Gone Crazy in Alabama
I used to open every box of children’s books for review that arrived at my library…but it’s not my direct job anymore, and I had to let go of the micro-managerial (and selfish!) urge to be the first to get my hands on everything. So it was that I only got to read GONE CRAZY IN ALABAMA recently, taking my turn in the hold list, because this one is HOT.
Knowing this is our last time with these sisters, and hearing only modest praise online and from my colleagues (much of what has been heard at Jonathan’s post this week), I lowered my expectations, opened the covers, and prepared myself for just some good company.
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What I found, though, was one of the best books I’ve ever read, so I have to pull this one out from those Jonathan mentioned this week for a little more discussion. The pacing and arc on this one different than the other two books, with the girls settling in to the atmosphere down south, observing and regarding the difference between Ma Charles and Miss Trotter, and trying to understand what is going on there. This may be slow for plot-driven readers, but I think this is really the point of the book, and honestly, by the time Cecile arrives most of the good stuff is behind us. From there on out Delphine’s realizations start to crystalize, but every single one has been seeded earlier in the book, through character-driven narrative.
This book feels like exactly where this trilogy needs to wind up, with Delphine seeing back to the beginning, or as far as she can, with her family. She begins to understand and make room for the contradictions in her grandmother, a product of Jim Crow who has compartmentalized strategies for staying alive, and for being true to one’s self and heritage. Delphine starts to better understand the generational divides she lives with, what is making the Black power and women’s movements so tumultuous, and why what she experiences as current culture is so divisive in her family. Still a girl, she’s set at a crossroads ready to become a Black woman, with an amazing array of different kinds of role models before her, and a better understanding of the reasons she loves each of them, and also why each one drives her absolutely nuts.
There is no one else writing like Rita Williams-Garcia. The fact that she achieves this story with such realism in characters, with such humor, without stating the obvious or over-explaining, is distinguished in itself. What she has to tell us is such a huge part of many readers’ lives, and I’ve never seen it dealt with in this depth, with this realism, and this level of just remarkable storytelling, for a child audience before. Through the trilogy readers essentially experience the story of the Great Migration in reverse, and now I understand why we have to leave the Gaither sisters here.
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About Nina Lindsay
Nina Lindsay is the Children's Services Coordinator at the Oakland Public Library, CA. She chaired the 2008 Newbery Committee, and served on the 2004 and 1998 committees. You can reach her at ninalindsay@gmail.com
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And she makes us sad and happy at the same time to leave these sisters to their future! This is distinguished writing and it is with a glad heart that I see this series fly off the shelf – more so since this book is out!
Spoilers ahead. I’ve already said I liked this book and what I found most distinguished about it in my comment on Jonathan’s post. However, “one of the best books I’ve ever read” is a very strong statement. I plan to make a similar statement, but for me that book is THE PENDERWICKS IN SPRING, which certainly invites direct comparison in many aspects. This is what I would say is the basic difference between the two books. In both series, the sisters have well-established personalities that critics might even call simplistic. I’d say each sister in both series can be broadly described in 5 or less words. My quibble with GONE CRAZY IN ALABAMA is that Delphine’s and Vonetta’s characters result in predictable, repetitious behaviors and interactions, more so than in the previous books. This may well be “realism” but it’s also not an ideally rewarding reading experience. (I would say that Ma Charles and Miss Trotter’s interactions become similarly repetitious and predictable.) Then comes what to me was an arbitrary and manipulative plot device: the tornado, and just like that the characters and their feelings instantly and conveniently change. I did wonder whether Vonetta would survive or not, but I also felt that either way I would feel cheated somehow. It’s just tough to satisfactorily write your way out of something like that. So I think the whole tornado thing was a mistake of convenience. (But it did allow the whole extended family to come together, which to me is the real glory of the book.) So as far as handling character and plot development, I think THE PENDERWICKS IN SPRING is better.
Leonard, first of all, welcome back. Secondly….I will have to reread PENDERWICKS before I try to take in this comparison. I can’t agree at all based at my memory. I’ll agree on “simplistic” re the Penderwicks girls, but not the Gaither’s. Predictable? Sure, by design, in a realistic way. Boring? Never. This is not a plot-driven book. The simple (not simplistic) and obviously manipulative plot device of the tornado almost feels like a relief, because we KNOW nothing else was going to get this family together under one roof except for the excellent manipulative wiles of the author.
Despite their seemingly obvious comparisons (character driven novels about sisters) these seem like radically different books to me, the PENDERWICKS depending on a bit of nostalgia, and not-quite-the-real-world suspension of disbelief that I always fail to bring to it as a reader. Until I can see what others are seeing in it I hesitate to bring things side by side myself.
