Fred's Book Blog: Be a Rebel.

Welcome once more to the Wednesday book blog, called the Humpback Writers, because it's Hump Day and it's stupid and I know it and so do you. Well, we've been doing it for almost a year, so we'll vote on whether to change it later in the month.

Today's book was recommended to me against my will by a fellow editor. It looks almost like a perfect depiction of a middle-school novel I would roll my orbs at. Something I wouldn't touch with a five-foot red pencil.

I absolutely loved it.

Rebel McKenzie is the story of the titular Southern girl and narrator whose determination to become a paleontologist causes her to run away from home wearing a bunch of her clothing (for ease of carry) to try to join a kids' project called the Big Dig. She fails to get very far. Rebel's tired parents decide to send her to live with her considerably older sister, Lynette, who is studying to be a hairdresser. Lynette lives in a trailer park (or as Lynette calls it, a mobile home community) with her son, Rudy. Rebel is expected to make herself useful by looking after Rudy for the summer. Rudy's father, Chuck, is off pursuing his monster-truck driving dreams while Lynette tries to keep body and soul together in the small town of Frog Level, Virginia.

And that's the start, but it's just great. It's one of the funnier books I've ever read. The characters are wonderful. Rudy is a sweet and very strange little boy, who misses his dad and eats lunch outside while talking with God.

Lynette switched on the radio. "Rudy is just an Angel Mae. You won't have a bit of trouble. But he's such a picky eater. I wish you'd get him to eat better."
     "What does he eat?" I asked. I wasn't planning on doing a lot of cooking.
     "Every morning, he has an RC float. He won't touch a crumb except hot dog spaghetti for lunch and dinner--"
     "What kind of spaghetti?"
     "It's a breeze to fix. You take cooked spaghetti and add some ketchup and a little sugar. Then fry a couple of hot dogs, cut up like pennies, you know? Stir it all up. Sometimes you can throw in a small can of peas."
     Disgusting. "That's all he eats?"
     "And cookies. You see why I'm trying to broaden his tastes." She glanced in the rearview mirror. "Put some meat on his bird bones. Ain't that right, Rudykins?"
     Rudy sat forward with his magazine. He pointed to a navy blue dress trimmed with white lace.
     "Do you like this?" he asked me. "I bet you'd look nice in it."
     I shrugged. I didn't bother much about clothes. "It's okay."
     "I'll mark the page," he said, settling back again. "This is the dress you'll be laid out in."
     "Say what?" I stared at my sister. "What in Sam Hill is he talking about?"
     "Nothing. He went to his grandmother Parsley's funeral last month and picked up some notions. That's all."

Rebel is a genuine little badass for our times, and for once I mean that in a good way. She's not out to cause trouble, but if she thinks someone is picking on Rudy she will thump him or her. She is so determined to get the money to go on a kid's camp adventure that she does the unthinkable: She enters the Miss Frog Level Volunteer Fire Department Pageant, even though she walks like a little truck driver, hasn't got a gown, and has no talents for the talent contest. Her equally talentless new friend Lacey Jane also wants to enter; so too does witchy pageant-winner Bambi Lovering, who is so talented she can play the ukulele behind her head.

Clearly our hero has her work cut out for her.

But no description of this book would be adequate without a mention of the angry, lazy, fat Doublewide the Wonder Cat:

A large, dark-brown blob perched on a rusted patio table by the front door. It unwound a whiplike tail from around dainty front paws and arched its back. The cat was shaped like a chocolate-colored basketball with a smaller ball balanced on top. His face and ears were nearly black and his coat was sleek as a seal's. [...]
     "You could use him for a footstool," I said, and Rudy laughed.
     "I could use him for a garbage disposal," Lynette said. "He eats like a Saint Bernard. I'd get rid of the big pest, but he's part of the lease. The owner moved to an apartment that doesn't allow pets."
     "How would he know if you got rid of Doublewide?" I asked.
     "That cat would probably call social services on me."

One of the things I loved about the book is that the family really is bound by genuine affection, but living is not easy. They are flat-out poor. They don't sit around complaining about it, although Rebel is pretty mad when a pricey treat of Stella D'oro cookies turns out to be dry and flavorless (striking a blow for cookie devotees everywhere). The sisters and Rudy just keep it together and work toward better days, surviving the summer heat in a kiddie pool and whipping up batches of hot dog spaghetti.

The book is also blessed with inter-chapter fun, like Rudy's cartoons and Rebel's notebook and Bambi's obnoxious beauty tips and recipes (including you-know-what!).

Candice Ransom is mostly known for authoring many nonfiction books for kids and fiction entries in publishers' series. This novel is clearly a labor of love. It should have been a best-seller and a movie, and I blame her publisher for not giving it more publicity. For what it's worth, I'm happy to give it a little in this spot.