The Light Across the River 3: Weak points and conclusion

So what are the weak points of Stephanie Reed's The Light Across the River?

Good question. There are some false negatives, as I call them: the characterization of Johnny and the portrayal of his mouthiness could be considered heavy-handed, for example--but not for a Young Adult book. Likewise, the ending may seem as abrupt as that of its predecessor, but not if you realize that the story hinges on character development.

Since I'm a geek for all seasons, I did wish she had given more historical background: she has a "Historical Note" mostly about the Eliza-Johnny connection, but I would've liked to know more specifics about her research; I was surprised how much was historically based. But my preferences reflect my post-grad status; the footnotes I'd like would sink the book for its YA audience. Still, since this will likely attract home schoolers, a more extensive study guide would help.

Conclusion. This is a short post at the end of a long day, but I really don't find serious flaws in the story. I recommend it and Across the Wide River, especially for the home school crowd. They aren't as long or as demanding as Uncle Tom's Cabin, but they can prepare young readers for that story, which would be a good follow-up.

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The Light Across the River 2: Good points

When I was in high school, our US history class had a role-playing exercise. As I recall, we were a community in the 1850s somewhere in the US that apparently had no specific law covering escaped slaves. (I find this doubtful now, but anyway...) And we happened to have an escaped slave turn up in our midst. What a stroke of luck!

Everyone had some kind of part to play, of course. I was the editor of an Abolitionist newspaper.

Now, the odd things were

1. Though practically all Abolitionists were devout Christians, there was no hint of that for my character, though I provided it, and

2. The local minister was rabidly pro-slavery.

There were pro-slavery ministers back then, as Stephanie Reed acknowledges in her books. But while the pro-slavery position was open to Christian and non-Christian alike, Abolitionism was dominated by Christians of some kind or other, and the major voices for freeing the slaves were at least sympathetic to Christianity and usually dedicated to that faith.

Why did our exercise ignore that fact?

Well, the simple (and probably accurate) answer involves the word "bigotry." If they're going to lie, we need to tell the truth loud and clear. I wish I had had Reed's books back then, but at least the current crop will have this resource. That's my first and probably strongest reason for recommending these two books.

(In case anyone's interested, since the minister was wanting to throw the slave to the wolves, I decided to out-Christian him: my argument was exclusively Biblical, and my opening text was Deuteronomy 23:15--"Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee." That's about as clear a proof-text as you could want. I was mildly surprised that it didn't turn up in Reed's first book, but it's in this one.)

Where The Light Across the River itself is concerned, the strengths are

Stronger focus. The first book had to establish the setting, and there were places where it lost focus as a result: although I technically knew Lowry was the main character, there were times when it was easy to forget that fact. Here, the focus is split between Johnny and Eliza, but so precisely that there's never any doubt. The marked contrast between Eliza and Johnny also helps.

More action. The Light Across the River is primarily character-driven, but there's more action and suspense throughout than in Across the Wide River, where the action came in lumps, so to speak.

More direct. The meandering tendency of the first story pretty well disappears.

More Christian. The Christian element here is stronger as well. While not absent from the first story, it wasn't as focused there and sometimes came across as generically spiritual or inspirational. Not so here.

(And tomorrow, as usual, I'll explore the story's weaknesses.)

You can purchase The Light Across the River at

Christian Books

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Target

And Yahoo.

I've pushed the book; let's see if you can push my buttons!

The Light Across the River 1: Intro

Stephanie Reed's The Light Across the River takes up where Across the Wide River left off, only now we see Lowry in a less sympathetic, indeed obnoxious, light. He's berating his younger brother Johnny for having the loosest lips before Mick Jagger. (Those familiar with the previous story will remember that Lowry's besetting problem was lockjaw.) Since the Rankin family has a dangerous secret--Reed explains the penalties for helping slaves escape quite thoroughly--a blabbermouth could cause a lot of misery and even some death here and there. And to make matters worse, Johnny doesn't even have anyone to tell about it.

Now, in Johnny's defense, he sincerely believes that if everyone knew the truth, they would rally to the good and abolish evil. This is technically known as "Why, yes! I will buy the Brooklyn Bridge" syndrome. A few brushes with people who are eager to be evil for a buck settles him a bit, as does a brush with a nice lady devoid of fashion sense.

