Book Review: Trouble - Highly Recommend

The more I read Gary D. Schmidt's books, the more I fall in love with his writing. I highly recommended The Wednesday Wars, a fine piece of historical fiction, and Okay for Now, an outstanding example of voice mastery. I enjoyed this book, Trouble, every bit as much as those two previous offerings. I listened to the book in audio form and could not wait to begin my daily treadmill time so that I could continue with the story and find out what would happen to these delightful, vulnerable characters.

From the very first sentence when Henry's father tries to convince him that if you build your house far enough away from trouble, it will never find you, we know that trouble is destined to make an appearance in Henry's comfortable, secure life. It first shows up in an accident where a pickup truck, driven by a Cambodian immigrant, plows into his older brother Franklin. As the petals of grief unfold for the family, causing his father to avoid work, his mother to don a brave face, and his sister to retreat in silence to her room, Henry must work through his anger and forge a new path. That new path begins when he rescues a mangy dog from the sea.

With Black Dog at his side, Henry interprets his brother's one word utterance, "Katahdin," as an appeal for Henry to climb the steep mountain alone. Before the accident, Franklin was sure Henry couldn't make the climb. Now Henry is more than eager to prove himself and to flee a house shrouded with confusion and grief. But when Henry encounters the driver of the pickup along the way, he begins to realize that you cannot run from trouble.

I've been pondering how great authors unveil clues to a story a bit at a time so that the reader only slowly comes to understand the full dynamics of the truth. Schmidt does a stellar job of this. He has placed the clues expertly, with perfect pacing, so that the facts reveal not only deep truths about the story, but also deep truths about human experience. I highly recommend this novel and warn you that you just might feel a lump develop in your throat. At the same time, I know you will agree with the author's conclusion in the final chapter, when he says, "The world is trouble and grace. That is all there is."

As I think about this novel, I really wish that my son's teacher had selected this one instead of Monster, because it not only treats racial tensions, but it brings out the resilience of the human spirit and reveals the appearance of grace in the midst of trouble. It provides plenty of discussion-worthy topics and inspires the reader to reach for greatness. It metes out forgiveness alongside responsibility. Moreover, it does all of that without presenting anything that a parent might find controversial or undesirable for their student's consumption. It was, in my eyes anyway, a far superior choice.