Customer Reviews

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (Kelly, Jacqueline)

5 star:		(55)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

There is so much to love about this book. I finished it days ago but can't stop thinking about Calpurnia and her family. The writing is gorgeous. Small gems are everywhere. When Calpurnia finds an old hummingbird nest, "fragile and expertly woven, smaller than an eggcup" her grandfather tells her to treasure it, she may never find another one in her whole life. Calpurnia examines it, thinking:

"The nest was the most intricately constructed thing, like something built by the fairies in my childhood tales. I almost said so aloud but caught myself in time. Members of the scientific community did not say such things."

I'm a sucker for intergenerational tales and Calpurnia and her grandfather are my new favorite pair. He might be the teacher figure, but he learns as much from his granddaughter as she from him. It's fun watching his enthusiasm with the new technologies like the telephone (just one in town but it creates quite a stir) and his lusting after an automobile. The large family and assorted other secondary characters are delightfully realized. Each chapter starts with a quote from Darwin that complements the evolution of the Tate family. Callie Vee and grandpa make me think I should start carrying a scientific notebook everywhere with me, and spend a little more time with my nose out of a book and looking carefully at the wonders around me.

You can read the rest of Lynn Rutan's and my review on our children's lit blog at http://bookends.booklistonline.com (use the search box at the top of the page to search "Calpurnia" to get right to the review)

I loved everything about this book. It was a wonderful story of a smart, resourceful 11-year old girl with a passion for scientific exploration and discovery in a time and place when girls just weren't allowed to be interested in those things. The book was beautifully written--the details and choices of words, down to the names of Callie's brothers and the family's dogs were perfectly fitting. Callie's relationships with her grandfather, brothers and other family and friends were richly described. This book was touching and funny--I laughed out loud throughout the time I enjoyed the book. I plan to recommend this to my book club (all adults) as well as to my teenage girls, though I think girls of all ages would love it.

The spunky girl heroine. She's an enduring character in our middle grade fiction. From 1928's The Winged Girl of Knossos by Erick Berry to Caddie Woodlawn and Roller Skates, historical fiction and so-called tomboys go together like cereal and milk. It would be tempting then to view The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate as just one more in a long line of spunkified womenfolk. True and not true. Certainly Calpurnia chaffs against the restrictions of her time, but debut novelist Jacqueline Kelly has given us an intriguing, even mesmerizing glimpse into the mind of a girl who has the one thing her era won't allow: ambition.

It's 1899 and eleven-year-old Calpurnia Tate is the sole and single girl child in a family full of six brothers. She is generally ignored until one day she asks her grandfather a question: Where did the huge yellow grasshoppers that appeared during the unusually hot summer come from? Grandfather, an imposing figure the children usually avoid, merely says that he's sure she'll figure it out on her own. Only when she does exactly that does he begin to take an interest in her. Before long Calpurnia finds herself a naturalist in the making. Grandfather teaches her about evolution and the natural world, which is wonderful, but it's really not the kind of thing a girl of her age and era would learn. Between adventures involving her brothers, her friends, and a whole new species of plant, Calpurnia must come to terms with what she is and what the world expects her to be. Ms. Kelly prefaces each chapter with a quote from Charles Darwin's The Origin Of Species.

Now female spunk does not appear out of nowhere. One of the reasons I was so disappointed in the book Red Moon at Sharpsburg was because you essentially had a spunky ahead-of-her-times female existing in a vacuum. You can't have your character say that corsets restrict the mind if they haven't been talking or reading something along those lines before. What's so great about Callie is that she is different because she has been cared for and nurtured by a grandfather that treats her not just as a girl with intelligence, but as an equal. Sometimes this is a comically bad idea, like when he offers her the first taste of a distilled pecan liquor, but often it is exactly what Calpurnia's brain needs. And this book almost becomes a kind of detective novel as you watch Callie take a scientific question (like what the floating creature is in her grandfather's study) and work her way through the problem. With her grandfather's encouragement she soaks up his attention and intelligent conversation and blossoms (after all, she isn't any good at normal feminine pursuits of the time period anyway). And it's what she's blossoming into that disturbs her mother so much.

