Is Domenica Santolina Doone an "Audacious Kid"?

Author Jerry Griswold sets forth a series of premises in his introduction to Audacious Kids and then proceeds to use those premises to analyze 12 children's books that were popular with both adults and children during the Golden Age of American Children's Books (1865-1914). Griswold shows the reader how each story resembles the other, calling this recurring story structure the "Three Lives of the "Child-Hero." He also uses a psychological analysis of each book to show the reader how the classic "ur-story" is brought forth through the plot. (Griswold, p. 3-10)

Bloomability by Sharon Creech easily fits into Griswold's model in its early stages but requires some stretching of the plot to fulfill the last four or five elements.

In an instant, 13-year old Domenica Santolina Doone becomes a virtual orphan when her parents send her to Switzerland with an aunt and uncle she barely knows. The financial poverty of the family is evident through the conversation between Dinnie's mother and grandmother. Dinnie's mother describes their life as "rich," to which Grandma Fiorelli replies, "Rich? This is a rich life?" Dinnie's mother answers, "Money isn't everything, Ma." (Creech, p. 4)

Dinnie experiences another kind of poverty when she is asked to leave behind possessions with each move the family makes because her father unable to or unwilling to stay in any job for an extended period of time. (Creech, p. 1) While Dinnie isn't dispossessed royalty, she does have memories of vanished happy times. She remembers her mother being happiest while working in a city, using her skills as an artist (Creech, p. 2) and remembers happier times fishing with her father and family. (Creech, p. 98-99). The parents violation of a marriage prohibition is obvious in the first chapter when Grandma Fiorelli is complaining about Dinnie's father's lack of ambition.

Dinnie's transition to a new life begins when she leaves with her aunt and uncle for Switzerland. It is the journey that is taken by each of the child-heroes analyzed by Griswold. Dinnie herself recognizes the three phases of her life, calling them her "first life," her "second life," and her "new life."

Dinnie begins her second life in Switzerland, a place where she can enjoy skiing, fishing, and the outdoors. Griswold calls this phase the Destination: Big House and the Great Outdoor. (Griswold, p. 6) While Dinnie actually lives with Uncle Max and Aunt Sandy in a chalet, it is the American school that takes on the aura of the "big house." Dinnie describes it:

. . . tucked in a rim of trees, stood an old red-roofed villa. From the outside, the villa looked dignified and sturdy and vast and frightening. Pale stone walls, iron balconies, tall black-rimmed windows. . . . Inside were dark wood floors and dim, narrow hallways. Doors and shutters creaked and groaned. Dusty portraits lined the halls: grim-faced men in black robes stared directly, accusingly, at me, and some faced sideways, ignoring me. In the dining hall ancient armor and weapons splattered the walls: shields and spears and helmets, ghastly dark shapes. I listened for sounds of captive princesses. (Creech, p. 22)

Dinnie's adoption into a second family is an informal action, rather than a formal one with court room scenes and the signing of papers. Instead, Dinnie's adoption into a second family is made obvious when her aunt insists that Dinnie refer to their new home as "our casa." (Creech, p. 26)

Earlier in the book, Dinnie describes her aunt, saying, "She looked like my mother, but she was all dressed up in clothes that matched. She sounded like my mother, too, but her words came out faster than my mother's words did." (Creech, p. 15)

Dinnie also describes her uncle in parental terms, "He was very tall, with black curly hair and didn't look at all like my father. He looked like someone in an advertisement, clean and neat, even after our long flight." (Creech, p. 15) Dinnie's second family grows to include the students with whom she becomes good friends: Guthrie, Lila, Keisuke, and Belen.

It is obvious that Uncle Max and Aunt Sandy, Dinnie's surrogate parents, are of a different social rank--or rather are able to live a very different lifestyle than Dinnie's natural parents. This is because of the opportunities made available to Uncle Max and Aunt Sandy through Uncle Max's job as a headmaster. Dinnie's life is more stable with Uncle Max and Aunt Sandy, and she is afforded more opportunities and luxuries with them than she was when living with her natural parents.

The same-sex antagonist isn't quite as obvious in Bloomability as it is in the books that Griswold analyzes. Aunt Sandy is quite benign and sympathetic. She doesn't take on the role of persecutor or disciplinarian. The worst thing that she does is correct Dinnie's bad Italian that is displayed on the signs in Dinnie's bedroom window. Even Mrs. Stirling, the founder of the American school, isn't Dinnie's antagonist--even though she is described in an imposing manner and seems somewhat insincere. Dinnie's same-sex antagonist isn't an adult as portrayed in the classics that Griswold analyzes. It is actually Dinnie's friend Lila, who competes with Dinnie for Guthrie's attentions.

Lila constantly complains to the headmaster (Uncle Max) about what she doesn't like at the school. She is rude to others, self-centered, and a xenophobe and bigot. Dinnie constantly found herself making excuses for Lila's bad behavior.

