The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place (Audio)

Although this book is cataloged as "Junior Fiction" (comprising books suitable for grades 3-6) in my small library, it's set as "Teen" in the library to which I live closest. The author, E.L. Konigsburg, is a favorite of mine. She wrote the classic From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and another YA book I recently read for a book club, Silent to the Bone.

Margaret Rose Kane is a feisty twelve-year-old whose parents have left for an archeological dig in Peru. Her eccentric but loving Hungarian great-uncles (strangely) hadn't volunteered to take her, so she heads off to Camp Talequa. The six "alums" and one other newcomer in her cabin respond badly to her unique outlook, and her refusal to tattle or respond to their tricks make them try harder. Her Uncle Alex rescues her, and she settles in enjoy the summer with the beloved bachelors and their truffle-hunting dog, Tartufo. Their house is a haven, made even more beautiful by the amazing towers of steel painted in rainbow colors, topped with empty clock faces and strung tip to foot with tinkling pendants that the uncles have been constructing for the last 45 years. Margaret Rose then learns why the uncles didn't initially ask her to stay - the city council (fueled by nasty neighbors and neighborhood politics) has declared the towers unsafe, and they are to come down. Margaret Rose and the sympathetic Camp Talequa janitor-cum-artist Jake Kaplan gather friends for the fight to save them.

I liked this book quite a lot. Margaret is a character - her invariable (and infuriating) response to Camp Talequa's councellors' questions of "Why don't you want to go boating/hiking/swimming" is "I prefer not to" - a reference to one of my favorite Herman Melville short stories, "Bartleby the Scrivener." However, the squabbling Uncles Alex and Morris are the real treat here. They are perfectly conveyed. Strangely, the towers seem a sort of extension of them, and they, too, become character-like. The wonderful descriptions remind me of the Watts Towers in L.A. or even Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, though on a smaller scale.

This audio version of the book was performed by 80s teen actress extraordinare, Molly Ringwald. I was excited to see her name when I checked it out, but she was not as fantastic as Sthephen Fry (see my post on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), but it was still good. Her delivery was a bit flatter, her voices a little more similar. I should say, though, that her Hungarian accents for Uncle Morris and Uncle Alex were really fun. I don't know how accurate they were, but it made the characters that much more endearing. All in all, I'm glad I listened to the book, rather than just read it.

Issues include social activism, conformity, bullying, and divorce.