2024 Book #72
“The List of Things That Will Not Change” by Rebecca Stead
Book #72: “The List of Things That Will Not Change” by Rebecca Stead.
(I read it on the last day of 2024 - posting this after the calendar has flipped, though.)
The List of Things That I Think About This Book:
1. Rebecca Stead is a wonder. Her most famous book is When You Reach Me, which won the Newbery Award about a dozen years ago. If you have kids who haven’t read it, do them a favor, and pick up a copy for them. And then, after they’re done with it, borrow it and read it yourself. (Be prepared for the possibility that they will not let go of it, though, in which case, you may need to get another copy just for you.) It’s one of the greatest books of this century, and I don’t care if it’s written for young readers, it’s a great book for readers of all ages. Since then, she’s written several other books, and has built a successful career as a sensitive writer of YA/middle grade fiction that considers real-life topics of concern without being preachy: message books that are so far from medicine they each feel like miracles. (I’m pleased to say that she and I have corresponded a few times, and one of my prized possessions is a hand-made bookmark she sent me a few years back, saying nice things about me as “the kind of teacher authors dream of,” which is prominently displayed in my classroom.)
2. One of the keys to Stead’s success is that she takes anxiety and related concerns very seriously. Whether that’s due to her own personality or just an incredible empathy is none of my business, but it’s rooted in every book of hers that I’ve read (this is my 3rd – there are at least 2 others that I’m aware of, which I hope to get to someday, but I do not want to rush; it’s good to have things to look forward to, a fact that my OCD-completist younger self would find hard to believe). The central character here, Bea, is keenly aware of the presence of anxiety in her life. She’s learned to focus that into a once-daily 5-minute ritual of thinking about what she’s worrying about, so if worries come up at other times of the day, she can do her best to put them aside with a “you’ll have a chance later.” But anxiety is still a part of her basic personality, as well as impulsivity and a bit of obsessiveness. I was an anxious kid, and I recognize elements of myself in Bea (and some of Stead’s other protagonists); when the world feels overwhelming, and when you can’t help but NOTICE things (and remember them, even later, and harp on them and niggle away at what they mean, what they say about you, or the world, or those around you), it’s difficult to box that part of yourself away and move on with other things. Bea is not perfect, either – there’s a revelation at the end that’s a critical admission of this fact, and an important moment in Bea’s journey to learn also to be easier on herself, to learn to forgive herself (and to model that for others around her, who can also stand to learn that lesson).
3. An alternate title for this book might be “The Anxious Girl’s Guide to Divorce and Remarriage,” was my early thought. Bea’s parents split up two years ago, when she was in 3rd grade (a difficult year for her in other ways – at various times over the course of the book, we are told of 3 birthday parties that year that went terribly for her, for various reasons). Her week is divided carefully between her mother’s place, and her father’s place, with specific events taking place at each (Thursday night she’s at her mom’s; Friday is the dreaded weekly spelling test so her mom helps her practice). Now her dad is getting remarried: Bea is happy about that, for lots of reasons, but there’s also an unsettling and remaking that will come from it.
4. One result of centering a character who needs help with emotional regulation is that Stead also makes sure that Bea is getting good help in this area. Her relationship with Miriam, her counselor, is important for Bea’s growth over the course of the book (which essentially tracks 5th grade, a year when Bea has a lot of important things on her mind). Miriam is shown here giving Bea useful advice, including some tips that I suspect some of Stead’s readers will be glad to use in their own lives. Most importantly, Miriam is a good listener for Bea: she’s not just a passive, sit-back-and-take-notes-on-a-pad therapist, she’s actively engaged, but she also realizes when Bea has something she’s trying to work out, and she asks what she needs to ask, then gives Bea time to get to where she’s going. When Miriam helps Bea understand that emotions are layered, and often there’s one emotion that comes out first, but a more complex, or perhaps more difficult, emotion can be right behind that – and the various ways that Bea learns to make use of this breakthrough over the course of the story – it’s really quite beautiful. I know many people resist the idea of therapy, but honestly, just about everyone would do well to have a good therapist in their lives (my daughter intends to pursue a career in this field, and I can confidently predict that she will be incredible).
5. Another alternate title for this book, I came to realize, might have been “The Anxious Girl’s Guide to Having a Gay Parent.” Bea’s dad broke off the marriage when he came out as gay; he met Jesse (brother of Sheila, one of Bea’s babysitters) and they fell in love, their lives came together completely; Bea loves Jesse and is more than ready for the wedding to happen. But she’s confronted by the fact that not everybody around her is so accepting: some of her peers are prone to make mean comments, and even her cousins have said some stuff. Stead wants readers to recognize homophobia, but also makes clear, via Bea, that it has no place in a loving world.
