I Crawl Through It by A.S. King

A.S. King, why did it take me until 2015 to know you?  Weird, thoughtful, pain-provoking, you are the type of writer I love.  You make me want to dive in to help your characters.  You show me who I can’t be as a teacher and who I must be as a person.  

I crawled through it with Stanzi, Gustav, Lansdale, China, and of course, the dangerous bush man.  I knew that something was so wrong for these characters.  I knew that they were hurting.  I felt guilty and wanted to find that gland in me that would relieve that guilt.  

How many times have I ignored the signs that something was wrong?  Why did I look away instead of ask questions?  I blame it on the lifestyle that most of us live.  We are too busy to take action when we notice.  We are too self-involved to care.  It breaks my heart to know this, but I believe it is true.   

What about our schools and teachers?  Are we listening to students?  Do we care more about the right answers than the questions that have to be asked? We cannot bubble our way through life.  We have to notice our students.  We have to talk to them.  We have to let them ask questions.  We have to let them know that the answers aren’t there on the pages of a test booklet.  I Crawl Through It opened my eyes.  It made me more resolute in my vow to fight against this test-prep craziness and give kids good literary fiction so that they can safely begin to crawl through the muck of life to find the questions that help them.  I don’t want them to ever be forced to utter China’s words.  “I am a human being but nobody seems to recognize this” (p. 48).  

Thanks, Katrina Gonzales, for recommending this book.  Yes, I could not tell what was real, what was imagined, and what was figurative, but that’s life, right?  Even so, can someone please tell me about the helicopter?  Is it real; is Gustav real?  

A.S. King, help me to crawl through that one.  I cannot wait to hear how you all crawl through it and how your students crawl through it.

I Crawl Through It by A.S. King, 336 pages from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (September 22, 2015); ISBN-10: 031633409X & ISBN-13: 978-0316334099

Ideal for young adults (or those of us who care about young adults and life in general).