On another level, Dinnie could be her own same-sex antagonist as she works through the maturation process, moving from the immature Dinnie who claimed to be kidnapped to the more mature Dinnie who saw that change could bring opportunities.

The opposite-sex helpers or outsiders in Bloomability are also less obvious than those described by Griswold. Uncle Max could be considered an opposite-sex helper who is willing to take Dinnie in and educate her. Uncle Max is patient and kind. Guthrie might be considered an opposite-sex helper, too, in that he helps Dinnie to see her life and the world with different eyes.

The next stage in Griswold's analysis is the triumph over the antagonist. If Lila is considered Dinnie's same-sex antagonist, then Dinnie's triumph occurs when Lila leaves the school with her mother after the avalanche. Lila's departure allows Guthrie to focus on Dinnie and to reinforce her new positive self-image. Dinnie no longer feels like "Dinnie the Dot." During an excursion, Guthrie declares to Dinnie:

"Oh,"he said, wrapping me in a sudden hug. "You're a very interesting person, Domenica Doone."

Interesting? Had he said interesting? (Creech, p. 245)

This declaration is an affirmation of Dinnie as a person. She is no longer the "new kid" in school; she has opinions and a new assurance in herself.

If Dinnie is her own same-sex antagonist, then her triumph over her limited perspective found earlier in the book is illustrated when she describes how she felt during this excursion:

I had an odd feeling, as if I were aware of being a speck on this mountain, a speck in this wide scene, my little dot self, but also, simultaneously, I felt a part of it and above it and very, very free, as if this were my world, mine. Libero, libera. I breathed in the air, and I thought: This--this is me! (Creech, p. 245)

Finally, Dinnie feels whole and part of something larger than herself.

The final stage of this second life, according to Griswold, is when the child emerges as savior. While Dinnie doesn't actually rescue anyone, there is a dramatic rescue scene in the book when Guthrie and Lila are caught in the avalanche. Dinnie knows exactly where Guthrie's body will be found, and she wills the rescuers to that spot where her eyes are fixed.

Looking at this from another perspective, Dinnie rescues herself. She overcomes the loss of her natural family and the dysfunctional behaviors that their actions have brought on. Her confidence level changes, and she has gained a greater insight into the person that she is and the great opportunities the world has to offer. Dinnie also gains insight into the romanticism by which she views others in her life:

I thought about my mother and me and Crick and Stella, following my father from town to town, and I remembered the exciting parts about traveling with him. And then I looked at Uncle Max and Mrs. Stirling standing there, and I thought that they and my father and Guthrie all had the same thing in common: a way of traveling that made you keen to go along with them, to see the world the way they saw it. (Creech, p. 256)

Griswold's final phase of Three Lives of the Child-Hero is called "The Third Life; Return." Dinnie calls this her "Next Life." Through her experiences at the school and with the people she meets in Switzerland, Dinnie's issues of identity are resolved. As stated earlier, she has a greater self knowledge of herself and her place in the world.

The obvious recognition ceremony is the banquet and graduation ceremony for the middle school students. The children are dressed in formal attire and acting differently:

We looked nice, but odd, I thought, as if we were playing grown-up. We were acting differently, too, because of our new clothes and the presence of so many parents. We were a little stiff and overly polite. (Creech, p. 248)

Since Creech does not allow us to actually witness Dinnie's return to her natural family, we are left without a symbolic recognition ceremony that is present in the books analyzed by Griswold.

As a nod to Dinnie's new maturity, Dinnie is given a choice as to what she wants to do about her next year of school rather than being whisked off as she was in the beginning of the book:

A month earlier, Uncle Max and Aunt Sandy had given me a choice. It was a choice not entirely mine, I figured, because first I had to find out what my parents wanted me to do. Uncle Max and Aunt Sandy would give me a plane ticket to America, and I could either go on to school wherever my parents were, or I could spend the summer in America and then return to school in Switzerland in the fall. I hadn't been able to make that decision yet. All I knew at the time of our graduation ceremony was that I was going home, at least for the summer. (Creech, p. 247-248)

This also marks the accommodation of two lives, the final phase of Griswold's outline. This accommodation of Dinnie's two lives is further illustrated by her declaration of love for Switzerland:

At that moment, I loved Switzerland completely. I loved it with every piece of me, with every hair on my head and every eyelash and every cell. I felt as if this was my home, and I was no longer a stranger. Instead, I was like the snail who carts his home along with him on his back, from place to place. I thought about my fishing in the streams and wondered if I was carting not only my home along with me, but also my family, too. If that was the case, I could take Switzerland and Guthrie and Lila and Aunt Sandy and Uncle Max and Keisuke and Belen and Mari--all of them--with me when I left. (Creech, p. 261)

Bloomability isn't a perfect fit into Griswold's model. Yet, the model holds up under scrutiny, providing another method of looking children's literature--even that literature that is being produced today.

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Creech, Sharon. Bloomability. New Yortk: Harper Trophy, 1998.Griswold, Jerry. Audacious Kids: Coming of Age in America's Classic Children's Book. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.