Bibliographic Information Law, I. (2008). Savvy. New York: The Penguin Group.
Summary
This story is about a young woman named Mississippi Beaumont. It starts three days before her thirteenth birthday. Birthday number thirteen is a big deal in her family because at that age, her family members discover what their savvy (magical power) is going to be. The young ladies in her family usually get a gentle savvy, but the boys seem to have a propensity towards violent savvy. The children in her family are removed from public school right before this thirteenth birthday and usually spend the next year, or more, learning how to control their savvy.
Right before Mississippi’s (nickname Mibs) birthday, her father was badly hurt in a car accident and was admitted to a hospital in Salina, Kansas which was roughly sixty miles from their town. The preacher’s wife was concerned that Mibs’ mom and older brother went to Salina to take care of the father in the hospital and left the other four children home alone. When the preacher’s wife discovers that Mibs’ birthday is the next day, she arranges a huge birthday party at the church building and has even invited girls from Mibs’ school who have harassed and made fun of Mibs for years. Mibs wakes up the morning of her birthday and inadvertently thinks that her savvy is being able to awaken dead things because the family has thought that the youngest brother’s turtle was dead, but on Mibs’ birthday it comes back to life. Mibs’ plan is to use this savvy to go to Salina and wake her Daddy up from his coma. However, at her birthday party, she faints when the preacher’s daughter’s tattoo starts “talking” to her. The angel tattoo, which had a devil’s pointy tail, raised and turned its head, twirled its tail and spoke to Mibs.
Mibs runs out on her party and decides to hide in a traveling bible bus because she notices that the bible bus is from Salina and reasons that the owner of the bus will be returning to Salina. She never thought of the possibility that the bible salesman may also be going the other direction. Her older brother, Fish and the preacher’s son and daughter also get on the bus with her. Once the bus gets under way they realize that her youngest brother Samson is also on the bus with them.
The bus ends up turning the wrong way and does not take them toward Salina, but north into Nebraska. Mibs starts hearing more voices in her head and realizes that the bible salesman/bus driver has two tattoos on his arms, and they are arguing with each other.
On the delivery route, the group helps a woman whose car broke down on the side of the road, and she also joins them on the bus. They take the waitress, Lill, to her restaurant, but Lill gets fired for being late to work, so Lill ends up traveling with them.
As the bus travels down the road, Mibs ruminates on all the members of her family and their various savvies. Her grandmother collected radio waves into jars. The family could crack open various empty-looking fruit jars and would be able to listen to old radio broadcasts. Her grandfather could move land, and he had added extra acreage to the family farm. Her mother’s savvy was that she was perfect and never did anything wrong. Her older brother Rocket had electric powers and could start engines, but could also blow out light bulbs and fuses throughout towns. Her brother Fish, who was only one year older than her, could make storms and winds occur, even inside of buildings. Mibs could hear what people were thinking if they had a tattoo, but she later found out that she could do it with any kind of ink on the skin.
The bus driver/bible salesman took the children to his home to pay his girlfriend’s brother for the bibles. She got upset with him and locked the youngest boy Samson into a hollow spot in her wall. No one could find Samson, so Mibs had to use her savvy and draw on this woman’s body in order to read her mind and help her brother escape from within the wall.
After several days of delay, the bible salesman, Lill the ex-waitress, and all of the children make it to the hospital in Salina. Mibs does not have any luck in getting her father to wake up in the beginning, but she starts talking to the mermaid tattoo on her father’s arm. The mermaid tattoo finally starts talking back, and then Mibs’ dad wakes up from his coma.
He takes a long time to recuperate from his head injury. The book ends on Mibs’ fourteenth birthday. We learn that her father still has problems remembering things because of his head injury in the car accident. Her older brother Rocket leaves the family and goes to live on an uncle’s ranch. Since the uncle lives in the middle of Wyoming, it is less likely that he will be able to cause a lot of electrical damage when his savvy gets out of control.
Impressions
This was a fun book to read. The author is very upbeat throughout the story. There was a lot of humor. Ingrid Law explains the trauma of adolescents well. She goes into detail about how the older girls won’t have anything to do with Mibs unless her handsome brother Rocket enters the room, and suddenly these hateful snobby girls act like goodness and angels trying to get Rocket’s attention.
The only part of the story that bothered me was the way the tattoos spoke about the bus driver. He was such a kind man and even though he was a bit weak, those two tattoos spoke terribly of him. The fact that younger brother Samson hid all of the time, and hardly ever spoke was a concern too. Without Mibs going to school with him, the little boy would probably be picked on by the older kids. The book ends leaving the reader with the impression that there will be a sequence novel that will tell about Samson and his savvy.
Review
Mibs can’t wait for her 13th birthday, when her special gift, or “savvy,” will awaken. Everyone in her family—except beloved Papa, who married in—has one, from Grandpa Bomba’s ability to move mountains (literally) to Great Aunt Jules’s time-traveling sneezes. What will hers be? Not what she wants, it turns out, but definitely what she needs when the news that a highway accident has sent her father to the ICU impels her to head for the hospital aboard a Bible salesman’s old bus. Sending her young cast on a zigzag odyssey through the “Kansaska-Nebransas” heartland, Law displays both a fertile imagination (Mibs’ savvy is telepathy, but it comes with a truly oddball caveat) and a dab hand for likable, colorful characters. There are no serious villains here, only challenges to be met, friendships to be made and some growing up to do on the road to a two-hanky climax. A film is already in development, and if it lives up to this marvel-laden debut, it’ll be well worth seeing. (Fantasy. 10-13)
(2008, April 1). [Review of Savvy]. Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved from http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/childrens-books/ingrid-law-2/savvy/?spdy=2008#review
Library Use
This book can be used to discuss qualities of fantasy books. This genre can be considered very broad, and people and lands from wild imaginations can come to life in a fantasy novel. Savvy can be compared to other fantasy novels, such as Harry Potter or The Chronicles of Narnia. Students can work in partners or groups to create their own fantasy stories and share them with classmates.
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