12/15/2000

Review of The Brand New Kid

      Katie Couric's book, The Brand New Kid arrived in the mail the other day. I saw it, as well, when I was at Sam's Wholesale Club- in English and, to my delight as a grown up who lives in a largely bi-lingual town and thinks kids should learn more than one language, Spanish. I saw a great big display for it at the bookstore a day later and saw it on Amazon.Com. "It's everywhere!" I thought. But unlike some overmarketed kids' products, I did not think this with dismay because I think the message in the book is a good one, not delivered in the didactic, heavy-handed manner of a sermon but with the kind of peek into life that kids might figure out is directed at making them "be good" but which I don't think they will resent too much. The verse is cleverly light, almost Seussian in rhyme scheme and simplicity; if the meter occasionally stumbles a little I can forgive the irregularity. The illustrations are bright but simple watercolors that are the kind my niece and nephew used to clamor for when we picked out books.

      Couric's book deals with a subject that is close to my heart, as the now grown-up-child who frequently moved from city to city, state to state, and who frequently did not "fit in." As its title tells us, it is about being the brand new kid in town- and a little bit different. How well I remember trying to fit in with kids who lived in the same town for all of their lives, who had close-knit school groups, and who did not welcome any difference easily, despite the good intentions of overworked teachers and often absent parents. Lazlo S. Gasky, the new kid, is blonde, has spiky, punky David-Bowie-esque hair which the kids think "didn't look right," and piercing blue eyes. He also appears to have an accent of some sort, and the kids are hostile right from the start. The kids trip him, throw paper wads at him while the teacher's back is turned, and generally make his life miserable from the moment he arrives. His nerves when he says "hello" make him fidget, and he talks a bit too loudly, causing the kids to immediately think "gee this new boy was weird. Too different and strange to fit in they all feared" (8). Even the teacher on the cover of the books seems to be pointing a ridiculing finger at poor Lazlo, whose face is the epitome of pain.

      After several days? weeks? of torment, where teachers are noticeably absent, Ellie McSnelly (who, in my day, would have been picked on because her name rhymes with smelly and who shouldn't be "throwing stones" herself) finally sees how miserable Lazlo has become and invites him to play after school. With her simple gesture of welcome, Lazlo's face beams- an entire page is of the narrative is devoted to the change from a pathetically frowning face to his huge grin on being invited. Ellie & Lazlo play together, share a strudel made by his mom, play chess and soccer, and climb into his treehouse. The next day, after Ellie is seen with Lazlo and challenged by the other kids, she encourages the rest of them to get to know him.

      Now, since being the new kid in town is something I was quite familiar with, and it usually meant being picked on in a bewildering (for me at the time) display of hatred, I thought that the fact that Lazlo doesn't have to actually do anything to become an outcast, and the ease and speed with which he is ostracized by other kids (who have their own potentially pick-on-able traits) was pretty accurate. I don't think, though, that in the real world it would be that easy for poor Lazlo to climb the social ladder- making one "in" friend certainly didn't work for me. But I think that Couric's heart is in the right place, and with young kids who have never had the experience of being different, this book could open up an arena for thinking about what it means to go along with a crowd against an "outsider."

      In a note to readers, Couric says that "as a mother watching her two children grow, I am sometimes reminded of difficult lessons from my own childhood. . . that as loving and wonderful as they are, children can sometimes be cruel" and expresses her hope that "this story will inspire all of us to reach out and make someone feel a little less scared and a little less lonely." This note, and the lesson that the book strives to teach, can (and probably should) be learned again by adults as well as kids.And, since a portion of the proceeds for the book's sale are being donated to colon cancer research (which Couric's husband died from in 1998), just buying this book will make you feel a little bit kinder and gentler. If your kids take the lesson to heart and look at just one new kid as though it could be them, then there is hope.