THE WEIRDO by Theodore Taylor. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991. 224 pages, $15.95.
" . . . he had a grant from the Fish and Wildlife Service to study the black bears. `I'll try to track as many as possible from now to early December, put radio-collars on them, and build up as much data as possible. Try to get an accurate population count . . . "I read this passage from the Taylor book the same evening that I watched a report by Reese Stein, a local television reporter who had joined a bear-tracking party. Both book and report gave me the jitters. What danger such activities could assure! I understand, now, the necessity of this venture and respect those who are dedicated to it.
Seventeen-year-old Chip Clewt is called the Weirdo because of his deformed condition after being burned in an airplane crash that killed his mother and sister. He lives with his artist father in the Powhatan Swamp and is hired by a doctoral student, Ted, to observe and tag the bears in the marshlands. Semantha Sanders accidentally meets Chip, and their friendship is the framework of the story.
Built on this frame is the real theme, an environmental conflict between farmers who have always hunted as sport and the wildlife commission's ban on killing the bears. There are many heady issues here, like the disappearance of Ted (with the suspicion of his body being thrown in a sump hole of quicksand), and Semantha's father, who sets a trap for one of the bears that Chip has tagged.
Taylor is a master at strong characterizations and plot. In "The Cay," he treated the story of racial prejudice head-on. "Sniper" is said to be "perfect for an edge-of-the-chair television drama." "The Weirdo" is, too, and could be a focus of discussions on moral issues involving hunting and wildlife preservation.
It is Taylor's style that captured me. His combination of narrative and Clewt's precise and information-giving journal entries add a balance and meaningful perspective to what could have been an otherwise bland story. The swamp becomes a protagonist and antagonist through the descriptions of tranquility and viciousness; life-giving and life-taking qualities.
"The Weirdo" is a book without a tidy resolution for the characters or the major issue of environmental controls. Clewt will never be "whole" physically but his energy as an activist is never in question. What he will add to the world is another story. While the hunting ban in this fictitious swampland is reinstated and the criminals are captured, there are no easy answers to these real conflicts, which are ongoing throughout the world.
The Powhatan Swamp is based on actual information from the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute in Kingsville, Texas, and from memories of a visit to Virginia's Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge when the author was 11 years old. "The Weirdo" is recommended for grades 9-12, probably because of the age of the characters, Clewt and Semantha, but the issues have no age limit. This notable book is for anyone.
- Marilou Sorensen is an associate professor of education at the University of Utah specializing in children's literature.