It's too easy to turn a parent into a villain when they work against a protagonist's hopes and dreams. Particularly when those hopes and dreams are at odds with the norms of the day. In this case the primary antagonist in this book is Callie's sweet but determined-to-make-her-daughter-a-lady mother. Fortunately for us, Kelly's handling of Calpurnia's mom is delicate. This is a woman who drinks a restorative tonic (read: alcohol) on the side to make her days go by faster. She has birthed seven children and most of them are male. The result is that she probably wants to feel some kind of kinship with her one and only daughter, but what happens instead? Callie is interested in what would typically be considered male pursuits. Is it any wonder she feels somewhat abandoned by her girl, even if it's on a subconscious level?

I want to fight against making assumptions about an author before I read their book. So whenever I get a new title from someone I don't know, I tend to avoid reading a plot blurb or biography of the writer. Now if you had asked me, just as I finished the last page of Calpurnia Tate who Jacqueline Kelly was, I probably would have said she was a born and bred Texan. I would have guessed that her family had lived there for years and that she had creosote and red Texan dirt swimming in her corpuscles. Fact of the matter is, Ms. Kelly's a transplanted New Zealander/Canadian. Yup. She also happens to be a practicing physician, a fact that makes me feel even better about Calpurnia's scientific leanings.

I wasn't crazy for thinking she was Texan, though. Listen to the first two sentences in her book: "By 1899, we had learned to tame the darkness but not the Texas heat. We arose in the dark, hours before sunrise, when there was barely a smudge of indigo along the eastern sky and the rest of the horizon was still pure pitch." Ms. Kelly is also quite good at turning the commonplace into the epic. The war between a cat and a possum never leads to bloodshed, only a ridiculous pattern that Calpurnia notes in her books. "Neither I nor the adversaries ever fatigued of it. How satisfying to have a bloodless war in which each side was equally convinced of its own triumph." The writing in this book manages to do the difficult double duty of being both interesting and poetic. It's the golden combination many authors dream of achieving.

I was left with only one question by the end of the tale. At one point Callie's beloved older brother is smitten by a truly horrid Miss Minerva Goodacre. I will not give away the method by which she is dispatched only to say that it is thanks to grandfather. But what it is that grandfather does is a bit of a mystery, and one that is never explained. It is the only mystery of its kind in the book too. Often Ms. Kelly will drop key bits of information into the tale so that the older readers will understand what's going on and the younger readers will miss it entirely. I am thinking of a moment when Calpurnia's younger brother Travis grows too fond of the family's turkeys and it's up to grandfather and Calpurnia to find a solution.

I've heard some people compare this book to Our Only May Amelia by Jennifer Holm. Both books feature spunky (there's that word again) female protagonists growing up in families that consist primarily of brothers. This may be similar on the surface, but underneath Ms. Kelly has conjured up an entirely new and wonderful tale. And with its spirited ending, I've little doubt that there may someday be a sequel. Jacqueline Kelly takes a wealthy turn of the 20th century girl and turns her into someone we can all admire. Consider pairing this book with The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages or Linda Sue Park's Project Mulberry if you're interested in reading more than one middle grade novel out there involving girls who love science. Absolutely delightful.

This book is a sweet tale that will encourage kids to observe and analyze the world around them. I don't recommend it for children younger than 10-12 though--for one thing, the central theme is of a girl coming of age and her story will resonate most (and be most useful to) older girls. In addition, there are some passages that will be disturbing to younger kids--graphic (and gruesome) descriptions of Civil War battlefields and a description of a woman being pitchforked to death by her husband when he finds out she is a fraction black but passing as white, for example. Yes, kids need to know about these things, and certainly younger kids need to know about racism, but in my opinion the level of detail about it in this book (and in the discussions your kids will hopefully want to have about it) is for junior high at the earliest. At that age, I think this book would be good.

