Sang Spell
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Aladdin
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Phyllis Reynolds Naylor has written over 80 books for children and young adults (including Shiloh, winner
of the 1992 Newbery Medal), and that experience shows in Sang Spell, a haunting novel about loss, change, and self-discovery.
After his mother is killed in a car accident, Josh Vardy decides to hitchhike from his home near Boston to Dallas,
Texas, where he's to live with his aunt. But somewhere in Appalachia, he's mugged and dumped by the side of the
road. Hurt and desperate, Josh accepts help from a mute woman driving a horse cart, and finds himself in Canara,
a village without electricity or other modern amenities, whose people seem to have no contact at all with the outside
world.
Josh is received with kindness: his injuries are treated, and he's put to work with the others digging wild ginseng
(the 'sang of the title). But is he a guest, or a prisoner? The villagers don't try to stop him from leaving, but
their answers to his questions about how to get back to civilization are puzzlingly cryptic. At last, driven by
an increasing sense of dread, he tries to find the way out on his own--but the path he takes into the woods delivers
him, impossibly, right back to Canara.
Trapped, Josh unwillingly enters into the life of Canara: a place outside of time, literally cut off from the rest
of the world. A part of him is drawn to this strange community; even so, he never stops plotting to escape. According
to the villagers, there is one way to leave: to go forward, they tell him, he must go back. But what does that
mean? The answer, Josh discovers, lies within himself, and also within his grief.
Naylor incorporates an obscure but fascinating bit of Americana into Sang Spell: the inhabitants of Canara
are Melungeons, a dark-skinned people who claim to be the descendants of Portuguese settlers who preceded other
Europeans to American shores. In real life, ridiculed and persecuted for these claims, the Melungeons eventually
assimilated and vanished; but in Naylor's scenario they survive, pushed right out of time and space by their search
for a homeland. Josh too has been cut adrift, and in Canara he finds the perfect echo of his own disconnection:
"We are every man who has ever lost his way, every race who has ever lost its compass," he's told by
Pardo, one of Canara's leaders. But the Canarans aren't merely disconnected: they're also united, in their sense
of community, self, and heritage. Josh's challenge is to learn to find this in himself as well.
Sang Spell reads as much like mystery as fantasy, with considerable suspense in Josh's search for the secret
of Canara. Occasional inconsistencies of detail (the Edge, the one point at which Canara intersects the outside
world, is never explained, nor are the Chinese traders who buy Canara's ginseng), are made up for by the book's
convincingly spooky atmosphere, which helps to bring Canara and its people to life. Naylor draws a believable portrait
of Josh's grief and confusion, and of the contrast between his modern-day sensibilities and Canara's sixteenth-century
mindset. Teen readers will find much to think about here, as well as to enjoy.
Copyright © 2000 Victoria Strauss
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