BREAKING STALIN’S NOSE, written and illustrated by Eugene Yelchin

Bibliography

Yelchin, Eugene.  Breaking Stalin’s Nose.  New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2011.  ISBN: 978-0-8050-9216-5

Plot Summary

After his father is unjustly arrested, young Sasha must rethink all he has been taught to be true about being a Young Pioneer in Stalinist Russia.

Critical Analysis

It only takes describing the events of two days in the life of Sasha, a ten year old boy living in Moscow with his father in a communal apartment, for Eugene Yelchin to adequately immerse the reader into the world of Stalin’s Russia.  While the brevity of this story and its use of illustrations may make students think this is a book for younger children, it most certainly is not.  For readers at an age (9-12 years) where they are beginning to learn that the world is not always as it seems, readers will identify with Yelchin’s realistic characters.  While some of the adult characters may seem villainous and one-dimensional (his teacher, the principal, a state security officer), it is his younger characters with which readers will best identify.  This is not coincidental.  The adults have undergone years of fear and propaganda at the hands of a totalitarian regime; this process is just beginning for the children.  While not immune to the effects of the state’s brainwashing, it is the children who are not yet too scared to see the gray areas between right and wrong while the adults see the world in a much more one-dimensional way.  And in this setting, it is often an eat or be eaten world.  Readers in this age group are also beginning to understand the difficulty when faced with the challenge of doing what is easy or what is right.  This theme is exemplified in the conflicts between students Sasha and Vovka, Vovka and Finkelstein, and in the neighbor’s deceit against Sasha and his father. It is these complex themes paired with relatable characters that grab the attention of the reader so completely.

Yelchin’s use of an overheard literature lesson on “The Nose” emphasizes another theme of the story relevant to preteens: learning to think independently.  While the teacher tries to get his students to understand that “when we blindly believe in someone else’s idea of what is right or wrong for us as individuals, sooner or later our refusal to make our own choices could lead to the collapse of the entire political system.”  Heavily influenced by their indoctrination, his students have no idea what he is talking about, and he is dismissed by Sasha as being “suspicious.”  After all, he doesn’t “use words you hear on the radio” like the other teachers.

Yelchin’s writing style produces an overall feeling of nightmarish, crippling paranoia.  This setting is essential to understanding Stalin’s rule of Russia in the 1930s and 1940s.  Details about life here are also authentic: how people dress, the sparse conditions of their living quarters, and the prevalence of uniforms and flags essential to statism.  His illustrations complement the text often in a surrealistic way that helps express how Sasha’s world is being turned upside down.  While Sasha’s future is unknown, the reader is left feeling that it may not be as bleak as his past.

Awards and Review Excerpts

2012 Newberry Honor

Booklist Top Ten Historical Fiction Book for Youth

Horn Book Best Children’s Book of the Year

• Horn Book: “This brief novel gets at the heart of a society that asks its citizens, even its children, to report on relatives and friends. Appropriately menacing illustrations by first-time novelist Yelchin add a sinister tone.”
• San Francisco Chronicle: “Black-and-white drawings march across the pages to juxtapose hope and fear, truth and tyranny, small moments and historical forces, innocence and evil.”
• School Library Journal: “Yelchin skillfully combines narrative with dramatic black-and-white illustrations to tell the story of life in the Soviet Union under Stalin.”

Connections

• Using the author’s website, have students delve further into Sasha’s world of Stalinist Russia.  They can explore Moscow in the 1930s, Sasha’s school, his communal living quarters, and Lubyanka Prison as well as other topics.  http://www.eugeneyelchinbooks.com/breakingstalinsnose/synopsis.php
• Eugene Yelchin himself lived in Soviet Russia before coming to the United States in 1983 (this book is dedicated to his father who lived under Stalin’s rule).  Have students research biographies of famous Soviet defectors before the fall of Communism (examples could include  Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin’s daughter; choreographer George Balanchine; composer Maxim Shostakovich; physicist George Gamow; tennis star Martina Navratilova; gymnast Nadia Comaneci; and actor and ballet danseur Alexander Gudunov among many others).

Personal Reflections

I really enjoyed this book, and I especially liked how thoroughly it pulls the reader into the story.  As someone who leans fairly libertarian, I found aspects of this book truly horrifying and even sensed myself feeling paranoid while reading it!  It is an excellent depiction of life in a totalitarian regime from an author who himself lived under Communist rule.

R MY NAME IS RACHEL by Patricia Reilly Giff

Bibliography

Giff, Patricia Reilly.  R My Name Is Rachel.  New York: Random House, Inc., 2012.  ISBN-13: 9780440421764

Plot Summary

Rachel’s widowed father finds work that moves their family from the big city to a small, remote town during the Great Depression.  When his initial job falls through, she and her siblings must learn to adapt and survive on their own when the only work he can find requires him to be gone for many weeks at a time.

Critical Analysis

The American Great Depression of the 1930s stole many a child’s youth.  Innocence was replaced with harsh reality, and merriment was cherished in small moments when they came along.  This experience is played out in Giff’s story of Rachel, a bright, creative girl on whom much responsibility is placed.  She is a kindhearted twelve year old girl who is not pleased when her father must take a job that moves her family away from her friends, her city, and especially her friend and mother-figure, Miss Mitzi, the owner of the local flower shop.  Readers will identify with Rachel’s frustrations with her siblings and the disappointment that comes with having few options.  But she takes Miss Mitzi’s advice that she must “look forward” to get through these difficult times.  Perseverance is a strong theme in this story.  When their father has no option other than to take a job that sends him away for long stretches of time, Rachel and her brother and sister must learn to feed and take care of themselves.  They do this by planting a garden for vegetables, raising chickens for eggs, and catching fish in the stream behind their fairly dilapidated house.  Rachel, an avid reader, is especially distressed to learn that the town has had to shut down both its library and school due to lack of funds, but a new friendship with the former school teacher proves helpful.  When the rent comes due and she learns that her sister has lost the money their father left for it, there is no one for Rachel to rely on but herself.  And she commendably rises to the challenge.  Rachel is a resourceful problem solver.  For example, when she can’t afford to buy seeds for their garden, she assists the local grocer in keeping the store clean and organized in exchange for the seeds.

