Books like The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley, Who Planned to Live an Unusual Life

I don’t usually read a lot of middle grade fiction but whenever I do, I enjoy the whole reading experience so much that I wonder why I don’t read more frequently from this genre. There was this one particular book which kept falling at my feet every time I opened my bookshelf. I took this as a sign and moreover, of late I had been reading a lot of stories about adults/ grown-ups. So picking up this book felt like a breath of fresh air. “The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley (who planned to live an unusual life)” by Martine Murray was no exception. It is about Cedar, a 13 year old quirky girl who hates math but is a genius in acrobatics. She stays with her mother and brother, Barnaby (whom we get to see only towards the end of the book) in a small house in Brunswick, Australia. Cedar, also called lovingly Cedy Blue, by her brother has a pet dog, Stinky for company as her mother works very long hours at the hospital. She also has some friends in the neighbourhood. Like Caramella, a girl with low self-esteem and Rita, an elderly woman with a dog, Bambi, Oscar who suffers from brain damage but is quite an exceptional person. There are a few other children of her age who are mean to her and call her names and bully her. But Cedar is a different kind of girl and all these usually don’t affect her much. One day, Stinky goes missing only to be found by a boy named Kite who is “like a leaf that had just been tossed by the wind and didn't care." From then on, a beautiful relationship blossoms between them mainly because Kite is also an acrobat like her. The two of them share a special bond because they belong to dysfunctional families. The rest of the book talks about their adventures and days spent doing acrobatic feats in Kite’s garage and how Cedar comes up with a plan to raise funds to save Bambi. Some thought-provoking passages on human life and some very funny and nice illustrations done by the author herself make this book a nice, light read. Here are a few excerpts from the book. The following excerpt is about a lady in her neighbourhood and how this leads Cedar to introspect about people in general.“Marge Manoli is an old lady with a hairy mole on her cheek. She works in the Opportunity Shop on Smith Street. She calls you 'love' and she talks with you as if she really likes you. I've heard her talking just like that to all the crazies and homeless people and drug addicts who go there. She listens to them, even when what they're saying doesn't make sense. She doesn't get impatient with them for going on and on about the same thing. Marge Manoli is the mother of Smith Street. No one ever says thank you, no one pays her for it, and she doesn't expect anyone to either. I bet there are millions of these kinds of people in the world - kind, caring people disguised as bus drivers or sandwich deliverers or mothers or plumbers. There is Marge and then there are all those famous people with more money than they need, who are famous for the silliest thing, like being born with a big inheritance, a newspaper, a beautiful face, or a good serve. I don't really get that. Why should someone who is good at hitting a tennis ball backwards and forwards, and backwards and forwards, again and again, be a hero?All those very famous, rich, powerful people just seem to spend their time trying to get even more so - hit the ball harder, change their nose shape so it looks better, get new bosoms once theirs get too old, or get more money, even though they've got plenty more than they need. Now that's crazy. It leads me to think that those famous attributes must be kind of dangerous things to have. That's why I'm glad I'm not unnaturally or gifted or good at whacking a ball.”Since Cedar loves her dog, Stinky, to bits, she talks about the two kinds of people in this world based on their affection towards dogs or cats."The way I figure it, the world is made of two types of people - dog people and cat people. If you drew a line down the middle and said all dog people on one side and cat people on the other, then the dog side of the world woould be chaotic and muddy, an exuberant unparticular big kind of place with many trees. The cat side would be clean and deliberate and full of sunny patches and silk couches. I belong to the dog side. so does my mum, and even Barnaby. But Marnie Atkin, she definitely belongs to the cat side. It's the coral coloured fingernails...Thats's why I knew that Barnaby had gone stupid asking her out, because it wouldn't ever have worked out. Even if Barnaby hadn't been sent away, he and Marnie belong on different sides. Do you think a dog could marry a cat?"Cedar also talks about how boys are different from girls and how.“The thing about boys is that they don’t talk in the same way as girls. They talk about things. Out-and-about things, things you can touch and see, not the kind of things that are inside. Those inside things aren’t really things at all, since you can’t see them—not with your eyes—and you can’t hold them—not with your hands. So they’re situations. I call them situations of the heart. Boys don’t talk about heart situations. If they’re blokish, they talk about bulky things that move, like cars, footballs and chicks. If they’re natty sharp, they go on about plug-and-socket things, like computers, stereos and science experiments. I think really smart boys probably talk about the government and the theatre, but there aren’t many that smart. The smooth talkers talk about girls they see on the tram, and older boys like Barnaby talk about music, bands and marijuana, and what an antelope doesn’t know. I don’t think many boys talk about what an antelope doesn’t know; only Barnaby, because he’s a dreamer like our dad was. It’s not that girls’ talk is better or more important, not in subject matter anyway, because honestly some of them only talk about boys and how to make boys like them. That’s the older ones, and it’s so boring. I wouldn’t do that because I’m a feminist and I plan to get my own opinions about the state of the world and I wouldn’t ever let a boy tell me how to get them or what to do with them, either. It’s the way girls talk that’s different. With girls you can go on and on about tiny little things that happen to you. You’re allowed to take an hour to tell about an argument you had with your mum, and how it made you mad or sad or both. You can’t do that with boys.”Cedar makes it very clear to us why she likes Caramella.“She wants to chew the fat, as my Uncle John would say. That means you linger on details, you chomp right through the facts and get to the bone, the nitty gritty gristly chewy sense of things, the gooey core, the centre of that messy weave of feelings that bury into your skin and wrap you up. Not that you can ever hit that centre, but if you hover around it for a while you can get some kind of blurry view of it.”Someplace towards the end, Cedar decides to run away from home but Oscar meets her on the way and gives her a drawing. This makes her change her mind and this is what she has to say about life.“Sometimes life hits you at such a startling lightning kind of angle that you get pushed off your normal viewing spot. You stop knowing how things are. Instead of what you know, there are the patterns that stars make; the sound of the night breathing; the small aching spot where your feet touch the earth . . . And you’ve never felt closer to it. You think that if there is an It, you and It are nearly touching. You feel religious and devoted and tiny. Just for a moment you feel as if the whispering coming from the leaves and beetles and sky and footsteps and sighs is going directly towards your ear. So you listen.” And then there is this beautiful quote on love by her brother, Barnaby. I couldn’t agree with it more.“Cedy, I may be wrong, but the way I see it, there’s three parts to love. Three ways of doing it—mind, body and soul. When you get all three happening at once, that’s it. That’s the real thing.”The book has a colourful cover, catchy title and some cute drawings. The plot moves at a good pace and almost all the characters are realistic in some way or the other. The book ends on a positive, happy note as Cedar comes to terms with a secret about her father which is revealed to her by her brother. Her mother realises that nothing is more important than spending time with her children and Barnaby realises his folly in running away from his school. It is with this motto - all’s well that ends well – that the book finishes. But not quite so as I heard that there is a sequel. However, I have only been disappointed by sequels so far and so it has turned into a ‘someday book’ for now. I don’t want anything to mar this beautiful book. If you like middle grade fiction, then you could try this book. If you do, let us know how you liked it. Rating: 4.5/5