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A review by danilanglie
Cages by Peg Kehret
4.0
Read this as part of my "go back and read things from childhood" project, and wow, it really gave me feelings!!
To start with a couple of bad things that I don't think have aged maybe super great: a small one where I want to give them points for trying, is the depiction of Kit's mom and what seems to be an implied potential eating disorder. The fatphobia in the book is interesting because Kit isn't fatphobic but her mom says horrible things, including judging a woman that Kit has already said she admired a lot, just because she's fat. The book doesn't really come to terms with Kit's mother's behavior as being abusive, when it comes to the food restrictions on Kit. Her other flaws are dealt with more directly, but this one isn't treated as seriously as I think it would be in a book today.
The other one is a bigger issue: this book deals with the topic of teen shoplifting as a cautionary tale against committing this crime. There is some effort to explore class dynamics, as part of why Kit steals the bracelet is out of jealousy and frustration that her much wealthier classmate gets to be gifted beautiful things because her family has money, and Kit knows she won't ever be bought gold jewelry by her mother and step-father. There's also the scholarship that hovers over the plot of the story, and Kit's college dreams are pinned on getting scholarship help. So that's all great, I'm glad all of that is in there. But! All of the examples of shoplifting that we see or that are discussed in this book, the theft is a teenage kid who is doing it for psychological reasons. Kit steals the bracelet because of a mix of really upsetting feelings. We learn that Tracy's cousin shoplifted once as part of a hazing ritual. We learn that some boys steal candy bars just for the thrill of it.
As Kit explains to us that "shoplifting is a crime. When you're caught, you're a criminal and that's how the police treat you", there is no attempt to nuance this by going into the fact that MOST shoplifting done by individuals isn't the theft of luxury goods, but rather stealing from grocery stores for basic necessities that the shoplifters can't afford to pay for. I think adding in that nuance may have been too much for this middle grade novel to tackle, but it bothered me. It also bothered me that the store security person explained that the theft of items from stores is passed onto the customer. Basically, she says that items cost more than they should, in order to offset shoplifting costs. Again, there's no attempt to say "oh and also, these stores pay their employees poverty wages and the government ends up subsidizing Walmart because their employees are using welfare programs paid for by our tax dollars." Am I asking for too much from this book? Well, yeah. It's just much harder to stomach the black-and-white depiction of something that is in fact a really complicated subject, than when I was a kid and reading this back in 2004 or whatever.
But! Onto the good! I was amazing by how many things I remembered about his book. I must have read it five or six times when I was little. I remembered Kit not getting the part in the play, and her drunk step-father, and the rich girl who got the lead, and the balloon ride that Kit had to lie about and miss, and meeting Lady, and the harmonica-playing wise old man, and the Triple-B Treatment, and the speech... (Miss Fenton should NOT have pressured Kit to stand up and defend her speech, though, that's bonkers lol).
I legitimately got choked up and cried a bit on the bus, after Lady was euthanized and Lynnette comforted her. "She had done all she could for Lady. She had tried her best and despite the way it turned out, she was glad that she tried. Because of her, Lady had run in the yard and played ball and had her tummy rubbed. Because of her, Lady's tail had thumped and the love light had glowed in Lady's eyes." It's obviously a very simple book, written at a younger grade level, but those words were really powerful and affecting to me.
I also want to compliment Tracy and Kit's friendship. In some ways, there's not a ton of nuance or depth to these two girls, but they felt like real kids to me, with their jokes about being tabloid reporters and their enthusiasms and their support for one another.
The depiction of Wayne's behavior and, especially, Kit's mom's response to it, was I think really deftly handled. I think most kids will have read or seen a story where the parents are evil or there's an evil stepmother or whatever, but to have this depiction where Wayne is an alcoholic and he's verbally abusive, and then Dorothy is also enabling that and in a position where she is also being emotionally abused, and Kit's very real resentments also having room for deeper understanding towards the end... I think that's a really important topic for kids to learn about! I was proud of Kit for standing up for herself and telling Wayne that he way he'd failed as a father was by drinking too much.
