Customer Reviews

Diamond Willow

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Diamond Willow by Helen Frost is a short, concise story that packs a powerful punch. I finished it yesterday afternoon and it is still on my mind. The action of the story takes place over the span of a few short days, but don't make the mistake of assuming nothing happens. Willow grows and changes more in those days than most middle-schoolers do in a lifetime.

This is a gorgeous book, despite the fact that there are no illustrations. Instead, this verse novel is told in a series of diamond-shaped poems, based on the shape of the diamond willow. Within each poem, a few words are bolded and when from top to bottom, they form a poem-within-a-poem, the heart of the story. Every single diamond is different, and the word choice in each poem is amazing. I sometimes stopped on a new page just to look at shapes, which almost served as illustrations.

The story is simple and middle-grade students will easily connect with Willow and her family. Willow is a 12-year-old part-Native Alaskan who lives in a very remote town, accessible by snowmobile, plane, and boat. She is struggling with herself, with school, and with finding happiness. She begs her parents to mush the sled (with three of their six dogs) to her Grandparents house one weekend. While they say no at first, she is determined to prove her maturity and they finally give in. But on the way back there's an accident. From there, it builds and to go on would spoil the rest of the story, so I will stop there. but I will say you should pick this up immediately!

One of my favorite parts of the story was Willow's connection to the past. She struggles throughout the book, all the while unaware that the animals surrounding her carry the spirits of dead ancestors and friends who care for her. I loved this aspect of the story, so simple and serene in it's beauty. It was comforting, and who hasn't caught a glimpse of nature and felt the flicker of recognition, the momentary thought that someone or something is watching out for us? I also loved the theme of respect and love of nature. I seek out environmental themes in my books and this one did not disappoint.

Diamond Willow is a must-have for middle school teachers, and I expect it may even get some Newbery love next month!

The sentence "I told you so!" is deeply satisfying. Granted, the satisfaction you feel when you say it only lasts a minute or two, but for a little while, as you do your "I told you so" dance, you get to feel that thrill of vindication sweeping through your veins. I often feel this way when an author or illustrator I've liked over the years starts garnering a little more notice. Admittedly Helen Frost is maybe not the best example I could call up. After all, she won a Printz Honor a couple years back for her book Keesha's House and her recent picture book Monarch and Milkweed has been getting nothing but sweet sweet loving from professional reviewers. All that aside, I've never felt that anyone has ever given Ms. Frost enough attention for her cleverness. When The Braid was published several years ago it was so smart, so sharp, and so interesting that it took everything I had not to bop people over the head with it at dinner parties. "BOP! Read this!" "BOP! Read this!" No such bopping will be necessary with her newest novel, though. "Diamond Willow" aims younger than Frost's usual teenaged fare. Examining the relationship between a girl and her sled dog, Frost combines her standard intelligent wordplay with a story that will catch in the throats of dog lovers and people lovers alike.

Take the branch of a willow tree, carve it down, get to the center, polish it, and there where the scar of a living branch remains you will find the shape of a diamond. A diamond willow branch is pretty special but middle schooler Diamond Willow, named after the natural wonder, doesn't feel very special at all. She has a hard time making friends at school and sometimes it seems like her dad loves his sled dogs more than her. Not that Willow doesn't love the dogs too, particularly Roxy, the smart and clever lead dog who always knows the way. Willow's getting older and one day she convinces her parents to let her take the dogs to her grandparents' house. When tragedy strikes and Roxy's eyes are harmed along the way, Willow does whatever she can to protect her furred friend from her parents' flawed intentions. As she does so, secrets long since buried begin to come to light and Willow gets a better idea of who she is and what Roxy really means to her. Every page containing Willow's thoughts appears in the shape of a diamond, a buried message found at the heart of each of these free verse poems.

Maybe the reason Frost's The Braid never got the attention it deserved was that it was too clever for its own good. As I recall, Frost braided her poems over and under themselves, weaving sentences and even details like her characters ages into the mix. Or maybe the reason was simpler than that. Maybe people just don't appreciate it when a poem is smarter than they are. None of this is to say that Frost hasn't been doing some pretty fancy footwork with this book too.

The fact that a shrub willow's diamond pattern forms when a piece of it has been roughly hewn away in some matter is more than a little significant to this tale. As with a real diamond willow, the center of each diamond poem contains a dark spot at the center. Often Frost will place certain letters in bold at strategic moments. If the reader chooses to read these dark words on their own, they'll encounter thoughts and feelings hidden within Willow. Many of these feel as if they are her innermost feelings. The kind of gut reaction or subconscious understanding that she may not even be aware that she feels. On page six, for example, Willow describes her state in life. "In the middle of my family in the middle of a middle-size town in the middle of Alaska, you will find middle-size, middle-kid, me." It doesn't look like much when I pull the sentence apart and place it on a page like this, but the message of "find me" is clear as crystal. This is someone who wants to be found, even if she can't express it directly. Authors always try to find new and interesting ways to have their characters say what they think, and at the same time express what they mean. Frost's technique is perfect for child readers and may cause them to concentrate a little more as they read each section.

