LCN617 – Children’s Literature: Criticism & Practice
Case Study: The Amber Amulet by Craig Silvey
Once upon a time a Library was all about the Books, a Librarian was all about the Books. The days of sitting at the circulation desk Reading the Books is all but a dim memory…
In an ever digitizing and technical age the role of a Teacher-librarian is increasingly expanding and time, although it feels is diminishing, is an unaltered constant. It is said, by the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership, that highly accomplished Teacher-librarians proactively collaborate with colleagues to select a variety of relevant resources to meet the inquiry learning needs of their students (AITSL). Good collection management is paramount for an effective Teacher-librarian and school library. In aid of time poor Teacher-librarians and other book purchasing professionals are a plethora of journals and book review services, but what role should these views play in our ultimate decision to make a purchase? Selection of learning resources involves many people (administrators, teachers, students) but "the final decision on acquisitions is the responsibility of the library media specialist [teacher-librarian]" (South Carolina Dept. of Education 2005). The following Case Study is a personal review of the 2012 novel The Amber Amulet by Craig Silvey, compared and contrasted with three responses to the same book retrieved from various reading communities in a bid to answer the question "What role should responses to a children’s text play in collection development?"
The Amber Amulet by Craig Silvey is the humble tale of The Masked Avenger and his alter ego, 12 year old, Liam McKenzie on a quest to right wrongs and protect his suburban neighborhood of Franklin Street with the help of his faithful sidekick, Richie the Powerbeagle. The ‘hero’ story is a story often told, sometimes disguised under layers of non-heroic acts and characters, but this hero’s journey is as true as it gets, both literal and figurative heroes inhabit this story.
The Masked Avenger derives his powers by harnessing the dormant energy that lies within objects that citizens overlook. He believes in energy. He’s convinced the world is positively and negatively charged, that it’s imbued with the properties of Good and Evil. (Silvey p.2)
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| Figure 1 |
Drawn to Joan the "woman in the house at the end of the street” (Silvey, p.14), for a reason he can’t quite figure out, Liam senses that something is awry. “She doesn’t look like she needs to be saved but the Masked Avenger knows different” (Silvey, p.22).
Silvey’s dauntless novella is full of a delicious pastiche of illustrations. Re-appropriated images from vintage works of nonfiction and superhero comics add to the narration in an immersive way. These collages of ‘real’ things made fantastical help the reader inhabit the world of The Masked Avenger. The imagery used within this book aids the narration much the same as in a traditional picture book when reading the words and images, provided by illustrator and graphic designer Sonia Martinez, become necessary for a full understanding of the text (see figures 2 & 3).
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| Figure 2 |
The reach of the story is far beyond the confines of pages 1 - 86. The book as a whole invites readers into The Masked Avenger’s world of comic book heroics and ‘old-fashioned’ good values. The dust jacket (figure 1) gives us our quintessential ‘Damsel in Distress' looking forlorn and thoughtful clutching the mysterious Amber Amulet, our hero's cape flying, valiantly silhouetted in the background. The end papers alert us to the fact that “This book belongs to the Masked Avenger” and gives the feeling of prying into someone’s private life. Although not told directly, it seems as if we are reading his deeply personal Hero Log where upon return to his secret lair he reports “citing his deeds done and adventures had.” (Silvey, p.25). The true beauty of The Masked Avenger is his ability to look at the world though a lens where everyday attributes become powerful tools in his superhero toolkit. His Attributes harnessed from the potential energy stored in the molecules of everyday objects, turn everyday tasks into heroic adventures.
Silvey writes in the third person, an omnipresent seemingly reliable narrator mainly focalised through The Masked Avenger/Liam, with moments of focalisation through Joan/the woman at the end of the
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| Figure 3 |
street. On the surface The Amber Amulet is the story of a child, his heroism and bravery, but dig a little deeper to the heart of the story and we see the themes of escapism, self-awareness and ultimately achieving one’s full potential. Adults often “lose all the wonderful things” children “have in spades” (Silvey, p.84). We are taught by this story that these attributes and life themes are not only for the adult world and that bravery can take on many forms.
Upon starting to read The Amber Amulet, I thought I knew who this novella’s target audience was meant to be. In my mind the implied reader was the same age as the protagonist, around 12 - 14. This assessment still held for me until we met Joan. Even though this story is (mainly) through the eyes of Liam's hero fantasy, I find the story is overwhelmingly focused on the more mature themes. Liam is doing through fantasy as Joan is doing in reality… avoiding the truth. Joan’s realisations about her own life, prompted by the chattering of an overly confident child, caught me off guard, I was not prepared to be moved by this quirky tale in such a profound way. While the story spoke to me as an adult, I feel that younger readers would still enjoy it on a different level, maybe even as a cautionary tale.
Drawing on the ubiquity of the Internet, as many busy Teacher-librarians do I discovered that The Amber Amulet has been reviewed by numerous publications and programs, all with similarly affectionate responses to the work as my own. The rich language and engrossing illustrations had us all hooked. The only major point of contention, when comparing the responses to each other and my own review, regards the implied audience of the book.
