Problem Solved (In Under 100 Pages)

Young Adult fiction, 1974—

Full of '70s problems, for this California family. Parents' divorce, father's remarriage and suicide are the background. The current problem: 11-year old Chloris can't accept the loss of her father, and chooses to believe in a rosy past unlike the family's real history. And she's mad at her mother, who not only dates men as the novel opens, but has—a mere 59 pages later—married a widowed Mexican artist.

The new step-father: "Fidel Mancha"—as in Man of La ...

Faithful, indeed: Fidel's quest will be not against windmills, but to break through to Chloris, and end her increasingly dangerous behavior.

As described by the narrator, 8-year old sister Jenny, Fidel is a man of infinite patience, folk wisdom, and—

He is the happiest man I ever met. He is always laughing. When he isn't laughing, he sings or whistles.

Quite the catch—

Mom walked smack into the gallery that was exhibiting his paintings and sculpture pieces. She liked everything she saw, she said. Mr. Mancha was there, too, as most of the artists are at opening nights of their exhibitions. They got to talking to each other about this and that and discovered they had a lot in common. According to Mom, she didn't think about him being Mexican, one way or the other. All she saw was a very talented, big-hearted, good-natured human being. She found out he was a widower, and he found out she was a divorcee, and that was the beginning of everything.

On the other hand, to make him a bit less than super-human, "he has a big belly that swells out over his silver belt buckle."(Unless the belly and silver meant as details making him an extra-jolly Mexican ...)

Jenny's openness to Fidel  is used to introduce issues other than step-parenting—

Mr. Mancha is very easy to talk to and one day I asked him how come there were so few Chicanos at school, and what did they do to get out of it. Mr. Mancha explained that most black and browns were poor and couldn't get good jobs. That was why they couldn't afford to live in good neighborhoods like ours and go to our good school.

"This is a very good country," he said, "but some people are not so lucky. To be born the wrong color is a big mistake."

"But that's not fair," I said. "They can't help it."

Mr. Mancha smiled.
...

"So, how come?"

"Don't forget the Indians," Mr. Mancha said. "I think maybe they are even worse off."

"That's different," I said. "Indians used to scalp people. They attacked our wagon trains. They scalped all the helpless women and children."

Mr. Mancha looked puzzled. "Where did you hear that?"

"I saw it myself on TV"...

Mr. Mancha nodded and pursed his lips and didn't say anything. He didn't seem convinced. Maybe he's so busy painting pictures that he never gets to watch TV and you can miss a lot that way. I've probably seen over a hundred Indian massacres already and I'm only eight years old.

Mother and daughters soon move to Fidel's place, so he can be near his studio. The house (of course) is charming and artistic, in the natural surroundings of a peaceful canyon. The new setting lets Fidel school the girls on California history—

"All this land you are sitting on now... was once owned by Mexicanos. From here to the sea. Up north past Malibu and Santa Barbara. And Orange County, too—Yorba Linda, where our President was born—all California was Mexicano. They were the real Californios."

When Jenny asks how come, Fidel elucidates for a page and a half: missions and ranchos, land grants and treaties. Choris ostentatiously goes to her room, but Jenny wants to stay and hear the end.

"That's the whole story, little one. From now on, when you hear of some poor chicano complaining about how he is being treated, you will understand why. There was a time when he was somebody in this country."

I stood facing him, "I don't have anything against the chicanos, Fidel. And remember, I didn't take their land away from them. I'm only eight years old."

Fidels's laughter followed me all the way upstairs.

Well, it's really not a bad treatment for young readers, even if Platt can lay things on thickly, between the lessons and the dialog he gives his 8-year old.

Fidel's sense of justice also leaves him unimpressed by money. He makes art that interests him, selling if he chooses. When he buys Choris gifts he knows she's longed for, the gifts get "lost," or turn up damaged beyond use. When Jenny tells him he's wasting his good money, he laughs that money isn't important, it's what a person feels inside that counts. Jenny's reaction—

I looked up at Fidel, kind of disgusted. Had he had all those hundred thousand acres given to the original Don Bernardo Yorba during the Mexican reign, he would have given them all away if he felt like it.

Yup:  Jenny's narration does tend to be on the overly precocious and omniscient side. Though when the sisters speak with each other, Platt inserts slang—both period ("Right on!"), and—well—odd (they constantly exclaim, "Gy!")

I assumed "gy" was meant to be "gee," in a guise somehow more '70s What's Happening Now (a bit like the spelling, "phat," decades later). But Platt has one of the mother's pre-page 59 suitors ask the girls what's that word they keep using—

Mom answered for me. "The kids use it nowadays the way we used "Gee,' 'gosh' or 'golly.' They shortened it to Gy, pronounced Guy."

The laboriousness of this gives me the feeling that "Gy" was not exactly on everyone's lips. Perhaps the author was trying to invent Valley Girl speak, a few years ahead of its time?

Big belly aside, Fidel's character verges on romance novel wish-fulfillment; after all, what unattached gal wouldn't be attracted to such a wise, kind, teddy bear of a guy? And what hurting step-child wouldn't eventually warm to him? Never mind Chloris' attempt to burn down his studio; by the end, Fidel's sensitivity to her feelings, as expressed in his art, will reach her. Then she can stop being, in Jenny's words, "the biggest creep of all." All achieved from Fidel's introduction at page 59, to the conclusion at page 156.

Followed by these ads: more YA titles and authors I've never heard of.

The second two seem pretty much forgotten. But Donovan's book was reissued in 2010, and is considered the first YA general reader fiction to present a same-sex relationship between protagonists.

But I do remember this author and title—something for the 1970s adult reader—

Twelve Ways to Decorate a Dog: July

Beaded Bowser—