Hands up, everyone who has read Uncle Tom's Cabin! Okay, I guess I'll include movie and comic-book versions just to nudge this toward double digits. You can download it as a free audio book, you know. Anyway--one of the most famous characters, even better known really than Uncle Tom himself, is Eliza (Indian name: Dances with Ice Floes), who crosses a broken ice field to elude slave hunters. For extra points, she carries a baby with her. She was based on a real, live slave.

Guess what?

In real life, this real escapee passed through the Rankin station of the Underground Railroad, so she becomes the second main character in the current story. In fact, she and Johnny alternate chapters as they get more and more involved in the dangerous world of rescuing slaves. (There is a lot more violence, threatened and actual, in this story.) She also brings along a token agnostic, a French Canadian who's with the Canuck navy, presumably as a Frog man. (Why, yes, that was gratuitous. Thanks for noticing.) He threatens to kill people a lot, but it's really just his way of saying he cares. Anyway, the new guy, Gil, would have been watching way to many action movies if they'd been invented yet.

Will Eliza get everyone to safety? Will Gil be eaten by a nearsighted Cajun? Will Johnny someday put a cork in it? For answers to these and other questions, read the book.

(And tomorrow, as usual, I'll explore the story's strengths.)

You can purchase The Light Across the River at

Christian Books

Amazon

Target

And Yahoo.

I've pushed the book; let's see if you can push my buttons!

Across the Wide River 3: Weak points

Strength and weakness are often different sides of the same coin, and Stephanie Reed's Across the Wide River is no exception. So this post will be a mirror-image or Devil's Advocate version of yesterday's in many respects.

Character. I don't think most kids these days are used to character-driven stories. Character is an incidental matter; action generally drives things. Now, there is action in Across the Wide River, usually to do with a slave escape, but it's mostly about character development, in this case Lowry's shyness. If you don't understand that, the ending is going to hit you like a brick wall beyond a door: you'll have a sudden, jolting stop for no reason. But from the standpoint of a character-driven story, the end has arrived, and Reed evidently doesn't believe in loitering. (As I mentioned yesterday, fans of Austen or the Brontës will probably get into this: those older stories were strongly character-driven.)

Life choices. Lowry's wavering about his eventual career does get a bit tedious. It's realistic, but so is a couple guys on a couch trading "What do you want to do?"/"I dunno" dialog. Sometimes you can see where a choice leads, but in other cases it seems pointless. Mind you, this is totally sane and gripping compared to some of the stuff the kids will read in college or even a college-prep class.

If I were Lowry... One thing that bothered me about Lowry is that he seemed to think only an abstract argument could answer the pro-slavery side. Rubbish. The pro-slavery argument at its strongest emphasized needs: the need of the Blacks for a support system, given their lack of education or advanced work skills (though of course that lack was not an accident but part of the system), and the need of the local economy for cheap labor. Absent the cheap labor, the economies of many areas and states would be ruined, causing innocent (White) people to suffer. As I mentioned recently, the power of experiential apologetics is great, usually greater than that of an abstract argument, and I've found it emboldening. Instead of trying a generalized argument about suffering, Lowry could have said, "I have seen human beings tortured; I have seen perversion being thrust upon the innocent"--and given examples. That's what Harriet Beecher Stowe did in Uncle Tom's Cabin: she gave examples, and they rang true. This point comes up in the sequel, The Light Across the River, which I'll post about tomorrow.

Conclusion. While there are some problem areas, overall this is a good and timely book. I've heard people say that it isn't fast enough for kids, and I would say it's fast enough for any kid who isn't really slow. (If we keep pandering and lowering the bar, we might as well anticipate the trend and go back to painting on cave walls.) But I have more confidence in kids; I think they have the class for something like this. And by recognizing the horror and heroism of a bygone age, perhaps they will be better equipped to be heroes against the horrors of this age.

Tomorrow we'll look at the sequel, The Light Across the River.

