Blue Willow

Today I posted a review of a book on Amazon--something I do rarely; the book was published in 1940. This is what I said:  "Is this a NYTimes Bestseller? No, but I read this book as a child, and due to some water damage, retrieved it from a box in my storage area a couple summers back. I reread it last week--and I'm hoping to pivot around the story in a poem I'm working on for a manuscript. The story is timeless--or so it seems. It's about a migrant worker family (and I research and learn that "The International Labour Organization estimated in 2014 there are 232 million international migrants worldwide who are outside their home country for at least 12 months and approximately half of them were estimated to be economically active (i.e. being employed or seeking employment)," about a child feeling lost and "homeless" and friendless (in a time in the U.S. when so many people have lost homes due to economic factors, flooding, fires). I'm sure I cried when I was a child and read the ending. I'm no less sentimental now, and yes, the ending takes a turn that echoes of rescue and aid and kindness and good people. And that I applaud each and every day!"

Doris Gates's book, sometimes called the juvenile "Grapes of Wrath" and  "the first social- or realistic-problem novel for children," was actually named a Newberry honor book in 1941.  As a former middle school librarian, I'm impressed.  And I'm glad that it still moves me. It's a timeless story--people seeking "home."  I am startled by what defined home for the spunky young protagonist of the story--the promise of being able to stay in one place for a while, her most valued possession, a single blue willow plate, the only tangible connection to her birth mother, a caring teacher, and a friend, one friend.  Home had nothing to do with the house though she was constantly looking for signs that where she landed might be a place where she could set aside her fear of having to move again.  The signs are illuminated when she finds the replication of a scene on the plate at the river nearby, receives kindness from a man who had time and an ear for such a young child, and from an itinerant teacher.  

In August and September raging fires threaten homes and livelihoods in the West, particularly Oregon, Idaho, and Montana while raging flood waters and furious winds topple, destroy, contaminate, and render homeless thousands and thousands of people, first in Texas and Louisiana, and then Florida and a half a dozen or more islands off the coast.  For so many people there is no going back.  Anything they once thought of as "home" may actually be completely destroyed. Even those they might have called "home-makers"--fathers, mothers, grandparents, siblings, may  be gone.  

Janey's blue willow plate is her hope for the future and her connection to the past, but ultimately it is not what makes "home" possible. I'm glad for Janey Larkin who finds a home in Doris Gates's Blue Willow.  Home is not a structure.  And Janey's not even particular about the location of her new home.  All of the "home" magic happened because of people acting humanely and with heart. I can only hope that we continue to see more reports of that kind of magic in the news, to experience it daily among us. To all that have helped make survival and rescue possible, my gratitude. I'm even grateful for the mini-flood in my storage area that put Blue Willow back in my hands again.
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