Acts of Optimism
Sometimes you read just the right book at just the right time. That’s how I’m feeling this week; I just read David Almond’s KIT’S WILDERNESS. Main character Kit lives in a declining mining town in the north of England, and his grandfather is fading in health even as his memories of mining are more vivid than ever. Kit is a sensitive and sensible boy, one who is able to “see” the past… the ghosts of children and adults who have labored in the now-abandoned mines. When Kit’s path intersects with John Askew, the troubled son of an infamous family in town, he is drawn into a dark chain of events.
I was just beginning this book as the Chilean miners were being rescued from their three-months long captivity under ground, and passages like this took on extra meaning:
“Down here,” he said, “there’s no day, no night. You’re half awake and half asleep, half dead and half alive. You’re in the earth with bones and ghosts and darkness stretching back a million million years into the past.”
I was finishing the book on “Remembrance Day,” as I wore purple to commemorate the young men who took their own lives because they were bullied and violated about their sexuality. Almond and his protagonist Kit never give up on the troubled bully, John Askew. Kit’s grandfather talks to Kit about the menacing boy in this passage:
“Thing is, he’s never had a proper childhood, not with that for a father. The baby inside him never had a chance to grow. You understand?”
I nodded. “I think so.”
…I thought of Askew, of the fear and revulsion he caused around him. I recalled the desperation that could be felt within his violent grip, the yearning that could be seen in his violent eyes. Such a strange boy, such a mixture of darkness and light.
“Everybody’s got the seam of goodness in them, Kit,” said Grandpa. “Just a matter of whether it can be found and brought out into the light.”
A bully has been bullied, and our window of time to reach these troubled and troubling children is relatively short. But it can and must be done, in elementary and middle school. That is when change can truly occur. We must find their seams of goodness and bring them to light.
"Every word written, every sentence, every story, no matter how dark the story itself might seem, is an act of optimism and hope... a stay against the forces of destruction."
David Almond
I was just beginning this book as the Chilean miners were being rescued from their three-months long captivity under ground, and passages like this took on extra meaning:
“Down here,” he said, “there’s no day, no night. You’re half awake and half asleep, half dead and half alive. You’re in the earth with bones and ghosts and darkness stretching back a million million years into the past.”
I was finishing the book on “Remembrance Day,” as I wore purple to commemorate the young men who took their own lives because they were bullied and violated about their sexuality. Almond and his protagonist Kit never give up on the troubled bully, John Askew. Kit’s grandfather talks to Kit about the menacing boy in this passage:
“Thing is, he’s never had a proper childhood, not with that for a father. The baby inside him never had a chance to grow. You understand?”
I nodded. “I think so.”
…I thought of Askew, of the fear and revulsion he caused around him. I recalled the desperation that could be felt within his violent grip, the yearning that could be seen in his violent eyes. Such a strange boy, such a mixture of darkness and light.
“Everybody’s got the seam of goodness in them, Kit,” said Grandpa. “Just a matter of whether it can be found and brought out into the light.”
A bully has been bullied, and our window of time to reach these troubled and troubling children is relatively short. But it can and must be done, in elementary and middle school. That is when change can truly occur. We must find their seams of goodness and bring them to light.
"Every word written, every sentence, every story, no matter how dark the story itself might seem, is an act of optimism and hope... a stay against the forces of destruction."
David Almond