On Their Own: A Review of Three Books

Since the reading of fiction is a process of identification, books for children must present identifiable characters and problems for the young reader. To achieve this kind of identification the main character must usually function independently of parents and adult figures. This is especially true in "middle and older" books, and the reason is quite simple—children moving into adolescence need to define themselves as autonomous beings, independent of adults. In becoming independent they also become critical of the world adults have prepared for them to enter. For the writer working with such material there is a need to probe the tension between the adult behavior and the critical adolescent's understanding of the adult world.

Today there seems to be an abundance of books showing characters groping towards adolescence and a distressing world. The three books briefly discussed here are examples of emerging adolescents on their own.

Eleanor Spence's The Nothing Place, set in dreary suburban Australia, is a good example of the "on their own" theme and the problems which somehow by the end of the book they must come to terms with. The main plot centers on Glen, a new kid in town who has recently suffered a hearing loss. As this loss becomes permanent the solution seems quite simple—buy the kid a hearing aid. But such a simple solution doesn't occur to Glen's parents, teachers or doctors.

In the hands of a less skillful author, The Nothing Place would be a boring story, but it is not. What saves it is the many characters and subplots that keep the reader's attention off the simple and easy solution to Glen's problems. But the flaw, and it's a major flaw, comes when one considers why the parents, not only Glen's but Lyndall's also, never do what is obvious. And one suspects it's not because the adults don't have time nor love but because Ms. Spence wants to keep spinning a story. She has placed her characters on their own, but she doesn't give us enough information to let us know why the adults failed to act. It is not enough to show mothers trying to keep pace with their housework and office schedules, or fathers hiding behind newspapers and television. That may keep the story going, but in the end Ms. Spence writes herself into a corner.

Moving from the new middle class of Australia to the ugly rich of Palm Beach and the cold rich of New England one finds a more successful treatment on the "on their own" theme. John Noy's Ox Goes North is a sequel to Ox: The Kid At The Top.

Ox Goes North is the story of Ox Olmstead, a fat, lazy, rich kid whose family sends him off to a Vermont camp as a way of getting rid of him for the summer. Ox has been made cynical by money and, more important, by the adults he has come into contact with. He has learned from his father that everything is washed up and nothing can be done to halt the decay in which modern life is sinking.

The novel strips away the New England social facade and lays bare the moral decay and apathy of most of the adult characters, and thus the adult world which Ox must enter. The author's handling of this theme is successful; care has been taken to show why Ox is isolated.

At times the story threatens to become a rich Hardy Boys adventure with characters moving in and out of the action to keep the plot together; to drive the get away car, to provide more money when the first thousand is spent and to blow up the bad guys. But in the end we are left with the ugliness and folly...