Raymie Nightingale
Well, I kind of put my foot in my mouth last time around when I declared that FLORA & ULYSSES was my least favorite DiCamillo novel (or perhaps I even said it was her worst–I can’t quite remember). Of course, then she went on to win her second Newbery Medal several months later. DiCamillo’s “worst” novel is still better than many writer’s best novel, and every single one of them has been in the Newbery conversation. Then, too, I think an appreciation of the book’s humor was key to finding it most distinguished, and it just didn’t work for me on that level. This, coupled with not rereading the book and discussing the book with child readers, led me to underestimate the book. Anyway, on to RAYMIE NIGHTINGALE.
While DiCamillo’s writing is easy to recognize because of its stylistic qualities, and her recurring themes are also familiar, she really doesn’t recycle her storytelling elements (plot, setting, character) the way some other writers do. BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE, THE TIGER RISING, THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX, THE MYSTERIOUS JOURNEY OF EDWARD TULANE, THE MAGICIAN’S ELEPHANT, and FLORA & ULYSSES, are obviously the work of the same writer, but they are not predictable and formulaic stories. RAYMIE NIGHTINGALE is the book that many of her fans have been waiting for her to write since BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE because it revisits familiar territory. Like her first book, we have a vulnerable young girl in a Sourthern setting, and a semi-autobiographical vibe.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
I was impressed by all of the literary elements here, and only vaguely remember thinking there was something slightly dissatisfying with the middle of the plot–perhaps it was too episodic for my tastes or I didn’t buy the credibility of something or other. In any case, I really can’t remember, and I’m not sure I could chalk it up to anything more than personal taste.
I know I sound like a broken record, but if you asked me to pick between PAX, BOOKED, THE WILD ROBOT, and RAYMIE right now, I’d just be playing favorites. I need to reread them all with an eye specifically toward the Newbery criteria. And I especially need to reread RAYMIE without thinking, “This isn’t as good as THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX!” because it clearly doesn’t have to be; it just has to be more distinguished than the other books published this year. No author has ever won the Newbery Medal more than twice, but my money is on DiCamillo to get a third. If not for this book, than for another one. She’s got a lot of novels left in her (not to mention picture books, easy readers, and transitional chapter books). If this particular one does not pass muster, then it’s likely some other book of hers will. (And, yes, I know the real committee won’t be discussing this, but I just can’t help myself.)
Filed under: Uncategorized
About Jonathan Hunt
Jonathan Hunt is the Coordinator of Library Media Services at the San Diego County Office of Education. He served on the 2006 Newbery committee, and has also judged the Caldecott Medal, the Printz Award, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. You can reach him at hunt_yellow@yahoo.com
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
SLJ Blog Network
Something for the Radar: DOG MAN Animated Film Coming in January
On Writing Memoir and NOT Autobiography: A Ruth Chan Q&A on Uprooted
Lion Dancers | Review
Talking with the Class of ’99 about Censorship at their School
Take Five: New Middle Grade Books in September
ADVERTISEMENT
I appreciated this one much more when I listened to it a few months after reading it. I honestly hadn’t remembered a lot of what happened. Maybe I read it too quickly? Part of why I loved the audiobook was the gentle southern accents — I hadn’t used southern accents in my head when I read the book. The voices used fit the characters of the people involved.
Kate DiCamillo is especially good with characters — and these ones really shone. I do think that hearing them with appropriate southern accents helped me realize that.
Raymie Nightingale is high on my shortlist. I went into the book skeptically–trying not to pass approval just because of DiCamillo’s track record of awesome. However as I read I marveled. Yes, it is vintage DiCamillo–quirky characters with surprising names. A soulful main character who yearns for what she cannot reach. However, as Jonathan said, we cannot discount this book because it resembles DiCamillo’s past work. We have to consider this book on its own merits without comparison to past titles. On it’s own merits, I believe it stands very well.
I think the setting is memorable and real. I can feel the heat of this small town summer. I can visualize the insurance agency office and the baton trophies in the Ida Nee’s office. I can almost smell the Elefante’s decrepit station wagon with the decorative wood paneling. The empty house with no electricity and the tuna cans? The Very Friendly Animal Shelter? Even though I read this book when it was released last spring, the setting remains distinguished in my memory
The ensemble cast of characters are all lovable and broken in their own ways, but of course it is Raymie whose aching journey compels me most. I marvel at the way DiCamillo can make me care for these eclectic, winsome characters in the space of just a few chapters. How does she do it? Even Beverly, the Rizzo of the Three Rancheros, has me wrapped around her baton twirling finger.
