I put the wrong label on The Spy Catchers of Maple Hill by
Megan Frazer Blakemore.
In bookstores, adult books are separated by genre. This is
fine. And it’s fine in the adult sections of libraries. But most of us don’t do
that in the children’s section because we don’t want to limit what our kids read.
If you group all the mysteries and separate them from the pack, you’re already
telling some kids, oh, you don’t want to read these! Instead, we want kids to
browse the stacks. We want them to make discoveries.
Sometimes, though, they are assigned a type of book (historical
fiction or mystery or science fiction) to read and report on. And, so, to make
life easier in those cases, we (children’s librarians) have little genre stickers
for book spines. I like to get the genre right.
On the title page verso (fancy name for the page that has
publisher’s info), publishers will often do some cataloging and list the book’s
subjects. The good people at Bloomsbury Children’s Books gave The Spy Catchers
of Maple Hill several subject headings and the first is “Mystery and detective
stories.” So I put a mystery label on the spine. But, alas, I’ve read the book
and it’s not a mystery at all. Today I covered up the mystery sticker (it’s a
devil to peel off one of these stickers once they’re stuck) with historical
fiction and I feel better.
The Spy Catchers is a good book. It takes place in 1953 in a
small Vermont town. Hazel Kaplansky, the protagonist, is described by some as “relentless”
and “a little spitfire,” but she’s lonely. An outcast at her school because her
parents run the local cemetery and she plays there most afternoons (even
talking to the monuments), she’s also a bit of an outcast at home because her
parents don’t seem to pay much attention to her. Oh, she’s also the smartest girl in her class
and loves the library, which just adds to her differentness. When Randall
Butler moves to town and outdoes her in class she fears the one thing that kept
her happy in school – being brighter than everyone else – will disappear.
Instead, though, she and Randall become best friends.
Randall is lonely too. Over the course of the novel we find out that he was
taken away from his mother and sent to live with his grandmother because his
mother is an alcoholic. She also never married Randall’s father, who died
during World War II.
Some might compare spunky Hazel to Ramona or, as many
reviewers did, Harriet the Spy. She’s also a bit like Jane Austen’s Emma in her
inability to see past her own nose, while thinking she does. For most of the
novel, Hazel is sure she has stumbled upon a communist spy ring. When
McCarthyism rears its ugly head in the town, Hazel is doubly certain she is
right. She’s not, of course.
I like the way Blakemore has packed so much into this narrative:
lonely children, mean girls, friendship, the way lies and rumors can hurt
people, the Cold War, and even the changing roles of women (Hazel’s mom was
going to go to graduate school, but she couldn’t have a career and a child and
chose to be a mom). And none of it seems forced. I think it’s because Hazel is
likeable and often funny. There’s no didacticism and that is always a plus in a
children’s novel. (For kids in 4th-6th grades.)
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