Marc McEvoy’s interview with Silvey and book review The Power to Blow your Mind, featured in the Sydney Morning Herald on October 21, 2012, touts this novella to be “aimed at adult readers”. Had I simply read this review of the book I would have been intrigued enough to buy or read it for myself but not expressly go and procure it for the library. In writing for a predominantly adult readership McEvoy has limited the readership of this book with one simple sentence. Perhaps this was deliberate, with the audience in mind, a childish sounding story would put the papers’ audience off pursuing The Amber Amulet otherwise. At the polar opposite Stacey Dombkins’ review printed in the Newcastle Herald had this to say:
This children's book stands out from the crowd because of the way it looks and feels. The storyline is beguiling but the big attraction is its presentation. Its jacket evokes detective fiction from another era and the glossy pages are rich in illustrations by Sonia Martinez - diagrams, maps, letters - that should appeal particularly to boys about the same age as the tale's protagonist, Liam McKenzie. (Dombkins, 2012)
Putting an age range on The Amber Amulet feels like a great injustice. Dombkins obviously did not engage with the text in the same thought provoking way I did, which saw me examining my own life. In the absence of any offensive language or themes there is nothing preventing this book from being enjoyed by both students and staff in a school setting. Although not explicitly stated in the review, Readings Bookstore had similarly tagged this book as Children’s/Young Adult, I feel the later to be a good judgment. Silvey himself is not even sure when answering the question of target audience in regards to this book he admits that he didn’t have anyone specific in mind when writing it and he is lucky that his use of accessible language and broad scope of characters has “allowed quite a large tract of people to appreciate the book” (Brown & Silvey, 2012).
In November 2012’s Issue of the Australian Book Review (self proclaimed as Australia’s premier literary review), Sophie Splatt (also tagging The Amber Amulet as Children’s Fiction) brings the themes of truth and honesty into focus and draws attention to Liam’s naïve existence in an adult’s world “But the Masked Avenger – who, in reality, is a child trying to make things right in an adult’s world – soon learns that, when serving the community and its people, even heroes can make mistakes.” While Readings Bookstore’s Amy Vuleta describes it as “a coming-of-age story of an engaging and unlikely adolescent hero as he unknowingly stumbles into the adult world of his beautiful yet troubled neighbour.The Masked Avenger learns that sometimes truth and honesty are the bravest, most important superpowers that anyone can posses.” (Vuleta, 2012).
Comparing different responses to the same book brings to light some valuable lessons for collection development and the reliance on others’ opinions. Knowing the target audiences of your review sources and taking that into consideration is a must. Looking at the differences in opinion regarding the target audience of The Amber Amulet, highlights that while not only do different people appraise books differently but also different publications will also promote books differently. Amy Vuleta’s review compared with my own closely, which gives me an indication that hers are opinions I can use to ease the pressure of book selection.
The road to becoming a Teacher and then going on to Teacher-librarianship is an often long professional journey. Selecting resources for a school community can sometimes be an onerous task, but it is my favourite part of the job. Searching for books on different themes to broaden the collection, new gems from favourite authors, finding that just-right book for the reluctant reader who has yet to be bitten by the reading bug. Unfortunately there is little opportunity to read every book personally or have an army of staff to divvy them up between (let’s take a moment to think about those in the profession functioning as the lone Library staff member). Myriad emails from book publishers and sellers, Goodreads, OZ-TL net and library journals jamming inboxes can all help to a certain degree, they help the books be seen. Ultimately though, as a professional educator, I trust my own judgement. I trust the little local bookshop that has a staff of devout readers. I trust the relationships I have with the students and teachers to know what makes a good book, a just-right book, for them and their curriculum. In my opinion, the role of responses to a children’s text, when read with a critical eye, should make up only part of a varied toolset in the Teacher-librarian’s collection development objectives.
References
AITSL. (n.d.). Illustrations of practice – selecting resources. Retrieved March 18, 2015 from
ALIA (2004). Standards of professional excellence for teacher librarians. Retrieved March 26, 2015
Brown, Rhiannon, & Silvey, Craig (2012, November 5) Radio National Books and Art: Craig Silvey’s
Amber Amulet [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/booksandarts/craig-silvey27s-amber-amulet/4349642
Dombkins, S. (2012, November 24). THE AMBER AMULET. Newcastle Herald Retrieved from
McEvoy, Marc (2012, October 21) Power to blow your mind. Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved
Silvey, Craig (2012) The Amber Amulet. Allen and Unwin. Australia
South Carolina Dept of Education (2005) Collection development policy guidelines. Retrieved March
19, 2015, from http://scschoollibraries.pbworks.com/f/2INEZ-Collection+Development+Policy+Guidelines.doc
Splatt, Sophie (2012) Craig Silvey: The Amber Amulet; and Nick Earls and Terry Whidborne: Word
Hunters. Australian Book Review, 346. Retrieved from https://www-australianbookreview-com-au.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/abr-online/archive/2012/76-november-2012/1195-craig-silvey-the-amber-amulet-and-nick-earls-and-terry-whidborne-word-hunters
Van Orden, Phillis J. and Strong, Sunny, (2007). Chapter 2: General Criteria for the Selection
Process. In Van Orden, Phyllis J and Strong, Sunny (Eds.), Children's books : a practical guide to selection (pp.15 - 37). New York, NY: Neal-Schuman.
Vuleta, Amy (2012, September 26) The Amber Amulet by Craig Silvey [Book review]
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