6 November 2002 BUDDHA BOY by Kathe Koja, FSG/Frances Foster Books, March 2003

"That's right: You can't play tug of war with someone who refuses to hold the other end of the rope."

That's how a friend of mine characterized what I was excitedly telling her about BUDDHA BOY, the superb new book by Kathe Koja. It was a foggy early morning on campus--I'd just come from voting--and I was explaining how, in contrast to the many stories where the bullies/jocks/student "leaders" had the satisfaction of seeing their victims beaten down and acting victimized, here you had a new, "strange" kid (Jinsen) who won't give them that satisfaction. There's a point in the story where one of the school's predators (part of the group who'd jumped Jinsen/"Buddha Boy" the day before) corners the story's narrator, Justin, and complains:

" ' Why do you hang out with him? Why do you stick up for him? The kid's a freak, he doesn't even belong here.' I opened my mouth, but he wasn't done; in a weird way it was like he wasn't even talking to me, but to Jinsen somehow through me, like I was a translator, a gateway. 'He wears freak clothes, he acts like a freak, he sure talks like a freak--'

" ' Well, ignore him,' my voice a little better, a little stronger, but not much. 'Just, just pretend he's not--'

" ' Ignore him! How can you ignore him? You know what he said to me yesterday? when he, when we were-- He said, "If it makes you happy." That's what he said. "Go on, if it makes you happy." What the hell is that supposed to mean?' Yelling now, but again not at me: it was as if he were arguing with Jinsen, arguing with himself, his face getting redder and redder and 'You tell him,' poking me in the chest, big fat hot-dog finger, 'tell him to stay the hell away from me. Just tell him that.' "

As the story begins, Justin tells us that:

"Our little group--we'd been buddies since middle school, Jakob and Megan and me--was mostly somewhere in the middle, never invited to the big-deal parties but not exiled to the outer limits, either. It's not a bad place to be, the middle: it's comfortable, it's easy, and it's safe. And I'd probably still be there if it wasn't for Jinsen."

A big part of Justin is clearly reluctant to leave that safe place. Frequently, we find him mumbling to himself that he's not Jinsen's friend--they just hang out together sometimes. Even Justin's friends think that he is nuts. But Justin is truly intrigued and impressed by the boy with the bald head, beatific smile, and incredible artistic ability:

"I was still watching Jinsen: calm gaze and careful hands, no wasted motion, working on his print as if it were any day, as if yesterday's bad news or the great news today were all just...part of everything, and he was just taking everything as it came, how could he do that? How could he keep on doing that? Balls? Luck? Karma?"

And what is Justin's role when Jinsen consistently takes it all and smiles? Justin, who has become more and more furious about what he sees happening, muses:

"In history, in a movie, in a book, you can always tell who the heroes are: they're the ones rushing into a burning building, giving crucial testimony in the courtroom, refusing to step to the back of the bus. They're the ones who act the way you hope you would, if the moment came to you.

"But the movies and the history books never tell you how they felt, those heroes, if they were angry or uncertain or afraid, if they had to think a long time before they did the right thing, if they even knew what the right thing was or just made a headlong guess, just leaped and hoped they landed instead of falling. They never tell you what it's like to stand on the brink, wishing you were somewhere--or someone--else, wishing the choice had never come your way and you could just go back to your safe, ordinary, everyday life. "Because you know what else the books never say? Nobody, hero or not, really wants to rush into a fire. Because fire burns."

This compelling tale of Justin's transformation firmly establishes Kathe Koja as a young adult novelist. Hopefully we won't have to play tug of war with the fans of her adult novels.

Richie Partington

http://richiespicks.com

BudNotBuddy@aol.com