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A review by sarahareinhard
Black Bottle Man by Craig Russell
5.0
Lately, I’ve been resisting the piles of books in my house.
I want something different. I want something good. I want something I haven’t seen before.
And yet, in the midst of this desire for novelty, I also have a desire for something tried and true, something I’m sure to like and enjoy.
As it happens, I was able to find something that suited me perfectly within the bounds of my own bookshelf, double-parked between piles of review books that may never move.
Black Bottle Man (2010, Great Plains Teen Fiction), by Craig Russell, won a number of awards after its release, including the 2011 Canadian Best Books for Children & Teens and the 2011 Moonbeam Children’s Book Award.
But, honestly, none of that really caught my eye.
And the back cover blurb didn’t really capture my attention either.
The first chapter, though, hooked me in, and the rest was a blur as I curled up to finish it.
The book is told between time periods, mostly by one main character, Rembrandt. As you read the book, you come to realize what’s really happened (and I won’t spoil it by explaining too much here!) and why Rembrandt, his father, and his uncle can’t stay in one place for longer than 12 days.
I struggle to categorize this book: is it fantasy? Is it science fiction? Is it merely a good novel that I want to put into my daughter’s pile?
Yes, it is all of those things, to some extent. It’s also a book that flirts with ethics and religion, if only because it considers evil as a total and absolute. There’s no bargaining, there’s no gray, there’s no “maybe” or “what if” or “kinda sorta” about it.
Better than that, this is a book that is well-crafted and a story that is well-told. And, at the heart of it, isn’t that what we seek when we look for a good read?
I enjoyed getting to know Rembrandt, first as a 90-year-old man, then as a young boy, then as a teenager, and, interspersed between, as an old man. The varying points of view peppered the book with wisdom and insight, even as they also pieced the puzzle together for the reader.
This book also gave me a reminder of a farming era gone by, one that I haven’t read about since I last picked up Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. While Russell is not making the grandiose statements that Steinbeck’s been accused of (and nor does he write the monolithic novel; Black Bottle Man under 200 pages), he does write in and from the Depression-era farm life.
I want something different. I want something good. I want something I haven’t seen before.
And yet, in the midst of this desire for novelty, I also have a desire for something tried and true, something I’m sure to like and enjoy.
As it happens, I was able to find something that suited me perfectly within the bounds of my own bookshelf, double-parked between piles of review books that may never move.
Black Bottle Man (2010, Great Plains Teen Fiction), by Craig Russell, won a number of awards after its release, including the 2011 Canadian Best Books for Children & Teens and the 2011 Moonbeam Children’s Book Award.
But, honestly, none of that really caught my eye.
And the back cover blurb didn’t really capture my attention either.
The first chapter, though, hooked me in, and the rest was a blur as I curled up to finish it.
The book is told between time periods, mostly by one main character, Rembrandt. As you read the book, you come to realize what’s really happened (and I won’t spoil it by explaining too much here!) and why Rembrandt, his father, and his uncle can’t stay in one place for longer than 12 days.
I struggle to categorize this book: is it fantasy? Is it science fiction? Is it merely a good novel that I want to put into my daughter’s pile?
Yes, it is all of those things, to some extent. It’s also a book that flirts with ethics and religion, if only because it considers evil as a total and absolute. There’s no bargaining, there’s no gray, there’s no “maybe” or “what if” or “kinda sorta” about it.
Better than that, this is a book that is well-crafted and a story that is well-told. And, at the heart of it, isn’t that what we seek when we look for a good read?
I enjoyed getting to know Rembrandt, first as a 90-year-old man, then as a young boy, then as a teenager, and, interspersed between, as an old man. The varying points of view peppered the book with wisdom and insight, even as they also pieced the puzzle together for the reader.
This book also gave me a reminder of a farming era gone by, one that I haven’t read about since I last picked up Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. While Russell is not making the grandiose statements that Steinbeck’s been accused of (and nor does he write the monolithic novel; Black Bottle Man under 200 pages), he does write in and from the Depression-era farm life.