Wendy Mass.  Every Soul a Star.  Little, Brown and Company Books for Young Readers, 2008.  322 pages. Age 9 to 12.

[ Well, this is long overdue, but I promised Wendy and I typically keep my word... ]

Three main characters—Ally (homeschooled campground resident who dreams of discovering a comet), Bree (image-conscious future modeling hopeful), and Jack (self-esteem challenged low-lier)—and a handful of supporting characters are thrown together unwittingly on the eve of a total solar eclipse.  But it turns out (doesn’t it just?) that they’re kindred spirits of sorts.  Kindred souls, maybe?

It seems that eclipses have a bit of a cult following (eclipse chasers, they call ’em).  I am not one of these people by nature; I have a vague memory of a partial eclipse that happened many, many years ago, and the only reason I glanced skyward at all was to feel like a badass for not shielding my eyes.  It is a great credit to Wendy Mass for not making me mind about learning things.  This is not a surprise having read A Mango-Shaped Space, though—she has a talent for seamlessly integrating factual information into her narratives, staying within the realm of relevance, as not to arouse suspicion.  Go science!

This may be a sign of my current interests and preoccupations, but one of my favorite things about this book, and it also follows from Mango, is the ambivalence toward religion.  Take this passage:

“So all you can see is this perfect circle of white streamers billowing out at you.  And it changes everything around you.  It changes you, too, on the inside. . . . Some religious folk even say it’s the Eye of God.  Could be, but all I know is it’s something to marvel at for sure.” (p. 80)

This is not saying anything bad about religious beliefs.  For all I know, it could even be in support of them.  But the validation of unknowingness is something to behold, too.

About the narration:  Sometimes equality is overrated.  While it was extremely fair to each of the main characters to give them an equal number of chapters in sequence, it sometimes broke the flow of the story to do so.  And I guess equality can be underrated, as well, because why didn’t Ryan, who is the same age as the main characters, get a chance to narrate?  Is four a crowd?  Was he not interesting enough?  His grandparents were divorcing after half a thousand years of being married.  I think that’s interesting.  Then again, I would have loved to give feisty old Stella a chance to narrate, too.

There’s one thing that bothered me—the silhouette illustration of Jack.  His character is supposed to be overweight, but the silhouette is clearly of average build.  I think it sends the wrong message, the old, tiresome media-perfection cliché.  Even if it’s a boy, maybe even especially.  That silhouette does not need to drop even ten pounds.

other reviews:
A Fuse #8 Production | The Reading Zone

Wendy Mass.  A Mango-Shaped Space.  Little, Brown and Company, 2003.  218 pages.  Age 9 to 12.

13-year-old Mia has synesthesia—a neurological condition where the brain furnishes its own sensory perceptions.  The result can be a combined sensory experience (hearing and “seeing” sounds, for example) or sensory input where it wouldn’t normally be found (such as colors associated with letters and numbers).  That’s my generalized understanding of it, anyway.  The novel contains a lot of information about synesthesia, which would be annoyingly didactic if it were a condition which the average person had some basic knowledge of.  However, if the reviews of others are any indication, a lot of people have picked this up and wondered, “syneswha?”  The information is well-placed and integrated properly, so the readers don’t get the feeling that there’s going to be a quiz at the end.

Technologically, this book feels like it should be dated circa 1998—I could actually hear the “You’ve Got Mail!” WAV file in my head.  The ill-fated first [online] romance felt authentic, but I wonder if maybe he was written off a little too quickly.  At least she didn’t end up with Duckie, though, or at least not immediately.  It would disturb the natural order of things.  Oh, he’s so cute.  I wonder why I didn’t notice it before…  What a pair, indeed.  Maybe they are perfect for each other, but this is not a book with tidy endings, much to its credit.

The hidden-in-plain-sight gem in this story is Mia’s philosophy of death.  She believes that souls “splinter”—her grandfather, for example, is partially incarnated her cat, Mango; partially dancing with his wife off in the sky somewhere; and the rest is, well, who knows?  It’s a palatable example of a nontraditional belief—sweet, inoffensive, and plausible in comparison to any other belief.  You have to wonder if she’s right (within the story).  Mango inexplicably showed up at her grandfather’s funeral, with his eyes.  That is an odd coincidence.

Quotable:

“‘When it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go.’  God’s will and all that.  We’re not a very religious family, but where death is concerned, it pays to be open-minded.”

other reviews:
Bookshelves of Doom | The Reading Zone