I made note of particularly deft passages that I think are worth noting as we discuss the language:
“She took Raymie’s hand and led her up a flight of stairs and into a room where the floor was polished and shining so brightly that it didn’t look like a floor at all. It looked like a lake. Raymie’s heart thudded and skipped. She had the feeling that she was going to understand things, finally, at last. She had this feeling often, that some truth was going to be revealed to her. . . But so far, the feeling had never really panned out. The truth had never revealed itself. But maybe this time would be different. The room expanded. The brightness got brighter. Rayme thought about safecracking and sabotaging and the Flying Elefantes. She thought about her father sitting in the diner with Lee Ann Dickerson. She thought about Edgar the drowning dummy and the gigantic seabirds with wings like angels. She thought about all the things she didn’t understand but wanted to. And then the sun went behind a cloud and the lake turned back into a floor. (p. 60-62)
I love Dicamillo’s recurring use of light as a metaphor. The bare light bulb swaying. The sunlight reflecting on the polished floor. The light shining into the jar of candy corn. To me it represents Raymie’s never ending search for meaning and understanding. She catches glimmers of what she seeks but it never quite makes everything clear. “The single light bulb swaying back and forth. It wasn’t bright enough at all. The light bulb was too small for that terrible dark room. There wasn’t enough light anywhere, really.” p. 181
“How long are you supposed to wait? How long should you wait? When do you stop waiting? Tell me, why does the world exist?” p 167
Now as I sit here remembering this book, I am amazed all over again. I need to read it again. Do my first reactions hold-up? I will be interested to hear the criticisms you all bring to the conversation. I know my colleague, who is part of my Newbery Club, had some misgivings. I have encouraged her to post her thoughts here. One flaw I felt was that the school librarian was not as developed as I wish he was. It seemed that he was important to Raymie, but we don’t see why he is important quite enough. Again, I think I should re-read for more detail on his character. I am looking forward to this discussion!
RAYMIE is fresh in my mind because I just finished it for the first time through the other night. I’m glad you posted this because it’s making me look at certain components of the book differently now.
One thing I thought DiCamillo succeeded at was making the reader feel the sadness that surrounded these three poor little girls. I kept trying to picture these three in my classroom. Their lives are sad. So profoundly sad. I picture them as three lonely outcasts who just happened to find themselves this summer and form a friendship. I’m not sure how long this friendship will last because their lives seem so unstable and out of their control. I can’t picture them relating to anyone else their age, which is why they relate to each other so well. So there is a sweetness there, in their relationship, but ultimately, I just feel sadness for them. In this, DiCamillo succeeded.
However, then Louisiana wins the pageant at the end, which I thought was horribly unrealistic, and I felt like the sadness DiCamillo so successfully crafted, was cheapened a bit, for the sake of a “happy ending.”
Here is my problem with RAYMIE NIGHTINGALE in a nutshell:
“I’ll rescue him and that will be my good deed for the Little Miss Central Florida Tire 1975 contest, and my other good deed will be that I will help you get the book back. Also, I’ll stop stealing canned goods with Granny.” — Louisiana Elefante
“Those gigantic seabirds, they keep what they take. Also, they steal buttons.” — Mrs. Borkowski
“My father, my real father, was a man of great humanity and intelligence,” said William Spiver. “Also, he had delicate feet.” (from FLORA AND ULYSSES)
“Loneliness makes us do terrible things,” said Dr. Meescham.” “And that is why the picture is there, to remind me of this. Also, because the other Dr. Meescham painted it when he was young and joyful.” (from FLORA AND ULYSSES)
I’ve read some people, including Kate DiCamillo herself, claim that each of her books is very different from the others. I respectfully disagree. When such four supposedly disparate characters all speak in the same distinctive and peculiar way, it becomes fairly clear to me that Kate DiCamillo doesn’t really write characters, rather vehicles for her own very personal and often luminous writing style and authorial voice. This is not clearly an asset for me. I bring up the lines from FLORA AND ULYSSES not, of course, to compare it to RAYMIE NIGHTINGALE, but to suggest that the variety within a single Kate DiCamillo book such as RAYMIE NIGHTINGALE is arguably not organically born of engagement with the particular characters and setting and plot at hand, but perhaps more superficial trappings atop what is in fact a very consistent and no longer novel core.
