Outside In
ages 10 up, 201 pages
Remember the year the outside world crashed in on you?
from the flap:
Chérie Witkowski is twelve, and she doesn't want to turn thirteen this year. This is the year, 1968, that everything –– absolutely everything –– seems to be changing. At home her parents are expecting a new baby, her mother is fixing up the house so they can sell it and move who–knows–where, and everyone is starting to tease her about the boy next door. Meanwhile her newspaper route brings the changes of the outside world crashing in on her: the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the disappearance of a girl from a few towns away –– a girl who wore braids like Chérie, who was about the same age as Chérie, who could have been Chérie.
Suddenly Chérie is scared; nothing seems safe and simple anymore. She longs for easier fears –– for playing hide–and–seek in the dark, skipping school, daredevil bike tricks…
She builds her own inside world: an elaborate elf house under a bush, complete with staircases, elevators, and carefully designed furniture.
But you can't keep the outside world away forever, especially when you're delivering the daily paper. And maybe Chérie has the strength to deal with it after all, and even to change some of the bad to good…
excerpts:
• Never before had anything changed so much in –– what? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? Here I was again, back in my bed, facing out toward the windows, looking up in the direction of the moon, so far away it looked like a face. It wasn't a face, I knew from my report, but mountains and valleys, craters made by asteroids that came zinging in from every direction. The man in the moon was just a story, not a warning story like the one about leaves on the side of the road, but a story to make you feel safe, like the hedge Mom prayed around me –– a big face smiling down.
from the reviewers:
•“Young excels at creating spunky and capable young female protagonists and at evoking family life in all its confusion. This coming–of–age story set in the turbulent '60s will appeal to middle school girls experiencing their own turmoil over change.” –– Kliatt
• “What's lovely about this fresh and compelling tale is how vibrant the characters are; Chérie isn't defined just be her quirks, nor is Aimée reduced to her fears. A rich and complicated cast of parents completes the picture. Readers will cheer when Aimée finally takes the training wheels off her bike and with each constructed addition Chérie makes to Elfland (elf–sized furniture and accoutrements for elf–sized dolls). “Everything that you are waiting for is different when it finally arrives,” muses Chérie. It's small shards of life –– a haircut, a move away, a headline –– that propel the story from April to November of that intense year. Those shards are defined always by Chérie's sweet, sharp voice, one that readers will find comfortably familiar.” –– Kirkus Reviews
from the fans:
I think that Outside In is one of the most amazing books I have ever read! I just finished pages 16 to 201 in 3 hours! I just couldn't put it down. –– Korbe
about the artwork:
In order to draw the elf furniture that appears at the beginning of each chapter, I had to build it –– that is, rebuild it, since it's all stuff I made when I was a kid. My sister Peggie and I had mouse houses, not elf houses, and we made almost everything, just as you see it here. Two of the chairs sit here at my desk –– the stick chair and the champagne chair, right in front of a television set showing the Beatles, even though the picture I drew of it shows Bozo the Clown. I found an actual plastic Ratfink on eBay, for chapter 18.
My daughter Emily, then 12, wrote the labels. In return, I added her friends' last names to the spools of thread. They're included in the dedication, too: Nicole and Kelly Fancher (chapter 2), Stacey and Tara Nathan (chapter 20), Katie Voorhees (chapter 17). I did one for my friend Dorothy Parenti, too (chapter 10). Hi Dorothy, remember me?
weird fact about this book:
Two of my mother's friends are in this book, built into Aunt Bonnie. They're Mrs. Munger and Mrs. Hughes –– two of the most creative, artistic, funny and brave people around when I was growing up. The dog is a conglomeration of two of their dogs, Squish and Faux Pas. Thanks for the name, Mrs. Hughes!
My pet count during this book:
two cats and a dog
PuttPutt, Stuart Big, and Yogi
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