It’s October and I’ve been thinking a lot about cornfields and scarecrows since Halloween is almost here. I associate cornfields and scarecrows with horror (Children of the Corn, the short story by Stephen King anyone?).
Actually I’ve been thinking about cornfields ever since I listened to the wonderful A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty this past summer as part of the summer SYNC audio book program that pairs a YA book with a classic title.
I also recently listened to Bone Gap by Laura Ruby, a 2015 National Book Award finalist for Young People’s Literature, and currently nominated for YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults and noticed that cornfields play a big part in that book too. So, although it might be more seasonal to discuss horror books, I’m going to focus on two wonderful magical tales, one with a touch of horror, instead.
Ruby deserves all the praise she’s getting for her unforgettable book Bone Gap. It’s an amazing read, and it’s also terrific on audio. Bone Gap is a town in the Midwest where Finn and his perfect, and very responsible older brother Sean live on a farm. Their mother’s left them to live in another state with a new guy. One day a beautiful woman named Roza shows up in their barn, hurt and on the run from something that she won’t talk about.
They help her and she ends up staying – until one night she’s kidnapped right in front of Finn but he can’t recall enough about the man who took her to help the police find her. Roza’s been taken to a place between – a gap – by a terrifying man who has magical powers and she must try to figure out if, or how, she can get away. At the same time, Finn and his girlfriend Petey are trying to find a way to find Roza too.
A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty is also hard to describe because it also combines our world with a parallel one that’s also mostly set in the present, but with a uniquely magical and quirky aspect to it. In Cambridge, England, 14-year-old Madeleine is struggling to adjust to her new life after she and her mother mysteriously leave their rich father and their wealthy lifestyle for a more impoverished one.
Elliot lives in the Kingdom of Cello on a farm with his mother. His father has disappeared under strange circumstances. People think that one of the villainous colors “a third-level purple” was responsible because in Cello, colors can actually attack and kill people. Madeleine and Elliot become aware of each others existence after they begin exchanging letters through a crack between their worlds. Elliot leaves a letter in a sculpture in his world that appears in a slit in a parking meter in Madeleine’s world. As they get to know each other, events in their lives begin to intertwine.
Continue reading An Ode to the Magic in Bone Gap and A Corner of White
