I'm a little late to the party. Savvy has been on the NY Times best seller list and it's won a Newbery Honor. After reading it myself, I have to say the recognition it's gotten has been well deserved. Savvy, by Ingrid Law, is wonderfully written, with quirky characters, and a moving story.
Savvy is about a larger-than-life little girl, living in a larger-than-life family. Mibs, at the beginning of the tale, has not yet come into her special power. Savvy is her coming-of-age story, effectively set in the frame of a tall tale.
Mibs is twelve, two days shy of thirteen, when the book opens, and she has a wonderful voice and vision. She notices the quirky details. Listen to her describe one character:
Carlene turned out to be a big woman in a little woman's body. She had big hair, big teeth, big long fingernails, and big fuzzy slippers, but the rest of her was hollow and shrunken and bony. She looked like a witch dressed up for Halloween as a movie star.
Can't you just see that woman? Don't you just, that quickly, know all about who she is?
And we know something about Mibs' personality from her description. We know Mibs doesn't approve of Carlene. We know that Mibs believes she's a fake. A phony. A witch in disguise. Mibs is learning to see people for who they are and that allows her to disarm characters like Carlene who want to rule the world by acting big and making others feel small.
That was one tiny excerpt from a book full of really interesting detail. If you like quirky detail, the entire book is a feast.
The messages in Savvy are good, solid messages. Look underneath to see what people really are, you might find they are better than they first appear. Shut out the naysayers, we all have gifts and talents. Don't think your gift isn't as good as your neighbor's--sometimes the gifts with less flash are perfect for getting the job done. I saw all of these messages and a fun, middle grade tall tale is a great vehicle for such messages.
Strengths: The prose and the characters were the two things that made me love this book. Savvy was such a joy to read. The lyrical flow of the language never interfered with the story--it enhanced it, giving the reader a feeling of being submerged in a different world. A world where the language is slower and more picturesque and the characters are bigger and bolder and badder than anyone you'll ever meet in real life.
Weaknesses: I really thought about this, as I do with every book. I always want to report a weakness if I can, so I'm not just blathering on about how wonderful every book is. But I didn't see any weaknesses in Savvy. There were a couple of places where I wondered why the author made the choices she did. For instance, I thought that Mibs sounded younger than thirteen. And then I wondered at the kids on the bus. They were old enough to know better than to make their parents worry, and the reason they gave for not calling their parents was unbelievable. But then I realized that the characters' naiveté was overblown just as everything else was. The story wasn't supposed to look exactly like real life. The entire bus trip was part of a tall tale. (And the cover illustrator got this so right--real life with a magic twist to make everything better and brighter but giving it a bit of cartoon flavor to hint at the exaggeration going on inside.) So when I closed the book, my only complaint was that it ended before I was ready to say goodbye to the characters. I could have gone on living with them for a while without getting bored.
Savvy is a wonderful book, and I am anxiously awaiting the next offering from Ms. Law's computer.
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Copyright © 2009 Sally Apokedak
