Customer Reviews

The Slightly True Story Of Cedar B. Hartley

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The first novel from Martine Murray, an Australian writer, illustrator, and acrobat, The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley follows around a 12-year-old Aussie tomboy with red hair and a great personality. Cedar is one of those gregarious almost-teenage girls we all wish we could have been, one who observes the world with a keen eye and open heart, and has her head squarely on her shoulders. She lives with her widowed hippy mother in a suburb filled with the sort of real people infrequently found in typical YA fiction...there's her friend Caramella, the daughter of Italian immigrants; Ricci, the older Yugoslavian with the little dog a fondness for Valium; and an assortment of wealthy and not-so-wealthy kids. Cedar's older brother is also part of the story, even though he's run away and communicates only via cryptic, poetic postcards.

The plot isn't an especially challenging one, but the characters and writing make it shine. Naturally, there must be a boy involved somewhere, but in this book it's not the handsome rich boy (that character is a bullying antagonist), but a tall kid named Kite, the son of circus performers. He and Cedar start practicing acrobatics together, and ultimately build a performance that involves Caramella as well as Oscar, an intelligent disabled friend of Kite's.

Cedar's voice is genuine and fantastic through-out the book, and I loved the slices of life that Murray expertly captures through Cedar's eyes. "Through the window you can see the dusty beams of light reaching down toward you, reaching all the way from heaven or the sun or from an angel's own eyes or whatever it is that watches from up there. I lie in that sunny patch and it makes me go quiet and small and as still as the dried up bugs on the windowsill." Murray's doodley illustrations add nice accents to the book as well, illustrating some of the acrobatics that would have otherwise been impossible to visualize, and giving the book an almost journal-like quality.

I appreciated that the author portrayed untraditional characters with the everyday casual perspective of a young woman accustomed to them. For example, Cedar has a pair of neighbors who Ricci simply calls, "the boys." These two men have just adopted a baby together, and while less subtle authors would have turned these obviously [homosexual] characters into a lesson about untraditional families, Murray lets Cedar's comfort and familiarity with her neighbors and their new baby speak for itself. "The boys" are just two more characters on Cedar's street...friends Cedar can turn to when she's worried she may have broken a rib.

At times, the political correct tone of the book had hints of contrivance, but never overwhelmingly so. Regardless, I'd take a book with a slightly labored espousal of tolerance and respect over "babysitter's club"-style drivel any day. Cedar learns how she can make a difference in the world the same day as she learns how being a mover and a shaker can have heavy costs. That's a complex moral. The book is a nicely balanced perspective on activism and the strengths of character, and I was more than willing to overlook a few fleeting moments where the author's good intentions got a little heavy-handed.

Pre-teen girls will love this book. Cedar offers the inspiration that precocious, active, self-aware young women desperately needed in this era of mary-kateandashley, and Lizzie McGuire.

This book is so delightfully simple and it's heroine so wonderfully quirky and complex that it's not much use to try and describe either. I'd recommend it to any teenage girl looking for a story that doesn't involve sex, violence or abusive families and has a happy ending. Every once in a while we all need to set our real lives aside and fantasize about the childhood we all wish we had and Cedar lets us do that.

The characters are so well drawn and fully formed that you don't miss the things a lot of other writers would feel compelled to include. We can empathize with Cedar as a girl on the brink of adulthood without having to see her get her first period or lose her virginity. This is a book reminiscent of The Brady Bunch, where six kids shared a bathroom with no toilet and no one complained. It's sweet without being sappy and real without being vulgar. The villains aren't inordinately cruel (no Draco Malfoys here) and most of the problems are solvable.

A person could talk (or write) all day and never manage to do this story justice so don't listen to me. Just do yourself a favor and read the book.

Ilove this book. I read it a couple of years ago, but it's still one of my favorites. I love how Cedar describes things: a red ribbon of thought, many others that I'm afraid I don't quite remember. Martine Murray, I think, is someone I would like to know; I think she must be one of those who never really grew up, past the age where you know things. I'm only thirteen, and I can't even remember such a time. It's wonderful, so simple and whisical and true to life, so real. It's realer than life, because we all wish we knew people like Cedar and Kite and Caramella and Barnaby, and all the rest. It's really great for girls my age. And everyone else, too, come to think of it.