Willow is part Athabascan, a fact that is important to the story. As she continues along her way her narrative, which began entirely with her diamond-shaped thoughts, is broken up by the voices of animals. And a few of these animals appear to be related to her. The first time you see one of these sections, usually written in a straightforward prose-style, it is introduced with, "John, Willow's great-great-grandfather (Red Fox)". And sure as shooting, we're hearing the impressions of a fox who just so happen to have also have been related to Willow in a past life. It's tricky territory taking any particular ethnicity and assigning a spirituality to it that may or may not belong to the author herself. I'm not saying I was offended, but it's a difficult path to walk and I don't know that Frost need have gone that route. Due to the fact that Roxy's speech near the end wraps up a lot of loose ends, I understand the desire to make someone else talk beforehand, but it's still sketchy territory. At least Ms. Frost handles it tastefully in any case.

Far more kid-friendly than her previous books, Helen Frost has a knack for writing free-verse novels that never feel like someone took a page of prose and broke it up arbitrarily. Every sentence, word, and syllable in this book is crafted and honed. If a diamond willow branch needs to be polished to look and feel right then I think it's safe to say that just as much polish must go into Ms. Frost's four-sided works of art. A dog story sure, but one that definitely (forgive me) separates itself from the pack. Animal poetry done right.

Twelve year old Willow doesn't feel at ease anywhere except with her family's mush dogs. But when a bad decision places her, the dogs and a friend in a life threatening situation, she finds that the spirits of her ancestors live in the animals around her to protect and guide her.

Written in wonderfully clever diamond shaped prose, Frost hides secret messages of Willow's inner thoughts in the dark spots of the diamond willow branch of each page.

This is an excellent coming of age story to be enjoyed by all with a great connection to nature and family. I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

My daughter (age 9) and I read this book together and both absolutely loved it. It is beautifully written, engaging, and so creative. We really connected reading the book aloud together (something we hadn't done together since 1st grade but have now started doing again since we enjoyed it so much!) and both were especially take with the "secret messages" on the pages. That really inspired some great discussion between us about subtext and how to figure out what people are thinking even when they don't say it outright. I will be giving this book as a gift over and over.

"I saw so many things I barely recognized
I thought that I was lost but then I saw you.
I could be wrong, but I swear
That I knew you in another life.
And I could be dreaming, but I swear
That I knew you in another life." -- Todd Rundgren

"...I pack snow into the dog pot. DAD gets a good fire going
in the oil-drum stove. He LOVES THESE DOGS like I do. We're
both out here on weekends, AS MUCH AS we can be, and every
day before and after school. HE LOVES Roxy most. Willow, go
get the pliers, he say, showing ME a quill in Roxy's foot..."

Willow, the young protagonist of DIAMOND WILLOW, takes delight in and is truly at one with her family's dogs. I never seem to lose pleasure in reading great girl-and-her-dog coming of age stories, and DIAMOND WILLOW certainly is that. As twelve year-old Willow embarks upon her first solo dogsled journey -- a visit to her wonderful and understanding grandparents -- she and her dogs are being lovingly watched over by the animals of the interior Alaska woodlands. Many of those animals are inhabited by spirits of Willow's Athapascan ancestors. But, as Willow is returning home, tragedy strikes:

Jean, Willow's great-great-great grandmother (Spruce Hen)

"...At the bottom of this hill, just around the curve, a dead tree fell across the trail, not too long after Willow's father went past this morning. Broken limbs are sticking out all over it.
"If she were coming from the other direction, she'd see it in time to stop. But from this direction, at the speed she's going, Willow won't have time to stop her dogs."

The effects of the accident, and her belief that her parents are preparing to make a terrible mistake, will cause Willow to subsequently decide that she must take a second, even more perilous dogsled journey, this time into a dangerous snow storm.

Helen Frost, who wrote the pieces of her Printz Honor Book KEESHA'S HOUSE in the form of sestinas and sonnets, utilizes a unique poetry form for DIAMOND WILLOW. The vast majority of the book is made up of the diamond-shaped poems which are from Willow's point of view. Augmenting the poems are occasional one- or two-page prose pieces featuring the voices of Willow's ancestors in animal form.

As Frost explains in her author's note:

"Most of the story is told in diamond-shaped poems, with a hidden message printed in darker ink at the center of each one. I got this idea from a lamp and a walking stick, both made with diamond willow...Some people think that diamond willow is a specific type of willow, like weeping willow or pussy willow, but it is not. The diamonds form on several different kinds of shrub willows when a branch is injured and falls away. The dark center of each diamond is the scar of the missing branch. The scars, and the diamonds that form around them, give diamond willow its beauty, and gave me the idea for my story."

As it takes us gliding along on a dogsled with Willow into the depths of the snowy Alaskan interior, DIAMOND WILLOW illustrates oneness, forgiveness, joyfulness, and how a child can sometimes teach her parents well.

Bought this book for my 11-year old grand daughter. I thought I would read it before giving it to her, because it takes place in Alaska and sled dogs (both things close to my heart). It is well written and I enjoyed it very much.