SO WHAT DO YOU DO? Douglas Evans. 123 Pages. Front Street. $14.95
When 12-year-old Charlie and Colleen find their former third-grade teacher, Mr. Adams, living as a transient in the park, they are determined to help him. After all, Mr. Adams taught them the real meaning of life when they were 8 years old."Mom says if you hadn't gotten me excited about learning stuff, who knows where I might have ended up. . . . Remember how you had a special place on a bulletin board for my animal drawings?"
At first, Mr. Adams refuses help or to even try to help himself, but when a group of uptown mobs trashes the cardboard shelters in the park and wounds the homeless people, Charlie and Colleen take the injured Mr. Adams back to their old elementary school. As luck would have it, they know how to jiggle the lock to get in and they remember that the custodian and Mr. Adams were old friends.
Over spring break, the children, with the help of the custodian and an alert police officer -- who coincidentally is a former student of Mr. Adams and was changed by his influence -- restore the teacher to health.
There are many coincidences in "So What Do You Do?" but young readers will cheer the initiative of Charlie and Colleen as they come to the aid of a failing teacher.
"So What Do You Do?" is not as plausible as Paul Zindel's "A Begonia for Miss Applebaum," in which two students help a teacher who made an impact on their lives, but the same important questions surface, such as, what can you do about caring for the homeless or what fine lines constitute breaking the law? More important is the question of how we can honor people, particularly teachers, who have dedicated their lives to influence and better the lives of others.
MATTHEW UNSTRUNG, Kate Seago, 236 Pages. Dial Books. $16.99
The time is 1910, and social mores dictate small-town values. Matthew is expected to follow in his father's footsteps by becoming a preacher. But Matthew, like his brother Zack, can't fathom the "fire and brimstone" being preached from the pulpit.
Trying to meet those expectations causes Matthew to worry, and he begins failing in school.
"Matthew spent more hours sitting in front of his textbooks, but he found that the longer he sat there, the less sense the words on the page made."
Matthew's father will not forgive his inability to graduate. Matthew turns to the solace of an old fiddle, but it is not enough. Eventually he reaches a breaking point and is admitted to a mental institution. His father, dishonored by not having a son follow in his footsteps, disowns him.
This is a story of strong characters woven together in dysfunctional patterns. Preacher Hobson's unwavering stoicism controls a wife whose heart is broken by the loss of two sons. Zack, the elder brother, escapes to a Colorado ranch and ultimately becomes the survivor. Matthew is the thread through the tapestry of this unhappy family as he battles defeat of a tortured mind and guilt that hangs like clouds around his soul. After his father dies, Matthew comes to terms with the unwholesome life: "It's all right . . . I forgave him."
Seago's first novel is based on the life of her grandfather, who, like Matthew Hobson, suffered the horrors of early 20th century mental institutions, and like Zack, was lucky enough to escape to a new life out West.
Marilou Sorensen teaches children's literature at Brigham Young University. Her e-mail address is (marilou.sorensen@worldnet.att.net).