Spelldown: The Big-Time Dreams of a Small-Town Word Whiz (review)

Plucky thirteen-year-old Karlene is a spelling prodigy, and she's determined to become the National Spelling Champion of 1969. What might hold her back, though, is her father's spiraling descent into alcoholism, which results in her mother having to put in extra hours at the mill and leaving Karlene to look after her twin brothers. Fortunately, a new teacher arrives who takes Karlene's breath away with her elegance, her wit, and her commitment to Karlene's success. At first, Karlene's South Carolina dialect seems overly cutesy, as peppered with mild profanity as it is with advanced vocabulary words and snippets of lyrics from Motown, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones, but once Luddy settles into her storytelling, Karlene's colorful narration offsets a genuinely tragic picture of her father's breakdown and leavens the triumph of her progress through local, state, and finally national spelling bees. Karlene's support system represents the changing social picture of the late '60s—her father's staunchest AA ally is a black cab driver named Kelly, and her teacher, the wife of the mill manager, is a liberated woman with a master's degree and two children as well as a boundary-breaking commitment to Karlene (she calls her at home, has her spend the night when she babysits, travels with her to Washington, etc., all to ensure that her home life doesn't interfere with her dreams). Readers who like family drama, success stories, and colorful protagonists will all find something to latch on to here.