Anyway, I could go on. I remember this being an absolute fave when I was little, and I really do think it stands the test of time as a great book to give to a ten-year-old.
To start with a couple of bad things that I don't think have aged maybe super great: a small one where I want to give them points for trying, is the depiction of Kit's mom and what seems to be an implied potential eating disorder. The fatphobia in the book is interesting because Kit isn't fatphobic but her mom says horrible things, including judging a woman that Kit has already said she admired a lot, just because she's fat. The book doesn't really come to terms with Kit's mother's behavior as being abusive, when it comes to the food restrictions on Kit. Her other flaws are dealt with more directly, but this one isn't treated as seriously as I think it would be in a book today.
The other one is a bigger issue: this book deals with the topic of teen shoplifting as a cautionary tale against committing this crime. There is some effort to explore class dynamics, as part of why Kit steals the bracelet is out of jealousy and frustration that her much wealthier classmate gets to be gifted beautiful things because her family has money, and Kit knows she won't ever be bought gold jewelry by her mother and step-father. There's also the scholarship that hovers over the plot of the story, and Kit's college dreams are pinned on getting scholarship help. So that's all great, I'm glad all of that is in there. But! All of the examples of shoplifting that we see or that are discussed in this book, the theft is a teenage kid who is doing it for psychological reasons. Kit steals the bracelet because of a mix of really upsetting feelings. We learn that Tracy's cousin shoplifted once as part of a hazing ritual. We learn that some boys steal candy bars just for the thrill of it.
As Kit explains to us that "shoplifting is a crime. When you're caught, you're a criminal and that's how the police treat you", there is no attempt to nuance this by going into the fact that MOST shoplifting done by individuals isn't the theft of luxury goods, but rather stealing from grocery stores for basic necessities that the shoplifters can't afford to pay for. I think adding in that nuance may have been too much for this middle grade novel to tackle, but it bothered me. It also bothered me that the store security person explained that the theft of items from stores is passed onto the customer. Basically, she says that items cost more than they should, in order to offset shoplifting costs. Again, there's no attempt to say "oh and also, these stores pay their employees poverty wages and the government ends up subsidizing Walmart because their employees are using welfare programs paid for by our tax dollars." Am I asking for too much from this book? Well, yeah. It's just much harder to stomach the black-and-white depiction of something that is in fact a really complicated subject, than when I was a kid and reading this back in 2004 or whatever.
But! Onto the good! I was amazing by how many things I remembered about his book. I must have read it five or six times when I was little. I remembered Kit not getting the part in the play, and her drunk step-father, and the rich girl who got the lead, and the balloon ride that Kit had to lie about and miss, and meeting Lady, and the harmonica-playing wise old man, and the Triple-B Treatment, and the speech... (Miss Fenton should NOT have pressured Kit to stand up and defend her speech, though, that's bonkers lol).
I legitimately got choked up and cried a bit on the bus, after Lady was euthanized and Lynnette comforted her. "She had done all she could for Lady. She had tried her best and despite the way it turned out, she was glad that she tried. Because of her, Lady had run in the yard and played ball and had her tummy rubbed. Because of her, Lady's tail had thumped and the love light had glowed in Lady's eyes." It's obviously a very simple book, written at a younger grade level, but those words were really powerful and affecting to me.
I also want to compliment Tracy and Kit's friendship. In some ways, there's not a ton of nuance or depth to these two girls, but they felt like real kids to me, with their jokes about being tabloid reporters and their enthusiasms and their support for one another.
The depiction of Wayne's behavior and, especially, Kit's mom's response to it, was I think really deftly handled. I think most kids will have read or seen a story where the parents are evil or there's an evil stepmother or whatever, but to have this depiction where Wayne is an alcoholic and he's verbally abusive, and then Dorothy is also enabling that and in a position where she is also being emotionally abused, and Kit's very real resentments also having room for deeper understanding towards the end... I think that's a really important topic for kids to learn about! I was proud of Kit for standing up for herself and telling Wayne that he way he'd failed as a father was by drinking too much.
Anyway, I could go on. I remember this being an absolute fave when I was little, and I really do think it stands the test of time as a great book to give to a ten-year-old.