Knee-Knock Rise [Paperback]

We had the honor of having Mrs. Babbitt read the final chapter to our second graders. They enjoyed debating the issue of whether the Megrimum was real or not. The joy about the book and the author is that each reader must decide. As for me I believe the Megrimum will live forever.

The best thing about this story is the setup, involving a weirdly mist-shrouded hill that, according to legend, is haunted by a man-eating demon. After that -- let's just say that a reader who expects nothing will not be disappointed. I will start with relatively minor quibbles, and work my way up. Spoilers will follow:

The story works best as a mystery, but is clumsy even on that level. As in "Tuck Everlasting", Babbitt's weakness is lazy plotting and contrived character motivations. Can we really believe that a young boy would simply decide to journey in the dead of night, in a rainstorm, armed only with a stick, accompanied only by a small elderly dog, to do battle with a giant man-eating demon who he knows or at least believes has devoured every human who has encountered it? Why would he would not turn back, even after hearing the demon's larger-than-life howls? Would he really do this just for dare? Is he suicidal? Could he not at least have taken with him (for instance) a purported magic charm, or some other flimsy basis for hoping he might be able to defeat the demon rather than merely die a horrible death?

The purpose of this contrivance, supposedly, is to get our fearless hero to the lonely hilltop so he can solve the mystery. But instead of discovering for himself, he just happens, by coincidence, to meet on the hilltop an Adult-Explainer-Ex-Machina who TELLS him what is -- and, perhaps more importantly to Babbitt, what is NOT -- on the hill. I guess Babbitt felt constrained to rely on this contrivance because of the inherent impossibility of proving a negative.

But the worst of it is that, after the mystery is (sort of) resolved, we are then forced to endure the nihilistic MORAL, mouthed by yet another Adult Explainer. Referring to the hill demon, he says:

"Nephew, I'll tell you what I think. I think it doesn't really matter. The only thing that matters is whether you want to believe that he is there or not. And if your mind is made up, all the facts in the world won't make a difference."

You hear that kiddies? Why invest the intense effort required for actual learning when you can just believe whatever you please? Why endure the sacrifices that come with honesty and integrity when you can just say what people want to hear? As is repeatedly emphasized elsewhere in this book, knowing the truth and telling the truth can only make you and others miserable.

What makes the above nihilism particularly bizarre is the context: Here we have an adult - and a parent - taking the position that it does not matter whether or not a nearby hill is home to a man-eating monster. That is rather like saying that it does not matter whether or not the next-door neighbor is a serial killer. Of course it matters!

If you want spooky stories with rational explanations, I am sure you will find better than this. You can try Washington Irving, for starters. You can even watch Scooby Doo! At least the Scooby gang has the sense to flee in terror when the monster gives chase. They seem to realize something this author does not -- that it does indeed matter whether or not the monster is real.

Others have told the story of this children's book, so I won't rehash it. Some of the younger readers have also shown their jaded natures in panning it, but I found it to be interesting, if a bit disconcerting, which is, perhaps, what the author wanted the book to be all about. I am not sure. Babbitt's writing style has some very, very good visual images, and her characterizations are well-drawn. My rating starts with that, at least.

But it is the 'moral' of the story that continues to bother me. We all find out that some things we believed in childhood, are no longer true when we come to a certain age; and that is a part of growing up.

But what we come to find is not true, often are not the things themselves, but how OTHERS have viewed them- and it is this false insight, which make us cynical as we age. That is both an enlightenment and a curse. And that, I think, is the 'moral' the author conveys in Kneeknock rise. At least Babbitt leaves us with the understanding that both the uncle and the child know 'what is true,' but BOTH are content to understand it as true in their own way, without coming to believe that the world they inhabit is false- rather, they know truth as part of the whole, and realize the delusion rests just among the mortals with which they have to interact.

Age range for this novel is difficult to pin down. As an adult, the 'moral' is still resonating with me, a week after I read it. But the simple conclusion the book COULD afford, means that it should not be read to those too young to grasp the subtlety of,for instance, say the real person- St. Nicholas of Myra; (who did exist, and does within the pantheon of Orthodox saints) and our American Santa claus, who.... well, you know.

Age range? oh, 9-10. I think one could even assign this as a book to read, but it might/should be better as a 'read-aloud' at home, with parents to answer the tough existential questions. But even here, one has to ask one's self the question, do we want a cynical 10 year old...or at least one more... around, when the joy of childhood and it's naivete are so much more to be prized? As a HS dad, I find the already encroaching worldliness of a child having spent ONE year in PS hard to bear. Now that I am HS myself, that innocence and gentleness of spirit is slowly returning. And that is something I would not want to die within myself, or my children. A book such as this is potent stuff, in an age of cynicism run amok. Therefore, to read or not to read,

That is a question each parent will have to ask himself.