It is a well-written, interesting, good story but didn't blow me away as it seems to have other reviewers. Maybe in a couple of years when my kids are older I'll feel differently--for now, we're loving The Penderwicks and Ruby Lavender.

Really, I did. I love to read about science, particularly evolutionary biology and natural history; I love stories about spunky girls who kick over the traces of convention. I was disappointed to find myself growing weary of this novel and picking it up somewhat reluctantly to continue reading it. I guess it just seemed unreal that the family would have this treasure of a grandfather dwelling with them, whom Calpurnia barely knew--he didn't seem the sort of figure whom you could avoid or simply not notice living amongst your kin. The sudden insights into the realm of nature felt somewhat contrived to me. I usually don't read books for plot alone--some of my favorite books are meandering, quiet ones that aren't trying hard to reach the climax--but I found myself flipping ahead to see if there was going to be any plot development. When I saw that the jacket copy boasted of Calpurnia trimming her hair bit by bit so that it would not catch her mother's attention, and pointing it out as an example of great high humor and spirit in the book, I realized why this book was not grabbing me; that device, showing the girl's spunk and cleverness, is a lovely bit, but the copy made it seem part of a big rollicking adventure. I wasn't looking for or expecting a rollicking adventure, but I felt as if I were perhaps reading the scholastic record of a child over the course of a school year. I found "The Penderwicks" and the scientifically inclined female character in that story more enjoyable and well rounded. Calpurnia also uses phrases at times that did not strike me as authentic for the time period.

My wife grew up in the 1940s and wishes she'd had this book when she was a young girl, because it would have encouraged her to make her own choices, and shape her own life. Even in the mid-twentieth century, many families didn't encourage girls to think about college or careers, unless they wanted to become nurses or teachers. This book is an intimately written glimpse into rural family life at the turn of the 19th century. But it is also an inspiring portrait of a young girl who nurtures her burning curiosity about nature while, under the wise guidance of her grandfather, discovering her own considerable intellectual capacity, and her dream of being a scientist. It will be a great read for any bright, young person, but equally satisfying as a work of literature for any adult. There is charm, wit and warmth on every page, but no fluff at all. Good stuff!

This is a book I ordered for my elementary school library based on some great reviews. When I saw it at the public library I thought I'd read it so I could talk it up when it came in. The book started out promising. The character of Calpurinia or Callie Vee as she is called throughout the book has a great 'voice.' She is not afraid to question why there are different rules for her than for her six brothers. She is drawn to bugs and animals and wants to know why they are the way they are. But then the book goes nowhere, or rather it goes everywhere without any real purpose and without much of anything actually happening. She and her grandfather start talking about Darwin and evoluation, but the subject is dropped. Grandfather names so many important people in history but readers don't really learn anything about them. This book could have been so much more sdif knowledge about Darwin and Curie and Bell and others were really worked into the story to inspire and educate kids--but as part of the story, not as lectures from Grandfather. I'm really not sure what kids--if they can actually stick with this long-winded book--would come away with.

The writing seems like it needed more polishing as well. Though there were moments when I was pulled into the book, there was such a big part of the book where Callie was telling us about what she had done rather than letting us experience with her in the moment. Also, there's quite a bit of political incorrectness which I know is part of that time in history but I feel it could have been handled better. All in all, I can't see the kids at my school getting in to this book. I wish I had read it before I ordered it.

I am amazed at the overwhelmingly positive reviews of this book.

I love stories of spunky girls who defy convention, and when I saw that this was a spunky naturalist girl, I knew I had to buy it. The cover is beautiful and the title intriguing.

I'm giving it 2 stars instead of 1 for the cover, title, and some interesting naturalist moments.

