time of crisis. She even goes so far as to insist on inviting the Kansaska-Nebransas community to a birthday party for Mibs.

But when Mibs gets up on her birthday, she realizes that her savvy has already arrived. She has, she believes, the ability to awaken those who are sleeping, or who seem to be sleeping. And this savvy has appeared just at the right time for her to get to the Salina hospital where her father lies unconscious.

But how to get there with no adult in whom to confide her newly awakened gift?

As luck would have it, her birthday party overlaps with the delivery of some hot pink bibles to the church and the deliveryman’s bus suggests he’ll be heading back to his Salina headquarters soon. So, Mibs, followed by the preacher’s kids (Bobbie and Will, Jr.), and her two brothers, Fish and Samson, stow away in the back of the bus, hoping to hitch a lift to heal her father.

But what Mibs hasn’t yet shared with anyone is that the stress of her father’s accident has left her hearing voices in her head. And they seem to be coming from the oddest places…

Will her new friends and her brothers think she’s crazy? Can the Beaumonts keep their family’s secret from Bobbie and Will, who, it turns out, may just have a few secrets of their own. What happens when the driver of the hot pink bus finds them hidden amidst his wares? And will they make it to Salina in time?

I loved this book. Mibs’ voice is so real (as are the voices of those around her), and her desire to be useful and to get to her father are palpable and urgent. Law has done a good job of creating an ordinary girl from an extraordinary family and allowing her to grow up on the page before our eyes. I’d recommend it to any reader without hesitation.

Favorite passage: Momma is talking to Fish and Rocket about how to find their personal balances, using painting as a metaphor: “‘If you don’t use enough paint,’ Momma continued, ‘Your savvy will come through too strong, causing some pretty big problems for both you and the rest of the world…. If you use too much paint, you’ll not only obscure your savvy completely, but most everything else in life will become dull and uninteresting for you too. You can’t get rid of part of what makes you you and be happy.'” (page 185)

Pages: 342

I’ve just surfaced from Savvy for a few minutes to brew a new cup of tea and figured it might be time to write another post.

The second challenge of the readathon is hosted by Miss Remmer, who asks:

…Write a post on your blogs about your kick off strategy. What have you surrounded yourself with for these early hours of the challenge besides your books? Is there a coffee thermos, lucky book mark, snacks, pillow…. We want to know how you have prepared so you do not have to leave your cozy reading space (by the way – we’d like to know what is too…. (are you still in bed, a chair, the couch…..)

Although I began the day reading in my rocking chair in front of my happy light, once my English muffin was done, I retreated to our red couch, where I can read lying down. I have all five bulbs in the lamp lit next to me and am curled up under a purple plaid wool blanket. Of course, the laundry hasn’t been put away, so I’m wedged between clean clothes and the giant fairy pillow Karen gave me so many years ago. But it is definitely a cozy reading spot.

For a while Posey joined me, curled up in my lap, but after a while she wasn’t there any more, so she must have realized she no longer had my attention and left. My tankard of tea grew cold and I pulled myself out of Kansaska-Nebransas long enough to finish the last couple mouthfuls of cold brew before hopping back on a pink bus.

My iTunes is up and playing on shuffle, but for the most part I don’t hear the music. If it were to stop, though, I’d hear the absence of music and it would yank me from my story. Luckily, though, I have so much music on my computer that it would outlast a weeklong readathon and still have a few tunes to play. And that’s just what’s ripped to the computer. Rudi and I must have at least as many cds as books jammed into our tiny apartment.

Challenge 3 is from Bobbie, who asks us for nominees:

Favorite Female Character in a book: Jo in Little Women
Favorite Male Character in a book: Harry Potter from the eponymous series probably
Favorite Side Kick in a book: Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter series
Favorite Couple in a Book: Anne and Gilbert in the Anne of Green Gables books
Favorite Book Series: Harry Potter (but only because some of the Anne books get a bit treacly)
Favorite Author: Barbara Kingsolver (although there are several others I love, sot that answer would vary depending on the moment)
Favorite Book Cover: Hmmm, while I like my books to have judgeworthy covers, I’m not sure I pay sufficient attention to them…. The Eyre Affair maybe
Favorite Book of 2009: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Is it bad that we’re just coming up on the end of Hour 3 and I’m already starting to ramble?

No? Well, good. I’m going to head back to the couch with my cup of tea and see if Mibs and her friends and brothers get to Salina or not…

As I wrote last night, I’ve decided at the last minute to embark upon Dewey’s Readathon today. There will be lots of reading, some mini challenges, and an audio book or two.

Before I start reading, here’s the first mini challenge of the day:

Where are you reading from today?