Nina, I felt much the same way reading GONE CRAZY IN ALABAMA. I especially loved the balance between humor, realism and emotion. I laughed at how much the sisters bickered, and was touched at Cecile’s return. I wonder how this would read if you picked this up before reading the others in the series, but I think it would succeed as well. I am looking forward to rereading this soon and talking with students about it. For me, it was by far my favorite of the trilogy.
I’m with you, Nina. It has been on my list of books to blog about, but I admit it feels daunting to both honor the arc of the trilogy and the specifics of this one title. The relationship between the older generation sisters, the interrelatedness among those in that small rural community, the young girls’ growing awareness of how not-so-simple hard things in life are….all of it wowed me. Images have stayed with me months after reading it — sheet ironing (probably because my mother did it too), the revelations about family, the older sisters steady ornery behavior toward each other, the vividly evoked Alabama setting, the reality of complicated people being both good and bad (a theme through all three books), and so forth. I knew, come closer to Newbery season, I’d want to reread and write about this one.Thank you, Nina, for spurring me on.
It’s hard not to think about this book in relationship to the other books in this trilogy, and how good it works with the other two. The decision to radically switch settings for each book is an inspired choice, and worked well here. I listened to the audiobook version so Delphine’s voice, a strength of the book, is amplified even more by the excellent audiobook reader. Finally, the relationship dynamic between various characters, as always, is complex, nuanced, and intriguing.
This series as a whole is too character-driven for my personal tastes which means that this is a book that I would need to reread, reflect, and discuss before I could fully embrace. I can get there, but an immediate affinity doesn’t come as naturally to me as it does to Nina, Mary Ann, Monica, and others.
I loved the trilogy as a whole, but I thought this was the weakest individual title, even as I enjoyed it. The spot-on relationship between sisters just never gets old for me.
Reading Leonard’s comments about the tornado, I realized what it was that I was reacting to in this book. The tornado felt too external as a character resolution tool. It was random, rather than something driven by character action. Now granted, all of the reactions to the tornado were very character-centered, but all of this much growth, relationship change, and character movement both physically and emotionally is a direct result of something completely out of control of the people in the book. As much as I’m a plot-based reader, I was immersed in a character-driven novel, and then suddenly I had to deal with Plot moving the story forward instead of Character.
I know, I know, tornadoes ARE randomly unpredictable, and they do occur in real life and upend everyone’s lives. I will need more time to evaluate and reflect now that I have a better understanding of what wasn’t working for me, to determine whether it still bothers me, or now that I can identify it, if it sinks into the background.
“Through the trilogy readers essentially experience the story of the Great Migration in reverse”–wow! This is something I had noticed but not fully comprehended. Now it seems even more poignant and significant that the whole family ends up in Alabama by the end.
I love these books so much that sometimes it’s difficult to get critical distance from them–I felt genuinely sad when I got to the author’s note at the end and she reminded us that we were saying goodbye to the Gaither sisters. But in this particular title, I really appreciated the ways in which the complexities of enduring racism and de facto segregation in the South were shown. As a white immigrant to the South with very stereotypical expectations of what I would find, it took me years to pick up on so many of the things shown here (and I’m sure there are more I have yet to understand)–I hope Southerners and non-Southerners alike will give this book the time and discussion it deserves.
Kate, I didn’t notice this either until I reflected. To me, it’s less about the south itself than how those who came from it carried it with them and transformed it.
“To me, it’s less about the south itself than how those who came from it carried it with them and transformed it.”
This is why I really loved this one too. For me, it went beyond returning to beloved characters and the next step in their story, and into social reflection and what it means to the African American experience in that time, and showcased the multi-generational history. (…says the Yankee White Girl with no personal frame of reference) I also loved the dynamic played out by the sisters from the older generation, and the ways in which their family history was repeating itself.
Could the tornado be seen as metaphoric for that period of the Civil Rights Movement (1969) rather than plot device? or is that just too simplistic?
I can see what you are all impressed with and I can’t fault any of it. I can’t seem to get past that the first part of the book is hijacked by back-story and the lives of the adults. I found it hard to find the girls in all of it. I do see how the book illuminated the unique and complicated family structures that were a direct result of slavery. But as a reader I felt so pulled out of the present story I resented the intrusion. I’m going to need to revisit it with more tolerant eyes at some point.
While Gone Crazy in Alabama has not budged from my list of Newbery hopefuls it was one I had yet to write about on my own blog, I rectified that today and so, while not as coherent perhaps as I’d like, here’s my first 2016 blog post celebrating this fine book: https://medinger.wordpress.com/2016/01/01/rita-williams-garcias-gone-crazy-in-alabama/