Richie's Picks: Great Books for Children and Young Adults

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"I saw so many things I barely recognized
I thought that I was lost but then I saw you.
I could be wrong, but I swear
That I knew you in another life.
And I could be dreaming, but I swear
That I knew you in another life." -- Todd Rundgren

"...I pack snow into the dog pot. Dad gets a good fire going
in the oil-drum stove. He loves these dogs like I do. We're
both out here on weekends, as much as we can be, and every
day before and after school. He loves Roxy most. Willow, go
get the pliers, he say, showing me a quill in Roxy's foot..."

Willow, the young protagonist of DIAMOND WILLOW, takes delight in and is truly at one with her family's dogs. I never seem to lose pleasure in reading great girl-and-her-dog coming of age stories, and DIAMOND WILLOW certainly is that. As twelve year-old Willow embarks upon her first solo dogsled journey -- a visit to her wonderful and understanding grandparents -- she and her dogs are being lovingly watched over by the animals of the interior Alaska woodlands. Many of those animals are inhabited by spirits of Willow's Athapascan ancestors. But, as Willow is returning home, tragedy strikes:

Jean, Willow's great-great-great grandmother (Spruce Hen)

"...At the bottom of this hill, just around the curve, a dead tree fell across the trail, not too long after Willow's father went past this morning. Broken limbs are sticking out all over it.
"If she were coming from the other direction, she'd see it in time to stop. But from this direction, at the speed she's going, Willow won't have time to stop her dogs."

The effects of the accident, and her belief that her parents are preparing to make a terrible mistake, will cause Willow to subsequently decide that she must take a second, even more perilous dogsled journey, this time into a dangerous snow storm.

Helen Frost, who wrote the pieces of her Printz Honor Book KEESHA'S HOUSE in the form of sestinas and sonnets, utilizes a unique poetry form for DIAMOND WILLOW. The vast majority of the book is made up of the diamond-shaped poems which are from Willow's point of view. Augmenting the poems are occasional one- or two-page prose pieces featuring the voices of Willow's ancestors in animal form.

As Frost explains in her author's note:

"Most of the story is told in diamond-shaped poems, with a hidden message printed in darker ink at the center of each one. I got this idea from a lamp and a walking stick, both made with diamond willow...Some people think that diamond willow is a specific type of willow, like weeping willow or pussy willow, but it is not. The diamonds form on several different kinds of shrub willows when a branch is injured and falls away. The dark center of each diamond is the scar of the missing branch. The scars, and the diamonds that form around them, give diamond willow its beauty, and gave me the idea for my story."

As it takes us gliding along on a dogsled with Willow into the depths of the snowy Alaskan interior, DIAMOND WILLOW illustrates oneness, forgiveness, joyfulness, and how a child can sometimes teach her parents well.

Richie Partington, MLIS
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