Part I: Bibliographic information
Type: Fiction
Title: Black Helicopters
Writer: Blythe Woolston
Copyright Date: 2013
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 9780763661465
Genre/subgenre: YA Fiction/Dystopian, Survival
Interest Age: 13+
Reading Level: Upper Grades (UG 9-12)
Pages: 166
Part I: Reader’s Annotation, Plot Summary, Critical Evaluation
Reader’s Annotation -- A young girl raised in a family of anti-government militants finds herself in the role of delivering the explosive devices that her father and brother build. When the compound is destroyed, she and her brother are forced to survive on next to nothing outside of the system by which they are wanted as criminals.
Plot Summary -- The book opens in an unnamed place where a family lives off the grid hiding from authorities who seek to capture if not kill them. The father of the family -- or Da -- orchestrates a meager existence using canned foods from a garden they once had, only going out at night and not using lights and keeping weapons around to defend themselves in case of a raid. The whole family fears the government will come to kill them at any moment. And, their fears are valid as they government has killed their mother. She was the key to keeping the family fed as she grew the garden and canned the harvest.
The narrator is a young girl in this family, and she explains the everyday life within their compound, including how her father teaches her how to read and play chess. She also formulates a crude understanding of her own role in his plans that involve making bombs to hurt enemies and carry out militant attacks. She learns other practical survival skills from her dad and brother, both of whom dictate what is going to happen next in their lives. The father makes explosive devices for customers. On one occasion, he uses the girl to deliver the package to a judge whose political ideas their group disagrees with. Later there are plans for her to delivers some kind of big message in the form of an explosive device and she is brainwashed to think of this as her main purpose in life.
Later the father is killed in a raid while they are away from the compound. The cannot go back and are left with very little to survive off. However, the father had a plan in case of this scenario and this involved a van that is equipped for survival. He also leaves then instructions. This involves going to another extremist compound and they managed to find themselves to the location. However, the man in charge there is a really awful human being. He exploits the boy by forcing him to work and keeping all of the wages. The girl gets the worst of it, however, as she is molested over a period of time while her brother is away. They finally make an escape.
The final sequence involves them finding a niche within a collective of militants who are run as a family. Here she is allowed to have her own room and is not abused though the family is involved in anti-government activities. The girls remains very disturbed psychologically and is convinced she must fulfill her mission, which she perceives as harming the enemy/government through an act of terror. She has been taught how to do so by wearing an explosive vest. However, he brother is falling away from the idea that they have to carry out their dead father’s wishes. Fate intervenes and brings them to a mixed up and tragic ending that makes little sense and achieves nothing to further any cause except her tragic ending.
Critical Evaluation -- The character of the young girl through whose eyes the story is told is the key to this tale of adversity/survival in the face of perceived injustice and government conspiracy. However, the source of the injustice is somewhat mysterious and told from the voice of a young girl who is a pawn in this deadly game that her father constructed. We see that the circumstance of her upbringing weaves a web in which she cannot escape either physically or mentally. The father’s programming outlives him and she never seems to escape the subliminal messages he instilled in her about her role as a martyr for a cause she’s too young and sheltered to even understand. It’s a story reminiscent of Steven King in that the creep factor is high -- and the motive of the characters unusually dark.
This tale is told in both present scenarios and flashbacks to earlier times that shed light on the present situations. This yields an increasingly deeper understanding of the characters -- mainly, the girl who is called “Valley” short for Valerie, and her brother who has to try to fend for the two of them when the parent’s are killed by the government. Their trials after being left to survive with little or nothing leads the brother to question his loyalties to the father’s plans for them. But the girl remains stuck in a simplistic and horrifying belief system that has her as a tool of destruction who is more than willing to carry out her perceived mission. This makes for great tension that pulls the story ahead as we begin to wonder if the plan will come to fruition before she awakens to the fact that she too is a victim of her father’s diabolical snare.
Part III: Author Info
“Blythe Woolston’s first novel, The Freak Observer, won the William C. Morris debut fiction award. She lives in Montana” (Blythe, 2013). She writes a blog at http://blythewoolston.blogspot.com/, and her webste is http://www.blythewoolston.net/.
Woolston is the author of three books: The Freak Observer (2010), which won the ALA’s William C. Morris Debut Award; Catch and Release (2012) about an unlikely friendship following a debilitating illness; and, Black Helicopters (2013).
Part IV: Curriculum Ties, Diversity, Booktalk Ideas, Challenge Issues
Curriculum Ties, if any -- This novel has some political overtones and could be used to discuss the issue of extremism. It looks at the personal thought process of one person caught in a situation of radicalized thinking and anti-government militia activity. It could be explored as part of current events that have similar themes as well as compared and contrasted to other cultures in which extremist beliefs and suicide bombings have proliferated.
Diversity of Cultures -- There is little ethnic diversity in this novel as the setting is rural and isolated. However, the issues of diversity is very much a part of the discussion of the militia movement as some of the underlying beliefs are racism.
Booktalking Ideas -- The belief in black helicopters have been called the invention of paranoid minds. However, the real world technology has caught up and these machines do exist. What are the dangers of drones in the hands of the government or private individuals? What safeguards to we have to protect ourselves short of resorting to anti-government extremism?
Challenge Issues -- The novel delves into the psychology of a suicide bomber. It’s psychologically intense at times and involves violent thoughts and actions. Additionally, the main character who is a girl is molested by an old man. These topics might be disturbing to some younger readers though could also built awareness of real life dangers that some children can and do face.
Part V: Reasons chosen
This read was recommended to me by another librarian. It was difficult at first to follow the timeline, which switches points in almost every chapter. One moment the family is still alive and together and the next we have fast forward to the end-game scenario her father foreshadowed to the children. In spite of any confusion this approach creates, the author succeeds in creating a strong sense of suspense by revealing bits and pieces of the larger picture as we move forward in the book. It’s hard not to want to read on to figure out how it all fits together in the end.
Additionally, the topic of extremism also appeals to me as a subject of interest to young adults. It speaks to a tendency to isolate from other people and influences that is an increasingly creeping into mainstream American society. By looking at an extreme case of the dangers of narrow thinking and familial isolation, this book also offers a commentary on the more benign manifestations of this trend like relying on computers and home-schooling children to keep them from encountering other belief systems.
Does cutting ourselves off from the outside world ever make sense? What are the dangers of allowing parents to be the sole providers of information to a child? These are legitimate questions that are explored in this moving story about a girl caught in evil scheme to do harm to others in the name of anti-government thinking taken to an extreme.
Part VI: Citations
Community Reviews. (2013). Goodreads [webpage]. Retrieved from http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15798680-black-helicopters
Blythe Woolston: About this author. (2013). Goodreads [website]. Retrieved from http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3098318.Blythe_Woolston
No comments:
Post a Comment