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I had two friends send photos of SHAKEN, as displayed at NCTE.
Which was really kind of them.
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Tag Archive for James Preller Shaken
Kristy’s Concussion: A Scene from My New Novel, SHAKEN: Megan Rapinoe and a Knife
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Here’s a paragraph and then a quick scene that takes place soon after Kristy suffers a concussion while playing soccer. It’s the “inciting event” that propels the novel forward.
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Light breaks through the curtains, bringing with it a sharp pain to her forehead. Kristy imagines a jagged crack running from eyebrow to hairline. She can’t bear to call out her mother’s name. So she waits, eyes squeezed shut, pillow over her face, like an aphid on the underside of a leaf. A black dot of silence. She’ll be better soon. As good as new. Running the field and scoring goals. This is the worst of it. Yes, she tells Megan Rapinoe, who is staring back at Kristy from a soccer poster on the wall, this is the very worst.
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It was the first time Kristy was alone for the day in an empty house. No problem. She’d just take it slow, recover.
That was the word, over and over, recover.
“That’s your job now,” her father advised. “Just get better, a little bit better each day.”
Sure. Okay.
But how do you do that when your head feels like it’s covered with bubble wrap? When your brain doesn’t feel right? When it hurts to think? Every time Kristy turned her head, it took an extra second for her eyes to focus. For a moment, it’s just blur.
Kristy padded softly downstairs, moved into the kitchen, slid two pieces of cinnamon raisin bread into the toaster. The room smelled like coffee and eggs and it turned her stomach. There were a few dishes in the sink and for some reason this unsettled her. But why? Who cares? She stood by the counter holding a knife.
Time passed. She blinked. Looked down.
A knife was in her right hand.
There was a window above the sink overlooking the backyard. Trees, grass, the deck. Leaves beginning to change colors, drop down to the ground. No action at the bird feeder. It was empty, anyway. No seed.
So this was what it was like to stay home on a school day. For two weeks straight. The big echoing house. The world of nothingness outside. A voice in her head asked, Is it empty, or full of nothing?
Oh, how very zen.
Kristy noticed that the faucet was running. She shut it off.
Why was a knife in her right hand?
The smell of cinnamon. And something else—a burnt, bitter aroma. Kristy remembered the toaster, the toast, the butter, and the reason for the knife. She wasn’t hungry anymore. Didn’t bother, even, to remove the blackened bread from the toaster. It could wait. It could all wait. She placed the butter knife on the counter and headed back upstairs. The bed beckoned.
Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow will be better.
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PUB DAY in the ADKs: “Shaken” Now Available!
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PUB DAY in the ADKs!
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Yes, I’m on vacation with a place on Rainbow Lake for two full weeks. Amazing.
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Today this book sees the world, and here I am reminded that the rocks, the air, the water, and the trees don’t care.
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It is only right that this is so.
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I know I’ve been a lot lately with the publishing news. I promise, this is my last new book of 2024. Thank you to anyone who picks up Kristy’s story, who places it (cover out!) on a bookshelf, hands it to a young person (grades 4-8), reads it — while the world shrugs with benign indifference.
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I think I’ll get out on the water today and count my blessings.
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Good News: The 2nd Review for SHAKEN Is Pretty Fabulous, Too!
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I’m happy with this new review for Shaken from the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (BCCB). Here’s a snip, minus the plot outline — Kristy, a 7th grade soccer star, suffers from the effects of a serious concussion — since BCCB asks authors not to post full reviews:
“Preller’s writing is rife with strong metaphors and powerfully realistic characters, making a surprisingly gripping story despite a relatively staid plot that focuses on a girl slowly learning a new way to be healthy. As Kristy works through the pressure that she’s put on herself (and the pressure coming from her parents and older teammates) to excel, she learns how to stand up for her own needs and how to identify which of her skills are good for her, like asking for help without apologies, and which aren’t, like disassociating through difficult times. When she finally returns to the soccer field, it’s alone, to do drills and test her love for the game, which feels even more triumphant than the early scenes in front of cheering fans.”
