Cynthia Rylant’s realistic fiction novel Missing May was the recipient of the Newberry Medal in 1993. It tells the story of a girl, Summer, who was taken in by an older couple, May and Ob. May dies six years after Summer has been living with her and Ob. Following her death, Summer and Ob never truly grieved. One day Ob thinks that May’s spirit has visited him, and he, Summer, and their friend Cletus set out to communicate with her spirit. They try to talk to her themselves and then travel to a Spiritual Church to have someone mediate the communication. When this doesn’t work out, Summer is finally able to grieve and she and Ob are able to go on with their lives.
While I have liked most of the other Cynthia Rylant books I have read so far, I wasn’t able to get into this book right away. It seemed a little slow and confusing at first. I was confused as to who Ob and May were and what their relation to Summer was. It was not until the end of the book, when Ob, Summer, and Cletus go to the Spiritual Church to try to communicate with May that I really became interested in the characters and what was going on.
There were so many passages in this book that broke my heart. For example when Summer is describing all of the wonders she sees in May’s house, she thinks “Those little cardboard boxes of juice that I had always, just once, wanted to try….And, best of all, a carton of real chocolate milk that said Hershey’s.” (8) These are such simple things, and it struck me as sweet that this is what Summer wants. I loved the passage when Ob was describing the little things that May did, like “how she had rubbed down his ailing knee with Ben-Gay every single night, not missing a one, so he might be able to stand on that leg when he got out of bed the next morning” (35). While the book mentions larger things she did, I love that simple things like this are what Ob chose to tell Summer and Cletus about.
I was able to make some connections between this book and others that I have read. First of all, Summer says that during the ride to the Spiritual Church, the mood “was almost sadness, but it wasn’t. It was sweeter than sadness” (68). This quote reminds me of the candy in Because of Winn-Dixie that is like a mixture of sweetness and sadness too. On second thought, a lot about this book reminds me of Because of Winn-Dixie. Both books are about young girls who have lost people they love and how they come to terms with that loss. Through Winn-Dixie, Opal is able to make sense of her loss. Summer is able to do this through seeing Ob grieve and then being able to grieve herself. This book also reminded me of Rylant’s Appalachia. In both books, she talks about how that region is more than just coal mines and other broken-down things like that. In fact, there is a line in this book very similar to lines from Appalachia—“I felt in me an embarrassing sense of pride that she was ours. That we weren’t just shut-down old coal mines and people on welfare like the rest of the country wanted to believe we were” (70).
1 comment:
I was also moved by how Ob and Summer longed for the simplcities that May was able to provide and fulfill for them when she was alive. Often, when people grieve over the loss of a loved one, they refer to the day-to-day memories that truly defined their way of life. Daily routines and experiences seem insignificant, until some event/loss alters our way of life. Summer and Ob no longer had someone to make sure that life went on as usual. They had to try to fill a void and they didn't know how to do this. Summer and Ob were so consumed by their loss that every aspect of their lives changed. I think you made a great text to text connection to Because of Winn Dixie. I also recently read this book and I had similiar emotions after reading these two stories. They both captured the profound impact of losing a loved one.
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