In the meantime, is there more on the CFRB tour? You bet your buttons! Or better yet, try mine:

Across the Wide River 2: Good points

I mentioned yesterday that Stephanie Reed's Across the Wide River has enough actual history to qualify as edutainment. There's also some other info for us geeks to enjoy--fiddly bits about life in the eighteen hundreds. But what about non-geeks?

Character. Since this is a character-driven story, character development is a big issue--and shyness is a big issue for a lot of people. (Not just kids!) Some people might be bothered that there's no quick fix offered: Lowry changes with increased perspective, otherwise known as age. But it's good for people to know they aren't alone in their problems, and a quick fix would trivialize the issue. ("If you were as smart as I am, you would've figured this out too!")

Life choices. On a related note, Lowry takes a while to figure out--well, not what he's supposed to do, but that he's going to do it. It's one thing to know God's will; it's something else to do it. I think a lot of people who complain about not knowing God's will actually want a reset on the part they do know.

Back to Abolitionism. We tend to think that slavery is a thing of the past, but it still occurs in several parts of the world. For that matter, using human fetuses for research is worse than normal chattel slavery, as there is no escape but death. So long as the US believes that it is acceptable to buy and sell human beings, we will not only give up the moral high ground in dealing with more old-fashioned slavers, we risk judgment. It helps to remember how dehumanizing slavery is to both slave and owner, and this story makes that point. Even a "good" master may have to do bad things with and to his slaves.

Learning from history. It's possible that the anti-life policies we're seeing these days will call for civil disobedience. In a story I once plotted, health-care costs were used as an excuse to require unborn children with birth defects to be aborted, resulting in a kind of Underground Railroad for pregnant women. What would we do in such a case? Perhaps the best answer lies in our past, with the people now generally recognized as heroes.

Concision. I nearly forgot to include this craft note, though it was one of the first things I noticed: Reed doesn't go rabbiting on and padding the story. In general, if something doesn't advance plot, character, or setting (setting being nearly as important as character), she doesn't dwell on it. So the cholera epidemic I mentioned last time would probably take up three fraught yet needless chapters for another writer, but here gets as many paragraphs, since the main point is who died. A fair amount of the story maintains this Spartan ethic, which is refreshing after all the Baroque excrescences other authors wallow in.

Tomorrow we'll look at the weak points of the story.

In the meantime, is there more on the CFRB tour? You bet your buttons! Or better yet, try mine:

Across the Wide River 1: Intro

Stephanie Reed's Across the Wide River tells the story of Lowry Rankin, a boy on the first station of the Underground Railroad, and his struggle to overcome his extreme shyness and become an abolitionist minister like his father.

After Lowry's slave friend is nearly killed by a savage beating, Lowry's father moves "across the wide river" from Kentucky to Ohio--a "free" state, though not altogether free for slaves. The Rankin farm becomes the first station on the Underground Railroad, with a light in the window beckoning to slaves across the river to flee to freedom--not in Ohio proper, which is only the first stage, but ultimately in Canada, where they will be tolerated and not enslaved.

Lowry finds himself an outsider both because of his father's outspoken views and his own Kentucky accent, and the sleepless nights of helping out runaway slaves make matters worse. Then there are the moments of typical nineteenth-century fun such as a cholera epidemic...

Across the Wide River is a character-driven story with a heavy emphasis on setting--not just the physical setting but the attitudes common at the time and the events that shaped them. The historical aspect has been well researched, so the story constitutes edutainment, though the fact that it's more character driven than event driven may be problematic for the high-speed chase crowd. (On the other hand, the Jane Austen crowd should do okay, and even the Harry Potter people may get by.) This is not to say there is no suspense: there's no shortage of Bad Stuff happening, and since the Rankins are breaking the law by helping the slaves, even more Bad Stuff is poised to dump on them if they slip up. For that matter, Lowry's own psychological impediment may keep him not only from his career destiny but from the woman he loves. Will he get a grip and learn to speak up?

Tomorrow we'll look at the strengths of the story.

In the meantime, is there more on the CFRB tour? You bet your buttons! Or better yet, try mine:

Apologetics by the Book

From a Biblical standpoint, there are only two kinds of apologetics: scriptural and experiential.

