Marven of the Great North Woods

When the influenza epidemic strikes Duluth, Minnesota, in 1918, Marven's parents send their son far away from the danger of the disease. But a logging camp in the great north woods?

A true story of a small Jewish boy and a bearish French-Canadian lumberjack . . . and how they became friends under the most unusual circumstances.

This was a nice story with vivid pictures. My wife and I seemed to enjoy it more than our children (8 and 5). They could not relate to the story, nor did they find it significantly engaging.

What really sucks you into this book are the illustrations of Marven on skis. Kevin Hawkes' illustrations subtly allude to Paul Bunyan stories, with the larger-than-life character Jean Louis. What gives the book staying power is that it is a true story, a history, and so you have to constantly remind yourself, "This really happened."

The story is about how one family in Minnesota's lives were turned upside-down by panic over the influenza epidemic of 1918. They send their son away to work at a logging camp with a friend. I like how the child reader is forced to understand how the labor of a young boy would be useful in the camp doing bookkeeping. Frequently, when child labor is addressed in children's lit, it is typically done by showing the working conditions of the archetypal child factory worker or coal miner covered in soot and malnourished. This true story shows how a boy was able to use his skills to support himself during hard times in a manner that was mutually beneficial to himself and the logging company. The story doesn't feel like it has to twist the history to serve as any kind of politically correct propaganda. It is simply told from the point-of-view of Marven's recollections of an episode from his childhood. Certainly, it was hard on the child to be away from his family so long, but he developed a sense of self-esteem from his job because he was performing a valuable service. In many ways, it's a positive story about a young boy forced by circumstances into a coming-of-age journey. And again, unlike the classics of the genre like Tom Sawyer and Peter Pan, it's a true story. The closest parallel I can come up with is the boy version of Laura Ingalls in the early 20th century.... or maybe like an underground railroad story except Marven isn't Black or a runaway slave. As a children's history, it certainly is unique and worthy of a place in children's libraries for decades to come.

The one cultural difficulty that was easy for me to address teaching this book was Marven's Jewishness... how he develops a system for keeping kosher and how the fact that he was Jewish contributed to him having the education to be able to actually get that job, given that many of the lumberjacks were illiterate. The cultural difficulty that was not so easy for me to deal with is that I have never skied in my life and the most snow we ever get here is a few inches that melt as soon as they hit the ground. My 8 year old daughter really had a hard time with my explanations about why Marven had to leave the camp before the spring thaw or else he would be "trapped." Kids today in the age of the interstate highway system and scarcely a square mile in the Lower 48 not criss-crossed with grids of asphalt roads, they don't "get" what a spring thaw and mud really means. These little details of American life in 1918 that Lasky carefully weaves into her narrative give teachers and parents a fertile ground for social studies discussion topics.

Not for little girls. A flu epidemic has just arrived, a great-aunt has died, and the family is afraid for their son. They "want him to live to be a man," so they send him to a remote camp for several months. There is no similar concern for their two daughters, who stay at home, and no explanation for the disparity. Fortunately, in the end the son returns home to find that, "Nobody's dead."

I was excited when I first heard about this book at a teacher training because it takes place in 3 Minnesota towns--where I grew up, where my parents grew up and where I went to college.

Everyone--kids and grown ups alike need to feel the thrill of a connection to a book--a book about places they know. Minnesota current and former residents need this book!

The Best Children's Books of the Year, 1998; Bank Street College of Education; United States

Best of the Bunch, 1997; Association of Jewish Librarians; United States

Children's Books of Distinction, 1998; Riverbank Review; United States

The Children's Literature Choice List, 1998; Children's Literature; United States

Notable Books for Children, 1998; American Library Association

Smithsonian Magazine's Notable Books for Children, 1997; Smithsonian; United States