Savvy

In Savvy, the Beaumont family possesses psychic powers, and the children acquire their own super-ability, or “savvy,” when they turn 13. This power might turn out to be anything: controlling electricity, causing storms, moving land around, reading minds, and so on. The kids must learn to manage, or “scumble,” their savvies to make them helpful and not damaging.

Author Ingrid Law says these powers symbolize the natural abilities that any child might have—athleticism, great intelligence, artistic talent, or social skillfulness. The characters’ struggles to cope with their special skills thus represent the challenges faced by every kid growing up. Law notes, “The word ‘savvy’ means to be good at something, and I think all of us are good at something, so I want readers to be able to come to the end of the story and say, ‘What’s my savvy?’” (“Meet the Author: Ingrid Law.” YouTube, uploaded by Fairfax Network – Fairfax County Public Schools, 16 Dec. 2015).

As they enter adolescence, the book’s characters—and children everywhere—begin to discover strengths they can call on to help them navigate the teen years and graduate to adulthood. Law says,

We’ve all got something that we are talented at or working hard to get better at. The kids in my books, when they get their savvy talents, they can’t control them—everything is going haywire—and sometimes when we’re learning new things it feels the same way (“Meet the Author”).

Law named the characters’ powers “savvies” to set them apart from other fictional magic or superpowers. The word savvy originally refers to shrewd, practical knowledge or common sense. It implies a skill acquired over time through the bumps and bruises of experience. Law enjoys recombining real words in playful ways. In the book, she does this to create charming descriptors like “fizgiggly girls” (22), “froufrou frippery” (47), and “silly shilly-shally” (248). Law, too, modifies the meaning of “savvy” so that it aptly expresses the Beaumont family’s skills and the acquired wisdom those abilities demand.

The story takes place among the scattered small towns and rolling cornfields of the Great Plains in southern Nebraska and northern Kansas. The Beaumonts live there to be far from any large bodies of water, which Fish sometimes converts into hurricanes. The vast and sparsely populated locale thus permits the Beaumonts to practice their savvies away from densely populated urban centers. Law grew up in nearby Colorado and wanted to offer a tale that showcases a region that doesn’t receive much attention in modern fiction: “I like the idea of setting my stories in rural areas or little out-of-the-way places. […] Kids live in these little, small towns, and they need to have these great stories, too, about their communities” (“Meet the Author”).

As a child, Law often was beset by anxiety and worry: “Worry is all about ‘What if?’ But so is storytelling!” ("Frequently Asked Questions." Ingrid Law). In college, her fears became curiosity, and she studied a wide variety of fields. Later, she combined her “What if?” mindset with a childhood ability to tell stories and created the Savvy book series.

Law says that if she could choose a savvy, it would be the ability to teleport anywhere. Readers, though, can infer that her real-life savvy is to imagine new possibilities and transpose their fearful aspects into adventure stories.