More than okay

Not a very good cover. We'll say it's "okay."

Okay for Now

by Gary Schmidt

[#45 in my 52 book challenge]

You’ve heard it here…this book is going to snag the Newberry for 2012. It’s that amazing.

I grinned. I cried. I grinned some more. Then I sobbed.

A couple of years back, I read The Wednesday Wars, Schmidt’s other novel (which won the Newberry Honor in 2008). It was a good little book about a kid named Holling Hoodhood and his experiences during the 1967/1968 school year in Long Island, New York. Okay For Now takes one of the bit characters from Wednesday Wars, Doug Sweiteck, and gives him a story of his own during the 1968/1969 school year in “stupid” Marysville, New York.

This story is a much darker than Wednesday Wars, as Doug and his family have some real problems. I’ve read a lot of literature, and I have to say that Doug’s father is one of the most vile human beings I’ve ever met in a book. Not quite as vile as Lord Voldemort…but close. There is a scene where Doug’s father does something truly awful to him, which sealed the deal on my feelings. The scene isn’t inappropriate for kids, but it was completely unexpected and made me gasp. I literally sat with my mouth open for several minutes just trying to process such an evil act and the effect it must have had on Doug.

Schmidt’s story telling has a unique voice and he is a superb writer, which is what makes this story great. Doug sometimes hides facts from the reader, but he is sincere and it is easy to root for him. He’s a good guy, resilient and suprisingly good-natured, despite all the crap he has experienced in his life. His teachers and other adults in his life see past the tough-guy exterior and really try to help him out, which made me grin ear-to-ear with happiness because Doug soooo needed such good people around him. The plot itself, like Wednesday Wars, is episodic, detailing the events of Doug’s year while also dropping historical tidbits about the Vietnam War and the increasing anticipation about astronauts walking on the moon. Doug learns to navigate a delivery route, survives gym class, learns to draw, helps his English teacher with a reading program, babysits, enters a quiz competition, welcomes his brother back from Vietnam, and “screams like a woman who has been locked in an attic for a great many years” in a broadway play. Normally I find books with this type of plot structure very dull, but this one is so well written that I just loved it.

Arctic Tern by John James Audubon -- discussed heavily in this book.

One of my favorite things about Schmidt’s novels is his use of repetition. He’ll take a phrase and use it over and over. In Okay For Now, these phrases included:

• scream like a woman who had been locked in an attic for a great many years
• stupid Marysville
• stupid puffins
• so-called gym teacher
• And I’m not lyin’
• Terrific.
• Did I tell you she has beautiful, green eyes?
• Do you know how that feels?
• Typing faster, never stopping.

Each chapter is introduced with a plate from John James Audubon’s Birds in America. I can’t say I have any interest in birds. Or bird drawings. But Schmidt used these as a pivotal part of his story, and I couldn’t help but learn to appreciate them. I also learned quite a bit about horseshoes. Like The Wednesday Wars made Shakespeare more accessible to readers, Okay for Now made Audubon’s art more accessible. I learned a thing or two, that’s for sure.

And I’m not lyin’.

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