Scriptural Apologetics seeks to prove the Gospel from Scripture itself. Paul (Acts 13:26-41, 17:2-3, etc.), Apollos (Acts 18:28), and many others did this. The drawback is that the person you're dealing with must accept the Scriptures as authoritative, and these days even a lot of branches of Judaism are too figurative in their readings for that to work. Similarly, it doesn't usually work well with cultists. In fact, it's most powerful with people who haven't considered the Gospel; many Jews and cultists have already had their mind closed by their superiors and peers. It's not hopeless, but the field isn't as open as in the first century.

Experiential Apologetics seeks to prove (or perhaps I should say "validate") the Gospel by an appeal to experience. There are several branches of this method:

1. Testimony. A classic. It's harder to counter a testimony than an argument. Just saying, "I saw this" is quite powerful: it's the frame of the earliest evangelistic messages, and the one Paul himself resorted to when faced with people who weren't open to Scriptural proof. This is unique in that it shares a personal experience with others. The remaining types attempt to give the audience an experience of their own.

2. Miracles. Sometimes called "Power Evangelism" today, this uses a miracle to open the door for the Gospel. The miracle becomes a personal experience for those who witness it. This method is used throughout Acts and Jesus' own ministry. I won't bother arguing that this is still an option; you accept it or you don't. If you don't, skip this.

3. Holiness. This is a form of miracle: it involves spending enough time with God (not with other Christians or with praise music, but waiting on the Lord) that his holiness rubs off. You live in a way impossible for the unsaved, and even when you goof up, it's obviously an exception, and you get right back to walking with God. Again, this provides an experience to others. Holiness is probably the best method, because it relies on God's power. But the price is too high, apparently.

4. Argumentation. This is the method used by such people as Augustine, Aquinas, C. S. Lewis, and Francis Schaeffer. It leads others to the personal experience of epiphany, first intellectual and then spiritual. There are two main sub-types:

a. Thin end of the wedge. Begin with an easily-proved abstraction, such as "There must be an objective moral standard, because we all know that some things are right or wrong in themselves." (See Mere Christianity for this approach.) It is experiential, because in invokes shared experiences and perceptions.

b. Thick end of the wedge. Similar, but focused on finding what Schaeffer called "the point of tension": the place where an unchristian view self-destructs by requiring people to do or believe things that are impossible. For example, no sane person can behave consistently as though he were merely an animal; his humanity will eventually assert itself. This is also experiential, because it involves living out the implications of a view.

It's worth contrasting these with modern apologetics.

Eschatological Apologetics. This seems like Scriptural Apologetics, but it isn't. Scriptural Apologetics assumes the validity of Scripture; Eschatological Apologetics attempts to prove Scripture. Moreover,

1. Scriptural Apologetics involves fulfilled prophecy, not unfulfilled, because it focuses on Jesus as the fulfillment.

2. Scriptural Apologetics focuses on Jesus, not on sensational events. In fact, all healthy apologetics focuses on Jesus, just as Christianity proper does. Even the argument type of Experiential Apologetics leads to Jesus, though sometimes in a roundabout way, and it does so through the everyday, not the sensational.

Scientific Apologetics. This is almost Experiential Apologetics without the experience. It also attempts to validate Scripture--something the early Christians didn't appear interested in--by means of esoteric arguments a layman can't follow, unlike the everyday-experience arguments of the Experiential method. Examples include Creation Science and related matters such as the Shroud of Turin. Intelligent Design is closer to classical Experiential Apologetics and borrows heavily from it.

Conclusion: A Biblical Apologetics
We need to return to our sources. We're trying to prove Scripture by appeals to other (and presumably higher) authorities such as science, and we're degrading the true authority. That can't be good. While Lewis and Schaeffer helped renew interest in argument, many of their self-proclaimed followers are just repeating words they don't fully understand. Argument requires thought, and few are up to the challenge. Miracles can become mere sensationalism, testimony a kind of bragging, and a show of holiness just hypocrisy. Doing these things right requires humility, time, and dedication; we'd rather go the sensational route with appeals to science we don't understand and prophecy passages we probably have never read in context.

And all the time God is wanting us to come outside of these little dungeons so we can call others to join us.