Raymie Nightingale

I never intended to take a summer break from my blog, but it happened.  Family vacations, manuscript writing, teacher training, and a new job jumped right in the middle of blog writing.  With each week that passed, I missed writing the blog posts greatly.  I realized this summer that I write the blog for me.  I love to put into words what I feel after reading a book.  The great side benefit is if teachers, kids, and my students read it (and maybe even write back).

 

Don’t get me wrong.  I was still reading during my blog’s resting period.  No family vacation, manuscript, training, or job could get in the way of reading.  It is part of what helps me to breath each day and sleep at night.  What have I been reading?  Well, I finished The Testing series, All Fall Down by Ally Carter, started the second in the Embassy Row series, and am working my way through the Harry Potter series for the fifth…sixth…oh, I cannot remember…time.  I swore to myself that I would not read The Cursed Child until I finished the series again.  It is really killing me too because both of my kids have read the new book, and they are dying to talk about it with me.  I also read Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo.  And, Raymie is the real topic of this blog.

I could not wait to read this book, and after reading it, I am so glad that DiCamillo wrote it.  My favorite of all of DiCamillo’s books has always been Because of Winn-Dixie.  I love all of her others, but I have been waiting for another that reminded me of my favorite, and Raymie is it.

This is a beautiful piece of contemporary realistic fiction.  It is a story about a young girl whose father has just left the family for another woman.  Raymie desperately wants him to notice her, to think that she is important, so she sets out to learn how to twirl a baton so that she can win a local pageant.  She is convinced that if she wins, she will get her picture in the paper, and her dad will come back to her.  

Do you see what I mean?  That is classic DiCamillo.  Just hearing about what Raymie intends to do makes your stomach drop; doesn’t it?  It is sad.  As a reader, you know that this is not the way life works, and it is hard to watch Raymie so desperately trying to change the complexity of the adult world around her.  

But, also classic to DiCamillo is that there is humor.  From Louisiana and Granny to the crazy shenanigans at the Golden Glenn Nursing Home to the unorthodox baton lessons to the runaway grocery cart, the humor is woven intricately into the sadness.  I have always felt that DiCamillo’s writing is so skillful because just when she gets me laughing and I forget about the sadness, she punches me in the gut with a reminder of abandonment, poverty, death, and abuse.  All of which you will find in this book.

So, yes, parts of it are sad.  Parts of it are very funny.  That is life; isn’t it?  That is why this book is so great.  It is a must-read for teachers and for students in upper elementary and lower middle school.  I think it would make a great read aloud and lend itself to some very thoughtful, and probably tear-filled, discussions.  So many of our students carry the pain that Raymie holds.  Raymie works through her pain; maybe this book is a place for them to begin to work through theirs.   

Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo, 263 pages from Candlewick Press (2016). ISBN # 978-0-7636-8117-3

Ideal for elementary and early middle readers (and many adults who have been abandoned too)