It's time to tackle the BOB books again, which can be great fun. BOB is what I call the Battle of the Books competition we have at school. BOB is a great concept for middle school, and really sucks kids into reading for pleasure. The way it works is pretty easy. Right away in the fall, the year's sixteen selected books are listed, and any kid that wants to do BOB dives in and starts reading. Then, come closer to spring, the kids will form their own competition teams of four. We have a bit of training around March for the kids, followed by a school-wide quiz competition. Then the top two teams get to go on to the city-wide competition. Prizes and everything, including a travelling trophy (currently at our school, so we'll host this year's city battle). The kids have fun, the grownups have fun, and it's just a great thing to be a part of when you love reading as much as I do. So, I mentor teams for the competitions, help judge and scorekeep the school battle, and I have a blast.
This year's books so far have been great. I've read nearly half the list of sixteen already. I don't think there will be a clunker in the bunch that I can't bring myself to finish, either (unlike last year, where I ditched Christopher Paolini's Eldest after about a dozen pages). There is a certain richness in young adult fiction, and when it gets a person to care and seek out more info or perspective, I think it's very valuable indeed. The latest book to do this to me was one of this year's BOB books ~ an historical fiction novel by Mary Jane Auch called Ashes of Roses. The book follows the journey of a sixteen year-old girl named Rose through Ellis Island to New York. Her father and brother were not allowed into the country, due to the brother's eye disease, so Rose, her mother, and sisters end up staying with an uncle, until hospitality wears thin and tempers flare. Eventually, Rose's mother heads back to Ireland, and Rose and her sister choose to stay in America to make their own way. This would be a rich enough, engaging story in itself, but it's only the beginning. Ashes of Roses is indeed a dual title with much deeper meaning. For Rose, with her one good dress made from a fabric called ashes of roses, ends up working at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Fire is a strong theme in this book, from Rose's spitfire nature to the tragic historical fire that claimed 146 lives in March of 1911. This is a book that delivers, with strong, believable characters, superb attention to detail, and will leave the reader changed. Of the various historical fiction books I've read on the young adult level, this is the one that sticks with me most. It is a very satisfying read.
Of course, Ashes of Roses led me off on side tangents to the internet and Google, from looking up Ellis Island info and pictures to info on the diseases that kept immigrants out, splitting up families. It also led me to spend a little time looking up the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire itself. Before my only background was the usual sketchy paragraph from US History texts, which kept it basic (tragic sweatshop fire, locked in, led to labor reform), but left out the human element.
It also led me to pick up another book on my stuff to seek out list, a recent book that I'd heard of about a month before I read Ashes of Roses. This second book is an adult novel called Triangle, by Katherine Weber. This one's also historical fiction, and concerns itself with the story of Esther, the last living survivor of the Triangle Fire, her subsequent death, the secrets that she held, and her recollections of working at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory and of the fire itself. The passages recounting the fire are particularly engaging, and parts of it left me breathless. It's more detailed than Ashes of Roses, and paints a stronger picture of the fire. But it's not just one character's story. The bulk of Triangle settles around Esther's granddaughter and her search for the truth about her grandmother and the fire. Because of this, it's told in a flashback kind of sequencing, which also involves the granddaughter's musical genius boyfriend (the focus on him in the first chapter gives it a slow start) and an annoying feminist researcher (that I couldn't bring myself to care about). The attempt to work the triangle in as a motif throughout, from the music to the factory and so on is a bit much at times. I'm glad I read Triangle, especially coming right off the other book. It really is a neat book, with a neat concept. I think it makes for a richer understanding of the fire and its human element. But I think doughnut for doughnut Ashes of Roses was a much more satisfying read overall.