What's the most difficult part of life when you are a teen or a near-teen? One of the toughest parts has to be trying to figure out how much to blend and how much to be yourself at the same time that the world is telling you to blend, blend, blend. Cedar doesn't really do blending.

What Cedar does do is people. Cedar has a green thumb for people. One of her friends tells her this, to Cedar's delight. And thank goodness for that green thumb when your father has died mysteriously and your seventeen-year-old brother is accused of stealing and has run away and your mom is working two jobs and your new best friend Kite has circus parents who've split and your Yugoslavian neighbor has a dog who needs a $500 operation.

I can't possibly tell you how good this book is unless I give you a little sample. Here's a bit from where Cedar goes to Kite's house for the first time:

"I met his dad. They lived in a small house with a long hall and windows on only one side. So it was dark and smelled like wet socks and bathmats. The other side was joined to another house that looked almost the same. It wasn't as messy as you might think a house without a mother in it might be, but it wasn't swept and stainless and steely, like the Bartons', and there were no good cooking smells like at Caramella's. Also, there weren't any pictures on the walls or things on shelves, like at our house. It was house without things. At least without little things. For me, since I'm a major snoop, it was a bit like opening a photo album and finding it empty."

I wanted to show you some of the little pictures Cedar draws in the book, but I couldn't find any online, so I had to take my own, very bad photo of some. I wish I could post this.

Do you see how good this book is? If you don't yet, you need to get it and read it and then you will see for yourself.

I'm 14 yrs. old and just finished reading this book. It's full of imagination, adventure, and love. I could connect to the way the book is worded and the things they eat in it because my mom's from Europe. I thought it would be kind of kiddy-ish but i thoroughly enjoyed this book! It has a great ending and i would love to read another book by this author!

Cedar ("because it's a type of tree and my mother was in a deep hippie phase when I was born") narrates her own story in a quirky yet endearing voice. She doesn't remember the father who died when she was a baby; her family consists of a worried mother who works long hours and a brother who ran away to Perth a year ago and now sends cryptic postcards or sings original songs on the answering machine. Cedar develops a friendship with three other unique individuals who turn out to be interconnected in unexpected ways. As the narrative unfolds, Cedar learns more and more about each person, but it's not until the foursome undertakes an ambitious project together that she finds out her own family's secrets.
Rich characterizations give the novel a depth and complexity beyond its simple plot. If there are a few lapses in logic (would a seventeen-year-old boy really be sent away to boarding school just because of an unfounded allegation that he stole a skateboard?), they are easily forgiven. The novel's language is a diamond mine, surprising the reader with hidden gems such as "Gradually Caramella began to brim and giggle and burst forward and untie the careful little scared knot in her heart."
Scattered throughout the text are tiny line drawings, almost like doodles in a diary: a bee in socks, Barnaby doing a cartwheel, a football bouncing capriciously, birds in beanies on their way to Siberia. A humorous glossary at the end provides Cedar's definitions of Australian slang.
At one point Cedar's friend Oscar lets her read his "commonplace book," a notebook of his own drawings and writings. Her reaction to Oscar's work is "I liked it, but I can't say why. Perhaps because it was odd and small and quiet, not grand, and because it made you smile just a little inward smile, and the way it scratched at your mind, like a funny tickle." Indeed, The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley scratches at your mind in a delicious way.

If you like your characters quirky, you'll enjoy reading THE SLIGHTLY TRUE STORY OF CEDAR B. HARTLEY, a coming of age story set down under. Cedar is living with her overworked single mom, missing her brother (who has run away from reform school), and wondering about her father, who died when she was a baby.

Cedar's descriptive narration makes you see the world through her eyes, and oh, the places you'll go with her. Watch as the Acrobrats steal your heart. This would make a great gift book for the kid who is out of step with her or his peers, and for those who try too hard to conform.

My 8 year old daughter was very excited to read this book, and I admit, I thought she had picked out a good one. But she never made it past page 19, because she had already showed me 3 instances of cuss words. I was very disappointed in Scholastic to say the least. They advertise this book as a 9-12 year old level story. Use some common sense!