The Monster Variations
by Daniel Kraus
Random House, 2012
256 Pages
Young Adult
It’s funny; the novels I would most likely expect to see at the top of a banned book list are also the ones I would most recommend to young people. Daniel Kraus is the foremost example of this, not only for Monster Variations, but his entire ouvre. Rotters is a powerful story about a boy who goes from an average middle-class “What’s for dinner, mom?” lifestyle to a devastatingly destitute one. Poor enough, in fact, that his father robs graves for a living. The main character has to cope with how society now treats him and how his life has changed so much in so little time. He grapples with how he defines himself. In Scowler, the protagonist faces an abusive father in the goriest detail, but perseveres and overcomes his personal challenges.
In Monster Variations, Kraus takes on Stand by Me, as three boys– a wimp, a rich kid, and a “burner,” face a summer with a curfew enforced long before dark, and a truck that likes to run kids over.
One of the boys becomes a victim of the hit and run truck. Kraus describes it in a raw realism that will make you shudder and leave you feeling like you’ve been hit by a truck. Since I read this, I have looked at every silver pickup on the road with suspicion.
The rest of the story is about how the friends face his new handicap and the new curfew that drives them to make the absolute most out of every living moment left in the summer. As intense as Kraus is, it is refreshing to see a realistic portrayal of boys bonding in a positive way. They spit on each other, they sneak into school after hours, and they go to look at the dead monster some kid has… (and steal it.) They lie for each other and stand up for each other, even if it means their lives. (Whether or not you consider that positive, it’s undeniably real. Kraus tends to slap his reader in the face with reality. Hard.)
We watch Willie struggle with everyday tasks trying to come to terms with his disfigurement. His most fascinating habit is creating mnemonics for everything. In fact, the skill takes a life of its own as even the book’s chapter titles begin to reflect acronyms & acrostics for remembering everything from the names of the planets and the oceans to the first seven presidents… only a little bit darker.
Reggie is the guy destined to stay in the same town for the rest of his life, probably pumping gas and fixing cars, but who feels deep emotion with every fiber of his being. James is the all-American boy who finally must face the reason that his dad knows he wasn’t really sleeping over at Reggie’s that night they got in trouble.
There is a bully in this book, because there always is in real life. We learn of him because he is always showing up out of nowhere. He’s uncannily everywhere. How does he know? Then we get a chapter from the bully’s point of view that explains it all. And the scariest part is that all these characters are so much like the kids I grew up with it hurts.
Mel feels stupid and lonely and, after a while, agitated. He finds he misses that familiar weight against his chest, so he rummages through his brother’s room until he finds a new object, this one even larger and more dangerous. He puts it beneath the black shirt next to his heart.
Kraus dares you to compare your own life, your own childhood. To risk the cliché: this book is destined to become a classic… if it isn’t banned. And maybe, hopefully… especially, even if it IS banned.
Related Posts:
The Monster Variations
Rotters
Scowler
Trollhunters