Leonard, my problem with RAYMIE, in a nutshell, is that it was boring.
The three girls were quirky in an unrealistic way to me. In fact, every character in the novel was quirky in an unrealistic way. It was hard to tell each apart because they were all so similarly quirky, even the adults.
DiCamillo is a great writer. Some sentences when isolated are beautiful. But the story as a whole was a far cry from being distinguished. I had a hard time pulling out any meaning or theme. But DiCamillo has her followers so I don’t doubt that some will argue this one.
Leonard, I, too find authorial tics such as the style DiCamillo uses in the works of some of my favorite writers. In particular, her use of “Also,” as you pointed out, can be simultaneously comforting and grating…to the adult reader. But I wonder if kids mind? I think most kids would lean way toward the comforting end of that spectrum, rather than grating.
I concur, Brenda. Each of my students who have read this book have reported to me that they LOVE it. I do think they are pre-disposed to enjoy DiCamillo’s works but the use of redundant sentence structure has not deterred them. I will have more student input to report after my Newbery club gets around to discussing this one.
Just because the redundant sentences don’t deter them doesn’t mean the writing is distinguished though. This is where that popularity issue comes into play. We as adults, will spot that stuff in writing easier than kids will. Right?
The only way I see the redundancy in character voices being ok, is if someone were to argue that DiCamillo purposefully wrote the characters that way BECAUSE of her intended audience, with children in mind. But if child readers are going to ponder life’s sadness to the extent that Raymie and Rancheros do, then I think they could handle a little more variety in character voices. I’m not sure that kids not recognizing it, should forgive it. That shows DiCamillo bias, in my opinion. We’re letting her off the hook.
I agree with Mr H. My interpretation of the Newbery criteria is that a Newbery book must be found great by both adults (on the basis of “literary excellence”, criterion 1a) and children (“excellence of presentation”, criterion 1b).
There are many books of which one could say, “that was my favorite book as a kid, but now I realize it wasn’t that good.” These are not Newbery books to me. So I am not really swayed by the, “children won’t recognize this as a flaw” argument.
Of course a book that only an adult would think is great is not a Newbery book either. (And I think that’s why we’re not saving time and just declaring WOLF HOLLOW the winner – because this is not clear).
A couple years ago, in response to Nina Lindsay’s query, what defines a Newbery book? I answered, essentially, you don’t outgrow your love of a Newbery book — you love it as a child; you love it as an adult. I still stand by that.
Excellent criteria, Leonard – agree 100%!!
Laura Amy Schlitz, via Adam Gidwitz, says what I’ve tried to say, but far better.
“Some children’s books are like children’s shoes: they fit children perfectly, but they don’t fit adults, and in time children outgrow them. ‘Where the Wild Things Are,’ on the other hand, is literature. It has breadth and depth, and it’s beautifully illustrated and cadenced. I’ve read it hundreds of times to children, and every now and then I take it out and read it to myself. I never grow tired of it.”
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-goosebumps-conundrum-what-makes-a-childrens-book-good
I was so underwhelmed with this novel, which surprised me. While an occasional line made me laugh out loud or admire its beauty, overall the writing felt arch and self-conscious to me. I felt the author’s hand at every moment. And none of the characters rang true to me, not their voices nor their actions. I am a character- and language-driven reader, aspects that this book seemed as if it would have in spades, but it just left me cold. I’m in a book group of children’s editors and librarians, and we all had pretty much this same reaction, but clearly many others in the kids’ lit community adore Raymie. I’d be so interested to hear from those of you who were impressed with it why the language and characters worked for you.
Finally, finally a discussion of what doesn’t work in RAYMIE; I’d gotten so tired of the praise-fest. I too am a huge fan of DiCamillo’s early work and have been underwhelmed of late. FLORA winning the Newbery only highlighted for me the disconnect between the committee and the readers. Same now with RAYMIE. It’s disappointing, at best, with a thin plot and precious characters that hardly feel real much less relatable. The central tension is a tired one and the ending leaves more questions than answers. No doubt Camillo is hugely talented, but we have to stop treating our favourite authors as untouchable and demand the greatness of which we know they are capable.
