The Selected Works Of T S Spivet [Hardcover]

This book has some really cool things that I enjoy very much. It is becoming more common to try different ways to combine text and imagery in fiction, most notably in the form of the graphic novel. This book takes a different route, relying primarily on text to tell the story, with diagrams, call-outs and sidebars in the margins to act as subtexts and footnotes to the main storyline. For me, it works, but then, like the young protagonist, I have always loved maps and diagrams, aka Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. Of course, the map is not the territory, but it certainly engages one on many levels. Just for the format and the daring of the author, I would give it five stars on that alone. I had to deduct one star for a couple of problems, that I hope the author will work on for his next book; I do hope he will work with this form again as it has much potential.

Like other reviewers, I found the plotline is rather convoluted with some false leads that didn't seem entirely useful. The young protagonist is a 12-year old genius, it is true, but intellect, emotional maturity, and experience are not the same things, and I found too much of the eastern-educated author's voice coming through the thinking with emotional stages a 12-year old would not have yet reached. That has been played over and over in the stories of young adolescents who have the genius to attend college and get higher grades than their peers...but who fail miserably at the emotional/social aspects.

I have lived in Helena, Montana, all my life (I'm pushing 50) and there are unfortunately some things that show the eastern author should have worked with more closely with someone who knows Montana a little better. Just a couple of things as an example of things he should have paid more attention to. Railroad rails are not "wrought iron," they are steel. The "slats" are called ties. The ties are not preserved with shellac, but are soaked in creosote. We Montanans may pronounced it "crick" but we don't spell it that way, we spell it "creek" like everyone else. We do tend to drop the "g" off words like "huntin' " and "fishin' "...but I never heard or read such a usage as the author's "sett'ng"... we would say sittin' not sett'ng...if you are going to ape regional dialect, you gotta get it right, or you show your own ignorance, not that of the "charming locals". And just what the heck is a "clink" (p. 13) or "chinks" (p. 15)? Does he mean to say "spurs"? I never heard any of my fellow Montanans refer to spurs as clinks or chinks. A clink is a jail, and a chink is a racist word for a person of Chinese descent. So that needs some work. Some parts were pretty cool though; I did like his Gary Cooper-esque father..he rang true. I know fellers like that.

So I would congratulate the author on an innovative and enjoyable book, and especially his imaginative integration of the visual with the textual. I would read more of his work. He just has to get the details right in the next book, and I look forward to readin' it when he does!

The author did a good job of presenting the mind of a 12 year-old prodigy. All the little asides and drawings in the margin that went along with the story were fantastic.

I was thoroughly enjoying the story until T.S. opens his mother's notebook and then we spent way too many pages on a whole separate story of his grandmother. Sure it gives background to his talents and personality, but it was way overboard in terms of size.

I got re-interested again and really liked the majority of the last half of the book - only to ultimately be let down again. There's a whole subplot revolving around a secret society, and the author basically took it nowhere. It seems way too elaborate for being just an excuse for his mother's actions. I wanted to read more about these people, what it is they do, and how T.S. will be a part of that, but we never more than scratch the surface of it, and ultimately, the book suddenly stops when you feel there is much more story to be told. The denouement, if it can be considered to exist at all, is a mere page long.

I think this good have been a much better book. It sadly ranks as merely okay in its present form, unless a sequel turns up that can take things to a logical end.

Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet is a twelve-year-old genius living on a farm in the midwest. His mother, Dr. Clair, is a scientist searching for a rare beetle. His father is a farmer and cowboy. T.S. likes to think of himself as a mapmaker. He doesn't just draw maps of land, though, he draws maps of everything from facial expressions to gunshots. One day, he takes a phone call from the Smithsonian Institute and discovers that he has been selected for the prestigious Baird award, for which his friend Dr. Yorn has nominated him. That phone call prompts T.S. to sneak on trains in his quest to get to Washington, D.C., to give a speech and accept his award. Along the way, he meets a number of strange characters and makes a series of important realizations about his life, his age, and most importantly, his family.

I'm not sure there are words to describe how I felt about this book. I haven't seen many blog reviews around and I'm really wondering why. This book is phenomenal. T.S. is a stunning character. He is clearly a genius but clearly a child at the same time; he makes amazing conclusions but then his child-logic can't always keep up with his scientific mind. I found this fascinating. I'm no genius, but I truly felt that with T.S. I was having a peek into the mind of someone like Stephen Hawking, although much more understandable.

This book isn't for people who dislike footnotes, though. Me, I love footnotes, and this book is full of them, although usually on the sides, along with T.S.'s maps and observations. In my opinion, these little asides added immeasurably to the main story even if they required me to read a little bit slower. They flesh out this little boy's world and show us how he works, who he is friends with, and sometimes illuminate larger questions in the novel; for example, his facial diagrams allow us to see the way his father appears when he looks at T.S. in a way that words could not really match. The maps allows us to slowly feel the depths of pain which T.S. has been experiencing since his brother, Layton, killed himself; so much is revealed in that sibling relationship not through words, but through the implied sharing and affection in certain maps and footnotes. My favorite of all of the asides, though, was probably the three-prong diagram of why McDonald's appeals to adolescent boys.

I also really, really loved the backstory behind T.S.'s family which is covered towards the middle of the book in sections which were from a notebook T.S. stole from his mother. Having had no inkling of his mother's writing talent, T.S. is startled to discover that she has been writing a novel of the life of one of his ancestors. I loved this story-within-a-story, both because it felt like historical fiction, my favorite genre, and because it revealed so much to T.S. about his mother, who has many more secrets than she lets on. I can't say that it moved the plot forward, but I never minded at all.

In the end, this was a wonderful, quirky, endearing story about a boy who figures out what his family means to him and, in the meantime, starts to grow up on his journey east. It might not be for everyone, considering the lengthy footnotes and digressions from the main plot, but I loved every minute, especially after T.S. sets off. I was in the mood for an ambitious story and I certainly got one. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

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