It's an Aardvark-Eat-Turtle World by Paula Danziger

First published: 1985

Type of work: Domestic realism

Themes: Family, friendship, and race and ethnicity

Time of work: The 1980’s

Recommended Ages: 13-15

Locale: Woodstock, New York, and Toronto, Canada

Principal Characters:

• Rosie Wilson, a fourteen-year-old girl who wants more than anything else to be part of a family
• Phoebe Brooks, Rosie’s best friend, who becomes a “sister”
• Mindy Kovacs, Rosie’s mother, an aspiring children’s novelist
• Jim Brooks, Phoebe’s father, who is struggling as an artist and a parent
• Jason Carson, Phoebe’s Canadian stepcousin, with whom Rosie shares a mutual attraction
• Donny Donner, a three-year-old boy whom Rosie baby-sits and calls the Little Nerdlet

The Story

It’s an Aardvark-Eat-Turtle World reads like an extended monologue by the novel’s fourteen-year-old protagonist, Rosie Wilson. Rosie’s parents—a black Protestant father and a white Jewish mother—were divorced soon after she was born. Events and characters in the novel are seen through Rosie’s alternately clear and cockeyed perspective.

The story opens in the summer as Rosie’s mother, Mindy, and the father—Jim— of Rosie’s best friend, Phoebe, are setting up house together in Woodstock, New York. Rosie’s feelings are ambivalent. Moving both households on the same day proves to be chaotic, but when Mindy suggests having a garage sale or putting extra belongings into storage, Rosie suggests they hold onto everything for a while, in case Mindy and Jim split up. Confused and upset, she adds that she wants the relationship to work out, but that she gets scared that it will not last. The four of them clasp hands and, in a “ceremony,” pronounce themselves a family.

Conflicts soon become apparent. Phoebe, who is sharing a room with Rosie, likes to sleep late and is decidedly less tidy than Rosie, who is often awake by the crack of dawn. Rosie bemoans the fact that the four of them are sharing a single bathroom. Space is cramped, as finances are tight; Jim is trying to build a career as a full-time artist, and Mindy as a children’s book writer. The tension snaps when Mindy confronts Phoebe with the inappropriateness of Phoebe and her boyfriend, Dave, parking in front of the house and “making out.” Phoebe retorts that Mindy has no right to pass judgment on her, since Mindy and Jim are living together without being married, and besides, Mindy is not her mother. Phoebe ends up not talking to everyone in the family.

Finally, Rosie overcomes her stubbornness and persuades Phoebe to attend a family conference. During the meeting, Jim explains that Mindy had spoken for both of them in her disapproval, and Phoebe expresses her resentment at having to make adjustments. Rosie senses that the family’s future revolves around Phoebe, and she hopes that her own feelings will not be forgotten.

In August, Rosie joins Phoebe and Phoebe’s mother and stepfather, Duane, on a week-long trip to Toronto, Canada. They stay with Duane’s brother, Michael Carson, and his family in a home filled with art, pottery, and antiques. Rosie and Jason Carson, Michael’s intelligent and amusing son, are attracted to each other. They enjoy a blissful date, spoiled somewhat by Phoebe’s insistence that Rosie had come along on the trip to keep her company. Rosie and Jason agree to write each other after she leaves Toronto, and they make plans for Jason to visit Woodstock during Christmas.

At breakfast, before the return flight to the States, Phoebe’s mother announces that Phoebe has decided to live with her and Duane in New York City. Rosie is upset that Phoebe avoided talking to her about this move and feels angry at her for deserting the family. Back in Woodstock, Jim feels responsible for the breakup of the family and acts depressed. From New York, Phoebe never calls or writes Rosie, and during Phoebe’s first weekend visit since the move, Rosie plans to stay with the Donners, the family whose three-year-old, Donny, she baby-sits. Phoebe, however, finds her at the park with Donny and says she wants to rejoin the family. Mindy has sold her first book and can afford to rent an office in town; Phoebe will use her old office as a bedroom, ensuring Phoebe and Rosie more privacy. Finally, Rosie comments that being a family takes work, but is worth it.

Context

Like Judy Blume and Norma Klein, Paula Danziger writes about contemporary adolescents and young adults with candor and empathy. Her self-deprecating middle-class heroines face such pervasive problems as feelings of inadequacy, tensions over sex and sexuality, and the trauma of parental divorce.

Danziger, a junior high school reading specialist, began to write fiction following a car accident. She was feeling out of control, a similar experience to when she was a child: “When you’re a kid, everyone seems to be in charge, to have the right to tell you what to do, how to feel. So I wanted to confront all that.” She wrote a book for her eighth graders “to talk to them about survival—learning to like oneself, dealing with school systems, and being able to celebrate one’s own uniqueness.”

The result was The Cat Ate My Gymsuit (1974). Danziger’s second novel, The Pistachio Prescription (1978), won the 1978 book-of-the-year award from Child Study Association; The Divorce Express (1982) earned the Parents’ Choice Award in 1982. Other books by Danziger include Can You Sue Your Parents for Malpractice? (1979), There’s a Bat in Bunk Five (1980), and the science-fiction novel This Place Has No Atmosphere (1986).

Critical reaction to Danziger’s novels has been mixed. Most critics acknowledge her skillful use of a kind of rueful humor, as well as her choice of subject matter that is timely and of significance to adolescents and young adults; however, some fault her exploration of important issues as lacking in depth. Her characters do tend to be more engaging than intriguing, and her stories are more likely to provide readers with reassurance than with insight.