As a reminder, here’s a snippet from last week’s review from Kirkus:
“Preller’s careful pacing matches the fuzziness and slow healing of Kristy’s brain, introducing readers to the realities of the pain, loss, and feelings of isolation that dedicated athletes experience when they can no longer play. The somber tone of the story is lightened by the presence of two minor characters who bring levity and humor. Strong themes of healing (both physical and emotional), family, and friendship abound. An introspective and realistic coming-of-age story about rediscovering oneself. (Fiction. 9-13)
COMING on SEPTEMBER 10th!
Huckleberry Finn — Archetypical Boys — and a Scene from My Upcoming Novel, SHAKEN (ages 9-13)
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I’ve been on a good reading streak lately. You know the feeling. These times when you keep picking up good books and your mind feels engaged, buzzing with ideas and perceptions. I read Percival Everett’s new novel, James, which is Everett’s version of The 
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from Jim’s point of view. A brilliant book. It led me to reread Huckleberry — it had been decades — which was also profoundly interesting, a book wholly deserving of its place in the canon of American Literature. Not perfect, nope, but foundational in so many ways.
Jim and Huck on a raft on the river.
It’s all right there.
Sidenote: 2007 saw the publication of Jon Clinch’s debut novel, Finn, which focuses on Huckleberry’s father. I remember loving this dark, gritty tale when it first came out — we meet Huck in this one, too — and now I feel that I need to revisit it again.
Anyway, that’s three supremely talented writers, like gold diggers seeking riches, working the same deep vein: that great fictional character, Huckleberry Finn. The distilled spirit of the American boy. Or, at least, one version of that boy.
In a similar way, I think of Ramona Quimby as a classic type of American girl. A powerful archetype, for Ramona is the most imitated character in all of children’s literature.
Inspired thus, and perusing the internet, as one does, I came across this illustration of Tom Sawyer by Norman Rockwell:
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The image jarred something loose in me, because I have a similar scene in my middle-grade novel, Shaken (Macmillan, September 2024). There’s a boy sneaking out of a bedroom window late at night. Sure, I could look no farther than my own childhood to come up with that idea. But there was something else at play. Something deeper and more resonant.
I should note here that the neighborhood boy in Shaken was inspired, directly, by my childhood friend, Jimmy Kuhlman, AKA, Jimbo Ku. But I now realize that the “Jimbo” in my story was also inspired by Twain’s depiction of Tom and Huck. All those characters (living and fictional) flicker around the essence of the archetypical American boy, the mischievous & resourceful rapscallion. In my book, I wanted that character to represent a sense of freedom, which was something missing from Kristy’s mindset: a wildness, an openness . . . a touch of Huckleberryness.
Looking back, I understand that I treasured those qualities in my old (and still current) friend. He had an undeniable energy and rebellious intelligence. A rule-breaker. I wanted this character to enter Kristy’s world and leave her enriched and transformed. He’s just that kid in everybody’s neighborhood who is a little bit different. More alive, more free, more daring.
I sensed that those qualities were absent from Kristy’s highly-scheduled, goal-oriented routine. Today I look around and suspect that those qualities are missing from the life of so many young people. There’s just not enough time to muck around. Which is too bad, because so many good and valuable lessons are learned from just mucking about.
Here’s an excerpt from the moment when Kristy first notices — really notices — her next door neighbor. It is late at night and she is sitting on her front porch while the world sleeps. Or so she thinks:
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This was where Kristy sat huddled under a fleece blanket late one evening long after her parents had gone to bed. Sleeping was still a problem—it never got back on schedule—especially since she no longer exerted herself physically with sports. Kristy used to fall into bed dead-tired; now she had become nocturnal, like a bat or a bandicoot. On this night, Kristy wasn’t doing anything in particular. Just being. Enjoying the silence, the body’s quiet, late autumn’s brisk, crisp, sharp aroma of decay.
