Yonder
Recommended Ages: 8-11
“I didn’t yet understand that every hero has a story. But not every story has a hero” (8-9).
Yonder is my first Ali Standish read, and it left me intrigued to read more by her. Yonder is a beautifully written novel exploring World War II from the perspective of those left home in a small rural Appalachian town known as Foggy Gap. Danny Timmons is a dynamic main character struggling with what it means to be a hero and to be courageous. Danny is bullied and regards himself as a coward. Fortunately, he has Jack Bailey to look up to. Jack is a poor teen living on the outskirts of town with his abusive alcoholic father.
The story opens with the scene of Jack saving two twin girls from a flash flood and sets the scene to explore the theme of heroism. Danny is pondering the events he is about to tell and sets the scene as the narrator for the coming story. “We all want to see heroes...We want them to be brave, but we don’t want to hear what that bravery has cost them” (1-2). “I didn’t yet understand that every hero has a story. But not every story has a hero” (8-9).
Jack has gone missing and Danny is determined to figure out where he has gone or what specifically has happened to him. It is through this central conflict that the story is crafted. Standish uniquely provides flashbacks between certain sections/chapters of the story. It is these flashbacks that provide critical information about what has happened and creatively links to the details about to be revealed. The craft between the two is well done and the dates provided help orient the reader. This is especially important for younger or struggling readers who may have difficulty with this type of narrative technique. I appreciate the extra detail she provided and the craft to make sure her young readers could keep it all together.
Danny’s father has gone off to war, and his mother is pregnant and a few short weeks from delivery. Danny is trying to keep up with his paper route, helping his mother, and attending school. Now, Jack is missing and he is desperate to find out what happened. Jack has been his closest friend for a few years ever since he stepped in to save Danny from the town bully, Bruce. Prior to Danny’s father leaving for war, his family housed Jack for a time after a particularly harsh beating from his father. Danny cannot fully understand the situation, but Jack has empathy for his father despite the abuse knowing that it was the war he was in previously that changed him.
While looking for Jack, Danny is confronted not only with cowardice and heroism, but with prejudice in town. He is realizing what really drove the Musgraves from town, why a widow Mrs. Wagner is isolated, and other unspoken beliefs about town.
The title for the book comes from a conversation between Danny and Jack in which Jack is retelling the wonderful story of Yonder to Danny. Told to Jack by his mother when he was younger, Yonder is a perfect town without trouble or war, a town with sweet water and fields of rich soil, and beautiful jewelbirds filling the skies. When Danny finds the word Yonder with Jack’s bike, he is confused trying to figure out just where Jack goes. Did he go and find Yonder or somewhere else? Without giving too much away, Danny has to confront his own prejudice about people in town, which leads him to Jack’s whereabouts, but it doesn’t last long. Jack is leaving Foggy Gap and no one is to know why or how.
In addition to figuring out the disappearance of Jack, Danny must confront and make amends for the wrong he has done to his long time friend Lou. He destroyed the trust in their friendship and has spent time avoiding the rift he created, but it is through his determination to make things right that he finds his courage to face the bully himself and save Lou and her family from further grief and shame after her older brother is charged with desertion and sent to prison.
Standish’s writing is simply beautiful. Some great descriptions include:
“...where red barns dotted the green hills like ladybugs crawling all over a summer garden” (15).
...Jack had become the town hero. But the day he rescued me from Bruce was the day he became mine” (38).
“I helped you out because I hate bullies...But only a bully likes making someone afraid, Danny” (55).
“We had out own ways of showing it, like Jack said, but we were all afraid. Which meant that I was no different from anyone. I would have courage when it counted” (93).
“We can never see into another person’s soul, Danny,” she said. “And you just remember –nothing limits a big heart like a small mind” (119).
“Who knew what other ugliness hid in people’s souls?” (121).
“A mother’s kiss is strong enough to ward off anything that wants to do you harm” (125).
“The truth was, I didn’t understand it, either. Not really. It was like something I had glimpsed through a keyhole. I had seen just enough to know I wasn’t sure I wanted to see anymore” (165).
“She had wanted my help and I had been too afraid. I hadn’t had courage when it counted” (196).
“Some things you’re born knowing, but other things you have to work at” (197).
“I suppose some people embrace that hatred because if they believe someone else is lesser, then they must be superior – noble, even” (213).
“Evil is only as powerful as we let it be” (214).
“If they don’t see an injustice, then they don’t have to take a stand, you see? If it’s happening to somebody else, then maybe you can convince yourself that it couldn’t happen to you, so it’s not your battle to fight” (215-216).
“Prejudice is like...like a germ, or a virus...nobody is immune” (216).
“Only a bully would treat a child the way he treated his own son. And yet, here was his medal. The kind only heroes got” (239).
“It had never occurred to me that it was fear that we shared, that had brought us together” (276).
“And though I wasn’t a man yet, I felt I was something in between now” (283).
“[M]ost of us have a voice...that tells us when we’ve done wrong. Some people can ignore it...But for me, there came a day when I couldn’t ignore that voice anymore. I listened” (294).
“A best friend is someone you can trust with all your secrets, who you can be your true self around. Someone who sticks to you like a burr, even when you try to pull away” (305).
“If I couldn’t confront the small injustices, how could I fight the bigger ones?” (317).
“You had to care enough about the thing you had broken to make it worth the time it took to fix” (325).
I absolutely enjoyed this story and it leaves a young reader with great messages and points to think about. There also isn’t any profanity or cautionary scenes. Nevertheless, an additional note of mention is in the Acknowledgments and additional notes in the remaining pages of the book. Standish makes a particular note that she is “indebted to Nikole Hannah-Jones’s two-part investigation into the historical dispossession of Black landowners and farmers, “The Land of Our Fathers (part of the 1619 podcast series)”, which inspired the Musgraves family (351). I am not particularly familiar with the specific reference she is making, but I do have a cursory understanding of the controversy surrounding the 1619 project and feel that it is important to draw attention to her acknowledgment of that influence in her writing. In her historical note, she also claims that the Nazi party “took direct inspiration from the Jim Crow laws of the American South, and the citizenship laws that prevented American Indians and other groups from becoming US Citizens” (357). However, she gives no bibliography or source acknowledgment for such a statement.
