jueves, 11 de enero de 2018

Children confront tyrannical alligator

Blue Montgomery always loses, but he's hoping to change his fate.

Jennifer Minicus | Jan 5 2018 | comment

Tumble and Blueby Cassie Beasley
written for ages 9-12 | recommended
published in 2017 | Dial Books | 400 pages

Blue Montgomery always loses. It’s his “fate”. Everyone in his family has a “fate” – either good or bad. It dates back to 1817 when one of his ancestors faced the golden alligator of the Okefenokee swamp to ask for good luck. He wasn’t the only person there that night – so they split the wish knowing that half of their descendants would suffer as a result.

Blue’s father always wins – except at parenting. He leaves Blue at Granny Eve’s to pursue his racing career. Blue is despondent, until he meets Tumble. Tumble is a budding hero. She has read Maximal Star’s self-help book, How to Hero Every Day multiple times, determined to make a difference in someone’s life. What Tumble doesn’t know is that she has a bad “fate” too.

Doomed to fail, Tumble and Blue forge a friendship based on empathy and loyalty. A series of mishaps inspires them to question the status quo. When they realize that their “fates” are intertwined, they decide to do the unthinkable: to find the swamp alligator and ask him to change their lives and that of their families.

Like her bestseller Circus Mirandus, Cassie Beasley’s latest novel highlights the importance of family and the unconditional love one should find there. Blue discovers the affection of cousins he did not know he had and experiences the allegiance of familial ties. At the same time, Tumble proves to be a big-hearted girl who never thinks of herself. While the two have a track record of failure, they succeed at friendship, proving that a sacrifice done for love is more powerful than any evil.

Jennifer Minicus is a teacher living in Ridgewood, NJ.

We’re back, after a long and refreshing Christmas break! Happy New Year!

Here at MercatorNet we are gearing up for lots of challenges, not least the threat to legal, political and social freedoms posed by same-sex marriage. There will be plenty to talk about in the months ahead.

But today’s lead article is on surrogacy. Valerie Hudson, a well-known political scientist from Texas A&M, argues that the best scientific evidence is that a gestational surrogate’s bond with a child, even if she has no genetic connection, “is qualitatively and measurably stronger than the bond between sperm donor and child”. It is simply not true that surrogate mother is just an “incubator” or an “oven”. If this is correct, arguments for legalising commercial surrogacy to supply gay couples with children are in danger of collapsing.