This was something new, the post-concussed version of herself, Kristy 2.0. Up all hours of the night, not busy, not active, not even restless really. The fall fragrances soothed and comforted her in a way they never had before—the smell of rotted plants and leaves and acorns: dark, rich, woody. Kristy sat content as an owl perched on a limb: watchful, alert, still.
A soft noise came from the neighbors’ house to her immediate right. The Sullivans. A second-story window shivered up almost soundlessly, but not quite. Dark curtains billowed. And a black-booted foot stepped out onto the front roof. A bent figure hunched through the opening and, once outside, carefully lowered the window shut. It was the skinny boy next door, the youngest of them all, sneaking out of his house. Interesting. Kristy felt like a spy, as if she were witnessing a minor felony, something that she wasn’t meant to see. The night whispering a secret into her ear, the moon lending its stolen light.
What was he up to?
His name, she knew, was Jimmy. They had never talked, not much anyway, though his family had moved in nearly two years ago. Though roughly the same age, their paths rarely crossed. He wore a private school uniform and rode the bus to get there. There were four or five Sullivan children—it was hard to get an accurate census—one of those sprawling families with an ever-changing assortment of cars cluttering the driveway. Teenagers coming and going. Young adults. Sometimes they even parked on the front lawn. The family had moved up from the city, Kristy believed. Two and a half hours on the train and a galaxy away.
The boy moved to the edge of the roof, rubbed his hands against his jeans. Then he leaned dangerously out over the black nothingness and, with one hand, grabbed hold of a drooping tree limb. He swung so freely, so effortlessly—like a gibbon brachiating through the forest. Kristy took a sudden intake of air when he dipped to a lower branch, wrapped his legs around the trunk for momentary purchase, then dropped to the earth as if he’d done it a hundred times before.
A lone car traveled down the empty road, casting long shadows with its headlights. The boy stepped close to the house into the shadows. The beams swept across the grounds like searchlights in a prison movie. The danger passed.
Even if the boy glanced in the direction of Kristy’s porch, he almost certainly would not have seen her, wrapped in the deep-blue fleece blanket pulled up to her neck. He furtively moved to the sidewalk and into the street, long strides and calm confidence. He carried something in his right hand. What was it? In answer to her question, the boy lowered a skateboard to the street and stepped onto it. He pushed off—one, two— smooth as silk over glass. With a practiced gesture, he pulled a hoodie over his head and disappeared into the night.
Where was he going, now in the witching hour, while all the world slept? To meet his friends? To party in the woods? To see his girlfriend? Or maybe he was like Kristy, awake because he was lured outside by the autumn air, a nocturnal creature of the dark. A fellow bandicoot. Maybe he couldn’t sleep. Maybe home was too hard. It was a puzzle that Kristy couldn’t solve. Not yet, anyway.
She longed to follow him into the dark.
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For 7th-grader Kristy Barrett, soccer is life. It has always been at the center of Kristy’s world. Her friendships and self-worth, her dreams and daily activities, all revolve around the sport. Until she suffers from a serious concussion and has to set soccer aside for an uncertain amount of time. Kristy begins to struggle in school, experience stress, anxiety, and panic attacks which ultimately bring her to some questionable decisions . . . and the care of a therapist as she suffers from post-concussion syndrome. It’s a story about identity, therapy, new friendships, making mistakes and, finally, coming true to one’s ever-evolving self.
SHAKEN will be published on September 10th, 2024. It is available for pre-order. Thanks for reading.
Category: Readings, Shaken, the writing process / Tags: Book excerpt Shaken Preller, Finn, Huckleberryness, James Huck Finn, James Preller Shaken, Jimmy Kuhlman, Jon Clinch, Mark Twain, Norman Rockwell illustration of Tom Sawyer, Percival Everett, Ramona Quimby, Sneaking out of bedroom windows, The American boy archetype, The boy in American Literature, The most imitated character in children's literature, Tom Sawyer
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