CYBILS Review: More Important than Expected

Let me start by reassuring you that despite any initial negativity, I’m firmly in the Kate-DiCamillo-Can-Do-No-Wrong camp. 
With that said, I struggled through the first few chapters of Leroy Ninker Saddles Up. There’s nothing I love more than a well-told quirky story but I worried whether this one would really connect with its audience. You see cowboy, you think boys- who are sorely in need of early chapter books that are going to grab them from the first page, hold them until the last page, and force them to devour all the ones in between. I don’t lack smart boys, I lack boys with reading stamina. And it’s the book that needs to force them into reading, not the adult. 

So, Leroy Ninker. I work with older middle grade students so early readers and chapter books are not familiar territory for me. The framework I’ve been approaching these stories from is the perspective of that boy that I used to be. While I’ve come to recognize varying qualities of literature, right off the bat, I wasn’t dying to know what’s going to happen next to old Leroy. This all changed once Leroy went in search of his horse and meets Patty LeMarque.

Kate is fascinating author. She certainly doesn’t lack books that connect heart-to-heart with her readers. At the same time, her penchant for concocting quirky little tales has resulted in some of my favorite stories. Through the fast-talking, quick witted Patty LeMarque, all my reservations about Leroy immediately dissipated. During their exchange I at once 1) fell in love with Patty 2) understood why I should care about Leroy as a character and 3) redefined my own preconceived context for the early chapter book. 

Coming into reading early chapter books for the CYBIL Awards, I was looking for the content that I felt a majority of kids could access and consequently tear through. My early reservations surrounded whether Leroy Ninker’s audience would automatically invest in him. Once Patty implores Leroy to pay attention to the “informational bits,” and pseudo-scolds him with the phrase, “If I were you, I’d cogitate on item one right about now.” I was dazzled. 

First and foremost this is a quirky story. If it wasn’t, you couldn’t have a character like Patty that refers to Leroy as “Hank” with no further explanation. When remarking on Leroy’s height and his need for boost onto the horse, she couldn’t phrase it, “..you are kind of a short little gentleman who looks to be in need of assistance with some of life’s more overwhelming necessities.” And she certainly couldn’t- I mean there’s no way that Kate could make the word “cogitate” feel as though there truly was no other choice of vocabulary. 

Where I once saw an early chapter book that would benefit from an adult as cheating, that one encounter between Leroy and Patty taught me it was a naive assumption. Sure there will be plenty of young readers (especially those Mercy Watkins aficionados) who will be off and running with Leroy Ninker. But even more poignant, the potential this book has for adults who want to engage the audience that responds to subtle cleverness. 

Leroy’s transformation subtle transformation from mush-mouthed “insert character here” to fully realized poetic powerhouse is mirrored by Kate’s sophisticated use of language. Nothing about this story feel crowbarred in. Cogitate doesn’t require a vocabulary preview. Situationally, first it begs to be noticed and coyly, by the second time around, it begs to be understood. Once the kids investigate just how precise a feeling Kate was able to capture with that one word, it’s impossible to overlook, no matter how young the audience, the beauty of a well presented idea. Yes, we need books for emerging readers that build stamina but we also need books that build a child’s appreciation of nuance. And a weird, quirky little story certainly would have gotten my attention as a kid.