Review: Ambassador by William Alexander

Two criticisms come up frequently in reviews of William Alexander's Ambassador: the sci-fi adventure plot "sits uneasily" next to the family drama plot, and the family drama remains unresolved at the end of the novel. I would like to go on record saying that neither of these things bothered me. In fact, I love the length of the novel (222 pages), and I'm glad Alexander didn't make it longer just so he could tie everything up nicely.

The story is first told from the perspective of an envoy, a highly intelligent plasma-like creature who must select an ambassador from Earth. He chooses Gabriel Sandro Fuentes after observing him babysitting his twin siblings at the playground. He builds a blackhole in the dryer in Gabe's basement and uses it to send a sort of projection of Gabe to another playground, one where child ambassadors from all over the galaxy meet to play games as a way of negotiating with each other.

I wish I could have read the novel without knowing that, back on Earth, Gabe's family was going to be picked up by Immigration.  (His parents and older sister are undocumented.) But you can't review this book without acknowledging the way Alexander plays with both meanings of the word "alien," and the way he uses the sci-fi adventure plot to show how different groups of people (and aliens) can misunderstand each other, leading to terrible and unnecessary conflict.

Because I was anticipating what happens to Gabe's family, I don't think it had the dramatic effect it would have otherwise. So for me, the book didn't really become dramatic until half-way through, when the mystery of the ships at the edge of the solar system comes into focus and extraterrestrials start targeting Gabe violently. At that point, I was hooked.

I did have a moment at the end of the novel when I asked myself, did Gabe change and grow over the course of this novel? Did he even make any mistakes? He is selected to be an ambassador because of his thoughtfulness and ability to "code-switch," and he uses these skills to good effect throughout.  Where's the moment where he acts out or resists the role that's thrust upon him?  I don't think this novel quite follows the usual "hero's journey" arc.

But after thinking about it, I realized that Gabe does make mistakes--at least two, which I won't describe because it's spoilery. But his mistakes are of the unintentional, understandable variety. And that fits with what I think the author is trying to show: that people of different backgrounds may misunderstand each other, and this can lead to terrible consequences if we do not make the effort to get to know each other rather than retaliating.

All in all, I think this is a remarkable adventure story. It celebrates a character who avoids conflict and acts thoughtfully, but it is still full of action and Zorro-like wise-cracking. And every adventurous episode supports the big idea. I do think that Gabe accepts his role as ambassador with surprisingly little resistance, but I love the idea that children make the best ambassadors because they are more curious and flexible, and therefore more likely to befriend creatures who are different from them.

As for the unresolved nature of the family drama, there will be a sequel. But frankly, I think this book can stand alone. In fact, I think it's a hallmark of Alexander's work to leave some things unexplained and unresolved. It still drives me a little crazy that I don't know why certain people change into goblins in the world of Goblin Secrets and Ghoulish Song, but that just keeps me thinking about the stories.

Grading Yourself with the Fuse #8 Poll

Elizabeth Bird has been laboring over the results of the 100 Best Children's Novels Poll and has finally put a nice bow on it. But the discussion continues. Lots of bloggers, starting I think with Teacherninja, have been reporting on the number of books on the list that they've read and giving themselves a grade. Meanwhile, Debbie Reese has begun the project of pointing out all the problematic portrayals of Native Americans in the novels.

This relates to a larger issue: the list has very few examples of books by or about people of color. This isn't really surprising, because lo these many years, books by and about white people have been getting published and winning Newbery awards and getting assigned by classroom teachers much more often than books (imagine all the unpublished--even unwritten ones!) by people of color. In fact, in the last issue of Hornbook, there was a wonderful article about being black and growing up reading books like The Secret Garden.

Also, the CCBC has been collecting data on the number of books by and about people of color that are published in the US, and it's distressing. Here's just a sample:

Year	Total Number of Books Published (Est.)	Number of Books Received at CCBC	African / African Americans		American Indians		Asian Pacifics/ Asian Pacific Americans		Latinos
			By	About	By	About	By	About	By	About
2007	5,000	3,000	77	150	6	44	56	68	42	59

So it's not surprising, to me, to find that most of the people who participated in Elizabeth Bird's poll have read and liked more books by and about white people. So--how helpful!--the Fuse #8 poll reveals the bias in our field. But it also reinforces it. At least it does if our response is to use it as an assessment tool rather than looking at it as an interesting snapshot.

Naturally, I have a solution. After the jump are all of the chapter books on the CCBC's 50 Multicultural Books Every Child Should Know. There are ten. (How perfect!) So give yourself 10 points for each of the following that you have read. Now average that with your Fuse #8 grade. Now you have a grade which is adjusted for white bias. This is obviously mathematically suspect, but entertaining, no?