I’ve all the time thought that probably the most highly effective scene in The Wizard of Oz has nothing to do with depraved witches and twisters and flying monkeys. It’s the anticlimax, the second when Toto exposes the Wizard for who he’s: a weak, flawed man hiding behind a curtain.
To me this scene is so highly effective as a result of it captures a fact about rising up. As youngsters we’ve all been Dorothy, passionate in our devotion to rockstars, artists, athletes, even sure politicians–till the inevitable second after we notice that our heroes are mere mortals. Discovering that there’s a “man backstage” could make us cynical and unhappy, but in addition wiser, with a deeper understanding of messy human nature. It may well additionally make us smarter about selecting the folks we name our heroes.
In my fifteenth center grade novel, Tear This Down (Aladdin/S&S, February 25, 2025), seventh grader Freya Stillman lives in a picturesque seaside city that’s all about its namesake, Benjamin Wellstone, a nineteenth century editor, abolitionist, and advisor to President Lincoln. Every part on the town is called in his honor: the seaside, the library, Freya’s center college, the annual crafts pageant. There’s even a giant statue of Benjamin Wellstone on the village inexperienced.
Sooner or later, whereas doing a analysis challenge for her social research class, Freya discovers a stunning truth: Benjamin Wellstone didn’t consider girls must be allowed to vote. Or to go to high school, or to work outdoors the house, and even to precise political views.
Freya is horrified. As a child with sturdy opinions about all types of matters, however particularly about gender inequality, she will’t assist taking Wellstone’s sexism personally. And seeing Benjamin Wellstone’s title on her college constructing, having to stroll by his statue each day, realizing that he didn’t consider she had the appropriate to her opinions—or any rights in any respect!—makes her really feel unwelcome in her hometown, attacked as a feminist, and as a lady.
She’s decided to take motion. However what, precisely? How do you expose an unpleasant fact about an individual everybody else considers a hero? And let’s say you’ll be able to pull again the curtain far sufficient in order that others see that fact too, what subsequent? Even when you may get them to agree {that a} hero’s sexist views have to be uncovered–and naturally that’s a giant if– is it attainable to only erase his title from historical past, and from the tradition of your city? How do you reply when somebody accuses you of “canceling” their hero? (Truly, it is a query many book-loving adults are additionally struggling to reply, with current revelations about sure literary icons.)
In my 2022 MG novel, Haven Jacobs Saves the Planet, I thought-about a center schooler’s local weather activism. I wished to painting Haven taking steps to make a significant distinction to the setting, however in a means that was real looking for a 12 yr outdated. For Tear This Down, I had an analogous problem: How do you painting a seventh grader’s social activism with out overstating what a child may moderately accomplish?
Like Haven, Freya makes some huge errors. Additionally like Haven, she finally ends up conducting rather a lot—by getting enter from others, and adjusting her expectations. What she comes to appreciate is that deleting Benjamin Wellstone shouldn’t be so simple as tearing down his statue; he’s an important a part of her city’s historical past and identification. However as Freya’s social research trainer, Mr. Clayton, notes, no historical past is about in stone: “It’s a residing, respiratory factor, consistently altering, similar to us.” In different phrases, it may be up to date to incorporate new info. Extra tales could be informed; different heroes could be celebrated too. And if Freya can’t subtract Wellstone’s title from the story of her city, she will add a brand new title: Octavia Padgett, an unsung suffragist who led a band of native girls within the marketing campaign for the appropriate to vote.
In the end, I believe Freya’s greatest takeaway is that this: if you wish to accomplish huge social change, it’s essential contain others. In the beginning of the e book, Freya is a one-kid motion, “on hearth” with indignation, and at a loss for realizing easy methods to proceed. However her mission turns into clearer, and ultimately succeeds, as she welcomes different youngsters (not simply ladies, by the best way), mother and father, a bratty little sister, a fiery grandma, a scary trainer, an aged artist, and an especially cool librarian.
As a result of whenever you’re taking over the Wizard, it’s higher to go down that yellow brick highway with associates and allies.
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TEAR THIS DOWN’s cowl illustrator is Jacqueline Li. The artwork director is Heather Palisi.
Barbara Dee is the award-winning writer of fifteen center grade novels, all printed by Simon & Schuster. Her books have been named to many best-of lists, together with The Washington Submit’s Greatest Kids’s Books, ALA Notable Kids’s Books, ALA Rise: A Feminist Ebook Mission Listing, College Library Journal’s Greatest Center Grade Books, and the ALA Rainbow Listing High Ten. She is the 2024 recipient of the Rip Van Winkle Award, given by the College Library Media Specialists of Southeastern New York.
Her books have earned a number of starred critiques and seem on quite a few state awards lists. Barbara is likely one of the co-founders of the Chappaqua Kids’s Ebook Pageant. Her most up-to-date novel, UNSTUCK, printed in February, 2024.