I’m located in Washington, D.C., in the outskirts of the ultra-hip and increasingly overly commercial Dupont Circle neighborhood. I’ll be spending a portion of time reading in my apartment, affectionately known as the Burrow; outside at local coffeehouses; and from diverse other locations, such as my community garden plot.

3 facts about me …

1. I’m a procrastinator, which is why I didn’t commit to doing the readathon until the nth hour.
2. I am not a morning person.
3. I have three cats, who have no problem with my reading, just so long as I remember to feed them and let them sit on my lap.

How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?

I don’t have a set number of books in my To Be Read (TBR) pile, but our apartment periodically seems to be an ever-growing TBR pile, so I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.

But I am starting my day with Ingrid Law’s Savvy, which I’ve been looking forward to reading for quite a while.

Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?

No goals. Goals tend to have the opposite effect on me as with most people and usually mean I abandon them (and their cause) early on.

Rather, I guess, my goal is just to have fun and read some good books.

If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, Any advice for people doing this for the first time?

I did the readathon a few years ago (the last one before Dewey died), but wouldn’t really call myself a veteran. Plus, what works for me wouldn’t necessarily work for anyone else.

Oh, and I’m going to use this image for my challenge responses because Rudi was particularly taken with it last night. I believe he may be hoping it’s part of the readathon rules that I have to read in a bikini or in just my underwear. Alas (for him), I’m more of a pj pant and hoodie kind of girl…

Once again, I am planning to take part in Carl’s Once Upon a Time Challenge. My plan is to explore Quest the Fourth, wherein I commit to reading five books that fall within the genres of fairy tales, folklore, mythology, and fantasy. Then I will follow that up with an early June reading of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

In addition to the Shakespeare, I hope to choose from:

Kristin Cashore’s Graceling
Michael Scott’s The Sorceress
Homer’s The Odyssey
Arabian Nights
Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Rick Riordan’s The Last Olympian
Shannon and Dean Hale’s Rapunzel’s Revenge
Susan Cooper’s Greenwitch
Jeanne DuPrau’s The City of Ember
Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men
Katherine Howe’s The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

Got any other suggestions? Or recommendations from the list above? I’ve got until Midsummer’s Eve to finish reading them all.

I’m writing from a coffeeshop near my MiL’s house, where I have a view of outside. Roughly every five minutes the weather changes. Right now, for instance, it’s sunny, but there is an ominous sheet of clouds overhead. Just after I arrived a few hours ago, it began sleeting. There have been snow showers — several an hour — and a little bit of misty rain, as well. However, nothing sticks to the ground and because Salt Lake is a desert, the pavement dries quickly. I hope Rudi’s weather up in Park City involves less rain and more snow for his skiing adventures.

I know I promised you book reviews, and it’s still possible I’ll write them this weekend. But I’m just not feeling the love at the moment. All three books I’m behind on posting — The Help, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, and Shades of Grey are each deserving of a thoughtful review. I don’t want to rush them. But I also know that the longer I wait to write them up the more I’ll forget of the nuances of each novel, so I’ll try to get to them soon.

Just for tonight, I’m skipping post 2010.7, which talks about The Help, because it was just too good to allow my review to go out as is. In the meantime, I offer you the book I read for the first half of my California trip:

Austenland, by Shannon Hale

From the jacket: “Jane is a young New York woman who can never seem to find the right man — perhaps because of her secret obsession with Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. But when a wealthy relative bequeaths to her a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-obsessed women, Jane’s fantasies of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman suddenly become more real than she ever could have imagined. Is this total immersion in a fake Austenland enough to make Jane kick the Austen obsession for good, or could all her dreams actually culminate in a Mr. Darcy of her own?”

My take: In this cute tale of a woman so caught up in her fantasy life that she’s unwilling and increasingly unable to focus on her real life, Jane is a graphic designer living the modern fairy tale life in New York City. Except she can’t find her Prince Charming, or in her case, Mr. Darcy as portrayed by actor Colin Firth.

An eccentric but sharply aware great-aunt dies, willing Jane a trip to an Austen immersion “camp” in England. Arriving, Jane is told to hand over her iPod and cell phone and is assigned Regency-period clothing, schooled in old-fashioned social niceties, and introduced to an estate’s worth of actors and guests designed to make her feel as if she’s stepped right between the covers of Pride and Prejudice.

Adventures and misadventures ensue as Jane compares her past “dating” disasters with the eligible men with whom she is role-playing: young Colonel Andrews, the second son of an earl; Mr. Nobley, a dashing but brooding gentlemen; and Martin, playing the part of Theodore the gardener, with whom she’s supposed to have no contact.

The book isn’t high art and isn’t as accomplished as the young adult fiction that Hale is best known for. But it’s a good romp, particularly if you’re an Austen fan or if you’ve ever fallen in love with a character straight off the page or screen.

Pages: 196