Crossing Stones
Frost, H. (2009). Crossing Stones. Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR). ISBN 9780374316532
“Eighteen-year-old Muriel Jorgensen lives on one side of Crabapple Creek. Her family's closest friends, the Normans, live on the other. For as long as Muriel can remember, the families' lives have been intertwined, connected by the crossing stones that span the water. But now that Frank Norman—who Muriel is just beginning to think might be more than a friend—has enlisted to fight in World War I and her brother, Ollie, has lied about his age to join him, the future is uncertain. As Muriel tends to things at home with the help of Frank's sister, Emma, she becomes more and more fascinated by the women's suffrage movement.”
(Frost, 2009)
The poetry in this book is as beautiful in form and structure as it is in word. The characters each speak in their own poetic form as their words take shape on the page. Ollie and Emma’s cupped-hand sonnets look like stepping stones and contrast with Muriel’s free style flowing verse. Frank, a main subject for the story, lacks his own verse, which ironically speaks volumes. The story winds together themes of family, World War I, women’s suffrage, the Spanish Flu, and a young girl learning to follow her own path. The poet stays true to the chosen poetic form without disrupting the story-line to do so. The appendix for the book contains Notes on Form, and Acknowledgments. After studying these sections, I went back into the book to discover the details of craftsmanship I had overlooked during the first reading. This is truly a written and visual work of art that illuminates an important historical time period.
Book Review Excerpts:
“Eighteen-year-old Muriel, who is our primary source of information, speaks in an engaging and convincing free-verse stream-of-consciousness style. The other two young adult narrators speak in "cupped-hand sonnets," a form with a highly stylized rhyme scheme. The discipline of these forms (elaborated upon in an author's note) mitigates against sentimentality, and the distinct voices of the characters lend immediacy and crispness to a story of young people forced to grow up too fast.”
Ellis, S. (2009). [Crossing Stones]. Horn Book Magazine, 85(6), 671.
“With care and precision, Frost deftly turns plain spoken conversations and the internal monologues of her characters into stunning poems that combine to present three unique and thoughtful perspectives on war, family, love and loss. Heartbreaking yet ultimately hopeful, this is one to savor.”
Crossing Stones. (2009). Kirkus Reviews, 77(18), 204.
Connections:
- Students studying poetic form could examine examples from the book and create their own cupped-hand sonnets.
- The story follows two families through WWI. It would be a great addition to a history or social studies lesson on the subject.
Awards:
Kirkus Best Book of the Year
New Jersey Garden State Children's Book Award
CCBC Choice (Univ. of WI)
References:
This review was created as an assignment for SHSU LSSL 5360.
No comments:
Post a Comment