Interwoven throughout the setting of the story, Giff has placed many historically accurate examples of life during the Great Depression.  A neighbor’s home has been marked by hobos to indicate that the family there is willing to share food.  Her brother is a fan of one of the fads of the time: flagpole-sitting.  Admiral Byrd’s flight over the South Pole is discussed, and hobo camps are referred to as “Hoovervilles.”  Readers will be drawn to Rachel’s realistic and likeable character.  She finds beauty in nature and draws strength from her letters both to and from Miss Mitzi.  By narrating the story completely from Rachel’s point of view, Giff adds a personal quality to the story that will engage readers and help them identify with the personal hardships endured during one of America’s darkest times.

Awards and Review Excerpts

• Children’s Literature:  “This beautifully written novel vividly depicts the hardships endured by families during the Great Depression.”
• Publishers Weekly:  “Rachel's searing, present-tense narrative exposes her fears, determination, and hopefulness in the face of wrenching challenges.”
• School Library Journal:  “Giff's depiction of the children's living conditions, daily activities, and fears and triumphs create a realistic, discussable, thoroughly enjoyable read.”

Connections

• This would be an excellent recommendation for any student new to a school or city.
• Have students write about a time when they were proud of themselves for encountering a problem and finding a solution on their own.
• Have students write about what they think they would do if they were left on their own for an extended period of time.  What would be the hardest part of such a scenario?  Who might help them? 

ELIJAH OF BUXTON by Christopher Paul Curtis

Bibliography

Curtis, Christopher Paul.  Elijah of Buxton.  New York: Scholastic Press, 2007.  ISBN: 978-0-4390-2344-3

Plot Summary

Elijah is the first free-born child in the settlement of Buxton, a haven for freed slaves in Canada just north of the Michigan border.  His story is one of humorous adventures and a dangerous chase to make amends for a mistreated friend, all of which works together to reveal his journey from childhood to maturity.

Critical Analysis

Elijah of Buxton is an excellent option for students who may be resistant to reading historical fiction.  Readers in the target age group (4^th to 7^th grade) will be so entertained by Elijah’s character and his many adventures that they won’t even realize they are learning history.  Elijah’s home of Buxton is authentically based on the actual Canadian Elgin Settlement and Buxton Mission.  Curtis creates characters that are relatable and distinctive.  For example, it doesn’t take the reader long to figure out that the Preacher is not the type of man he claims to be, a conclusion that Elijah has a more difficult time making. Elijah is quite the embodiment of an adolescent trying to adjust to that difficult time between childhood and adulthood.  He displays childish naiveté while at the same time indicating that he wants to be treated like a “grown up”.  But he is still learning, and at times in the story this becomes painfully obvious to both Elijah and the reader.  Elijah respects Mr. Leroy, partly because he doesn’t speak down to Elijah like other adults do.  But when Mr. Leroy teaches Elijah a lesson on respect due to others of his race, Elijah understands he still has a lot to learn.  Using both humor and drama, Elijah leaves behind his “fra-gile” ways of which his mother is so critical and becomes a courageous young man willing to do terribly difficult things to set things right.

Curtis’ story depicts the horrors of slavery without being too graphic for the 9-12 year old reader.  Because Elijah has never known slavery personally, he and the reader learn together as the story progresses some of the realities of slave life.  In his dialogue, Curtis’ characters speak with a dialect that is realistic without sounding demeaning.  Descriptions of the settlement are accurate to the time period: sawmills, one church, a single schoolhouse, and transportation is either by foot or by hoof.  Curtis paints a welcoming picture of a tightly-woven, friendly community that has pulled together to help all those strong enough to have made it to their settlement.

Awards and Review Excerpts

2008 Coretta Scott King Award

2008 Newbery Honor

2008 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction

• Booklist: “These scenes show an emotional range and a subtlety unusual in children's fiction.”
• Kirkus: “This is Curtis’s best novel yet, and no doubt many readers, young and old, will finish and say, ‘This is one of the best books I have ever read.’”
• Publishers Weekly: “The powerful ending is violent and unsettling, yet also manages to be uplifting.”

Connections

• Create a Readers Theater depicting the scene in which Elijah sneaks a snake into his mother’s sewing basket to encourage students to read this book.
• An important scene in the book is when Mr. Leroy reprimands Elijah for using the word “n-----.”  Have students discuss (or write about) the power of words.  Can words really hurt someone?  Can they also help or heal?  Have students give examples of how words can affect people positively.
• Give students an introduction to the plight of a runaway slave seeking freedom.  Before students read this book, read aloud to the class the historical picture book Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford.  Have students discuss the hardships of such a journey. 

Personal Reflections

This was my favorite of the three books I read for this unit.  It is written so well.  As can happen in a good horror movie, at times I wanted to shout at Elijah, “No!  Don’t go in there!” or some similar warning.  It’s an all-around great experience for a reader of any age.