Book Recommendation: The Underneath by Kathy Appelt

The Underneath, by Kathy Appelt


Because my children and I read so much, we are often given gift cards to bookstores for birthdays and Christmas. It’s the best present for us. My oldest daughter, using several gift cards at once came home with a stack of books, which were quickly devoured. There was one among this pile that I saw her return to often: The Underneath. I didn’t pay much attention. That was a mistake!

My children have also become the go-to people for book recommendations for other children. A friend of mine asked my oldest daughter if there was a book that she would recommend for her own children that would also be a good read-aloud. I was a little nervous about what my oldest would say – that was a big question! A good read-aloud book must be written in a voice, not on paper. Maybe that doesn’t make sense, let me try to explain. There are some great stories out there that have survived decades of readers: Peter Pan, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and Tom Sawyer to name a few. It’s the visual of the written word that is the essence of hearing these tales. The dialect in Tom Sawyer is easily botched if not practiced well and many homeschooling parents don’t have time to rehearse. The sentence structure in Peter Pan is difficult to translate into a voice that leaps off the page and no matter how much pixie dust is sprinkled, the words fall flat on their crossed t’s and dotted lower-case j’s. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is just plain difficult to read. I’ve tried.

There are other books that are written in voice, a story in which the author has used a fluid pattern of sentences, action and scenery descriptions that are easily interpreted from the book to the reader to the audience. These are the stories that homeschooling parents constantly search. These are the books that all parents should read to their children, whether they are homeschooled or go to school. (If you’ve read any previous posts, you know how I feel about too much television. Books and time together are the answer.)

The Underneath is such a story, and at the risk of sounding cliché, it’s much more than that! After hearing what my oldest said about The Underneath as her first choice for my friend to read to her children, I came right home and started reading. She said: “It’s a story where everyone is underneath someone else. There are some characters that literally live underneath other characters. And there are story lines that are hidden underneath other story lines.” That sounded fascinating to me. As I read The Underneath, I was captivated by the plot structure, the characters and the way the words almost sang - a huge plus when reading aloud! Poetic language like this has never been used before in literature for children and young adults and it was an enriching experience. A bonus: after all my daughters read The Underneath, I noticed a significant improvement in their writing.

It’s true that this is a book written for the young, but if you feel even the slightest bit young at heart, The Underneath will be a ray of sunshine. Read it and let me know what you think.