The characters are strong – I could imagine each individual’s reaction to something (though sometimes this broke down to almost trope-like depictions: Beverly as the tough, jaded kid of divorce, Louisiana the impossibly naive manic pixie girl, Mrs. Borkowski as the the quirky, feisty old lady.)
The setting is very well realized. It felt like central Flordia, 1975. Having been scared to death in a nursing home at roughly the same age, that felt very real.
The foreshadowing of Raymie needing to use her life saving skills was a little heavy-handed. I knew that someone was going to be in a drowning situation sooner or later and that Raymie would save them. I had started waiting for it, for which made that part of the story significantly less dramatic. (It also seemed a bit clumsy, like the course of the story had been specifically manipulated just to allow Raymie to use her skills.)
The constant discussion of flexing toes and description of Raymie’s soul became tiring after awhile. A handful of times and it’d have meaning, symbolism and resonance, but repeated over and over it lost some of its impact and became an obvious literary device instead of a magical moment.
One small point in response to some of the character criticism above: I actually thought the real/relatable emotions were the strongest aspect of the novel. The setting/plot/circumstances all seemed somewhat unlikely to me (or if not unlikely, at least not personally relatable), but I didn’t mind that. The kinds of questions Raymie poses and the way feelings are described rang true to me in a way that *I think* reflects my child self and not only my adult self thinking about my child self. I know a lot of kids have read it too, but we haven’t had discussions about it yet — we will next week and maybe I’ll have more to say then.
Now I don’t feel like such a misfit!! This one left me cold – though usually a fan of DiCamillo, and despite two readings and listening to the audio version, I could not love this one. The characters did seem to be too precious, the plot seemed forced and the ending totally unsatisfying. I so agree with the above criticisms and did not find this title distinguished.
I love Kate DiCamillo’s work. She has always been one of my favorite authors since I was young. I absolutely adored Flora and Ulysses because of it’s whimsical qualities so reminiscent of Because of Winn Dixie.
Unfortunately, I fall in the category of being underwhelmed by RAYMIE, though I’m not sure I could ever say any of her work is not distinguished. It just felt like something was missing, and I haven’t really put my finger on what it is yet – though in a previous discussion, I think we narrowed it down to the lack of furry creatures so prevalent in her work. But, alas, lack of animals in not one of the criteria for Newbery selection. 🙂
DiCamillo has such a distinct style, it’s hard not to recognize the similarities in sentence structure and language across her body of work. I agree with Leonard – the redundancy takes something away from the voice and authenticity of her characters – especially if you’re familiar with her work. But I also think this same critique could be brought against several authors we’ll be discussing this year – Kwame Alexander comes to mind. His style is so unique you really can’t help but recognize similarities between his characters, but we can’t really compare RAYMIE or BOOKED to their predecessors. So, this argument loses some heft when we only look at character distinction within the novels themselves.
Also, isn’t this is why authors become as renowned as DiCamillo? I always return to her stories because I know how beautifully her words are read aloud. I know that with each book, she’ll touch on heavy themes with a magically gentle touch that children will adore. There is something to be said about familiarity and comfort, especially when it comes to books for children.
I would say Josh and Nick are broadly similar “types” and thus it doesn’t bother me so much that they may “sound” similar in Kwame Alexander’s books. Whereas, I don’t see any reason why Louisiana and Mrs. Borkowski should (and they inhabit the same book, so I think the criticism is applicable.)
Although, thinking about Sondy’s comment above, perhaps the similarity could be explained as “southern” expression? I’m sure there are regionally distinctive uses of sentence structures etc. and RAYMIE NIGHTINGALE does have a very specific setting. I don’t know if I would really buy this argument, but thought I’d toss it out there.
I really enjoyed the book; it’s my favorite of hers since Because of Winn Dixie. While I did have a few quibbles, they weren’t stylistic issues like the ones people are raising here, but dropped plot lines and characters–like Isabelle of the nursing home, and the bird that Louisiana “liberates” from the janitor’s office. I felt like the first two-thirds of the book were really tight (in a Kate DiCamillo-ish way), then things start to dissipate toward the end plotwise–though I did LOVE the way the lessons from the swimming teacher figure into the climax.