6. Rebecca Stead’s books present a New York City that I would happily move to in a skinny second. It’s not perfect – Bea has to defend it from outsiders, who complain of the noise, the smells, the occasional weird person sighted on the subway, and those are indeed elements of the city – but it is a place that’s vibrant and alive, where small restaurants like Beatrice, the family-owned place that Bea’s dad runs (and Jesse now, too), the ultimate site of Dad and Jesse’s wedding, can exist as a focal point for the community they’ve built around them. New York, in this book and others, is a place that rewards insiders, people who know their way around, whether having come there from elsewhere and making it their home (as for Jesse, and Sheila, his sister), or those who have known nothing else, like Bea. You can feel the love for New York (especially an inner-borough New York) on every page.
7. Stead takes kids very seriously. And part of that is a reminder that adults let kids down – sometimes a lot. So, in these pages, Bea is stymied over and over again by her otherwise nice teacher Mr. Home, who rewards kids who ace the weekly spelling quiz, with a monthly lunch in his classroom. Bea’s never aced the spelling quiz – she does well in just about everything else academically, drawn along by her intelligence, her curiosity, and her determination, but spelling just isn’t it. Consistent 7/10 means she won’t ever get to be a part of the group that’s rewarded by Mr. Home. And it doesn’t matter that her friend Angus tells her that the event is kinda boring: it’s not fair to the kids like Bea (a shrinking group, as the year wears on, and she’s forced mostly to spend one lunch per month with a girl whose default settings consistently tick Bea off) who can’t get over that hump, to be left on the outside looking in. This small injustice (which will have me spending part of New Year’s Day considering whether there are any similar kinds of inequities in my own classroom that I need to root out, even if they are more perceptual than anything) is a repeated point of emphasis in a book where the adults are caring, kind, warm, good listeners and generally open to Bea, even in her less pleasant moments, but also sometimes fail her in ways that a sensitive kid can’t help but notice. (And don’t get me started on the parents of her peers, who are almost all total pills to the quirky kid, focusing on specific moments when she got lost in her emotions, rather than all her other amazing qualities, which are legion.)
8. Stead takes friendship very seriously. One of the true gifts of When You Reach Me is its portrayal of a friendship among young people, a dual characterization that’s truly transcendent. In this book, Bea’s best friend, Angus, is loyal and honest, a regular kid, and their friendship is lovely and silly, with in-jokes and little reminders baked into their interactions that show that Stead understands how kids can be there for each other at their best. Angus steps up for Bea and her family at a critical moment in the story, a moment that’s small but weighted, and I swear, I wanted to reach through the pages of the book and hug the kid. Furthermore, Bea has lovely friendships with the loving adults in her life – not just her parents, but also Jesse, her soon-to-be parent, and Sheila, her soon-to-be-aunt (but already-caregiver), and she talks to them, and they talk to her, and these conversations are real, even when they are difficult.
9. Stead rewards close attention, and is a confident writer. One of the central conceits (in a book that has a lot of callbacks, a lot of echoed story beats, which makes sense for a character who’s keenly aware of things, and for whom her loved ones have made an effort to engage with rituals to help her feel comfortable, especially when things get difficult) is that Bea’s parents gave her a notebook the day they told her they were splitting up, a place where she could write down the titular list of things she’d always be able to hold onto even though other things would change. She returns to this list at times during the story, and it’s a subtle way to demonstrate her emotions, her bedrock faith in people, and some other qualities threaded throughout the story. Notably: she misspells her therapist’s name the first time she meets her, setting up a pattern that spelling is going to be a challenge for the kid throughout the story. But if that’s the obvious takeaway in the moment, Stead has another thing going on there, too: Bea wasn’t happy with therapy, and the item that she added to the list was that she was *not* going to keep going to see Miriam. But she did, and it was good for her. In other words, sometimes things can change; sometimes there is growth in accepting that something you’re so certain about that you write it down – in ink! – maybe can budge a little. Change can be scary, but it isn’t always bad.
10. Stead treats her readers with respect, and isn’t Panglossian. When You Reach Me, among other things, is about climate change, and the mess we’re leaving for our kids. Here, there’s a critical character who rejects the gay marriage that’s central to the plot; because Bea believes in humanity and love, she makes an effort to bridge this divide, and for a moment it looks like her act of optimism will rule the day. But Stead won’t have it be that easy, and the wedding, as described in the climactic sequence, is a deeper thing for all that the men being joined by the bonds of love have done so in the face of an act that’s hurtful. And yet, that makes the resolution (which also includes Jesse’s daughter from his previous marriage – like Bea’s dad, he was also previously married to a woman), all the more heartfelt, and beautiful. Honestly, I’m not sure how I managed to hold in the tears that were right there as I closed the book. It’s a beautiful work, a real testament to the power of a writer at the peak of her powers, who writes with deep empathy and careful attention to the things that matter.