Other than that, I thought it was pretty dull and poorly written. Lots of annoying Meaningful Capitalization, awkward 1st to 3rd person shifts, and general stiffness. The characters didn't feel real to me, nor did the setting.

I got the feeling that the author believes that all work or art that isn't intellectual is demeaning, especially to anyone who has half a brain. Calpurnia asks her grandfather why Viola works in the kitchen all day, and the grandfather replies that it's because she doesn't know any better.

This strikes me as the kind of book adults think kids should read. I've read loads of fawning adult reviews, but I'd like to know what the kids think of it.

This book was a Newberry Honor Award for 2010 and for the life of me, I simply cannot figure out why it didn't win the whole blamed thing. I pride myself on reading as many of the Honor and Award Winners as I can and this one is the best of the books for several years.

The story involves a young girl named Calpurnia Tate (Callie Vee, because her name is just too atrocious). Callie lives smack in the middle of a family of 7, with her being the only daughter. Her family is rather well off and lives on a pecan plantation in Texas. The book takes place in the year 1899 and revolves around the relationship between Callie and her grandfather. Captain Tate has always lived with the family but has never really been one of them, interested instead in his own interests--Darwin, reading, study. All things that a proper young girl of 1899 should not be interested in.

Callie is a girl after my own heart. She doesn't quite fit in but knows exactly what she wants--something that isn't deemed suitable. She chafes and groans at the ideas of womanhood, all sewing and cooking and cleaning. Callie isn't one of 'those girls'. She wants to be her own kind of person.

The story is beautifully told and just drips that sweet charm that only a southern book can. Callie's relationship with her grandfather is touching; with her brothers, hilarious; with her mother, strained; and with the world around her, full of wonder.

I highly recommend this book for young girls and young women. It is a great lesson in those very things that we still struggle with today but is done in a way that is both tender and honest. It is a story that, once finished, will stay with you like a good memory. For me, she has joined the ranks of my other bestest literary friends--Anne of Green Gables and Pippi Longstockings.

In conclusion, a quote from the book..."Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really." Especially if the book were this one.

At the end of the 19th century, eleven year old Calpurnia Tate is the middle child and only girl in a family of seven children. Her family is respected and well off, pillars of society in their rural Texas town, but Calpurnia is dissatisfied with the feminine pursuits her mother approves of, as well as the narrow trajectory planned for her future. Curiosity about the natural world leads her to forge a bond with her paternal grandfather, a man who dutifully spent his youth in service to his family and country, and is now spending his final years on earth cultivating his own interests. These interests include a thorough study of nature, and to the despair of her gentle mother, Calpurnia is inexplicably delighted to tramp through fields and swamps in search of weeds and bugs.

Each chapter begins with a quote from Darwin's Origin of Species that is well matched to Calpurnia's thoughts and activities. Told in the first person from Calpurnia's perspective, this could have been just another well-researched coming of age story from a promising first time author, but Jacqueline Kelly's rich narrative is beautifully written. Both a physician and a lawyer, her command of the English language is extraordinary and her writing is a sheer pleasure to read.

For example, this passage, where Calpurnia is musing on her sloppy handiwork: "Stitches dropped themselves and later reappeared at random so that the long striped scarf I was knitting bulged in the middle like a python after dining on a rabbit. I fancied that a malevolent Rumpelstiltskin crept into my room at night and undid my best work, turning the gold of my efforts into pathetic dross on a wheel perversely spinning backward."

I love exciting books and was astonished to find this subtly plotted character study so engaging, particularly since the ending is both ambiguous and understated. It is clear that Calpurnia's mother doesn't understand or support her only daughter's yearnings for scientific study, and Calpurnia's ultimate fate is never revealed, as her story ends when the year (and century) do. Still, the book's overarching theme reminds us that change is gradual, and we leave Calpurnia on a hopeful note as one of her least likely dreams comes true.

Highly recommended.