The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Weitz, C. (Director). (2009). The Twilight Saga: New Moon [Motion picture]. United States: Summit Entertainment. (Based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer.)

Why watch this film

Imagine you fall in love with a guy and he turns out to be a vampire. You’re okay with that but he dumps you and leaves town anyway. Then you finally find a new guy, and he turns out to be a werewolf. Watch New Moon to find out how Bella deals with these awkward situations.

Plot summary

Bella is a senior at a high school in Washington state. She’s in love with Edward, another student at the school, but he’s a bit older than her, like 100 years or so. He looks pretty good still, a little pale, but otherwise you wouldn’t think he’s a day over 25. He’s a vampire. But it’s okay, because his family has sworn off humans.

Bella wants Edward to make her a vampire, but that makes him uncomfortable, so he and his whole family leave town. Bella is devastated. Sits in a chair in her bedroom for months. Finally she realizes that when she does something reckless Edward shows up, kind of ghostlike, to tell her to straighten up. So she buys some old motorcycles and asks this guy Jake, a student at another school, to fix them up for her so she can be reckless on a regular basis.

First thing you know Bella’s all in love with Jake. That’s cool, until Jake starts hanging out with the wrong crowd and ends up a werewolf. That makes it hard for Jake to trust his intimacy. If he loses control and Bella is around he might hurt her. (Bella, do you see a pattern here?) Plus, it turns out Jake’s werewolf crowd and Edward’s vampire family are sworn enemies. What’s a girl to do?

Critical evaluation

As a librarian I know I need to keep up on popular culture so I can serve the young patrons’ needs well, but, I gotta say, this movie is crap. I don’t mind the vampire stuff. Vampires are kind of interesting. Can’t say the same for the werewolves. But it’s the vision of love and relationships in The Twilight Saga: New Moon that makes me want to puke. What kind of role model is Bella for a young woman? It’s not so bad that she falls in love with a vampire. Edward is cute enough and he treats her well. But wanting to become a vampire herself? Isn’t that kind of chucking your whole identity to be like your man? And when he leaves she sits in a chair being miserable for months. Get a grip, girl. Then she starts hanging out with Jake and all the sudden loves him as much as she loved Edward? What’s with the fascination with overbearing, way-to-powerful guys who admit they might brutalize you at any minute? Bell is not a good model for young women who are learning to build healthy relationships.

I have to admit that it’s an inspired move to put the vampires and werewolves in the same movie. If I thought all the teenage fans of Twilight were going for the chuckles, I wouldn’t mind this movie nearly so much. But even if they do see the humor in the film, I’m afraid it’s the relationship drama that’s going to stick with them in the long run. Again, it’s just not healthy.

About the director

Chris Weitz was born in 1969 in New York City. He is the third generation of his family to be involved in film production (a grandfather was a producer, his mother was an actress, his uncle was a director, etc.). His other directorial work includes About a Boy (2002) and The Golden Compass (2007). He also received credit as a screenwriter for both films. Weitz also acts (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, 2005) and produces (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, 2008). (Biography for Chris Weitz, n.d.).

Genre: Coming of Age, Film, Supernatural powers

Curriculum ties

In a media literacy course or unit, New Moon could be used to show how popular media perpetuate stereotypes about woman, men, vampires, werewolves, etc.

Film-talking ideas

Most teenagers have probably heard of this film, but if one needs to do a film-talk, one could give a little historical background on the vampire and werewolf genres and then show a clip of them going at it in New Moon.

Viewing level/interest age

The PG-13 rating suggests that the film is appropriate for both middle school and high school students.

Challenge issues

The film is rated PG-13, and it has no profanity, explicit sex, or serious violence (although I cringed a lot when the master vampires were throwing Edward around on the marble floors and steps). Some people have religious objections to vampires and werewolves.

Responses

• Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

• Inform the challenger that you think the film sucks, too, but what are you going to do when it’s backed by all that Hollywood money?

Why I chose to view this film

When I read the following in a New York Times article about record-setting opening-weekend ticket sales for New Moon, I felt a certain responsibility to check it out:

Female moviegoers, particularly teenage girls, drove ticket sales, as expected. Summit said the audience was only 20 percent male, an improvement from the first movie; 50 percent of the audience was under the age of 21 (Barnes, 2009).

References

Barnes, B. (2009, November 22). ‘Twilight’ dawns bright at the box office. The New York Times. Retrieved November 29, 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/movies/23box.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=twilight%20new%20moon&st=cse

Biography for Chris Weitz (n.d.). The Internet Movie Database. Retrieved November 29, 2009, from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0919363/bio

Hold Still

LaCour, N. (2009). Hold Still. New York: Dutton Books. ISBN 978-0-525-42155-9

Why read this book

Have you ever had a friend who lost someone close to them and you didn’t know what to say because you didn’t know what they were going through? Hold Still reveals the painful grieving process that Caitlan experiences when her best friend commits suicide.

Plot summary

At the end of their sophomore year in a high school in suburban San Francisco, Caitlan’s best friend Ingrid suddenly commits suicide. Caitlan didn’t see it coming, and she has no idea how to deal with her feelings in the aftermath. Hold Still follows Caitlan through her junior year as she tries to put her life back together, holding on to Ingrid as much as she can and fearing that making new friends would be letting Caitlan down yet again. Caitlan treasures the journal that Ingrid slipped under Caitlan’s bed the night before she killed herself, and Caitlan wrestles with photography class, which she and Ingrid had done together freshman and sophomore years. Ingrid’s talent hugely impressed their photography teacher, Ms. Delani, but Ms. Delani is dealing with her own feelings of remorse for not having seen Caitlan’s suffering in time to do something to help her. Dylan, a new girl at school, Jayson, whom Ingrid had a crush on even if she hardly ever spoke to him, and Taylor, a guy who takes a romantic interest in Caitlan, become the friends who help Caitlan through her year of darkness.

Critical evaluation

Nina LaCour maps the path through Caitlan’s suffering with a well-written, first-person narrative that captures the intensity of the conflicting emotions that Ingrid’s death leaves in its wake without resorting to clichés or settling for superficiality. By weaving pages from Ingrid’s journal and descriptions of Ingrid’s photographs into the narrative of the year after her death, LaCour integrates the girls’ shared past with Caitlan’s empty present and reveals the dynamics that shape Caitlan’s pain. The limitations of even the most sensitive and supportive adults to help Caitlan heal also comes through clearly, as do the contributions of art and Caitlan’s own creativity to her healing process. The demolition of an old movie theater that Ingrid and Caitlan treasured mirrors the loss of Ingrid and helps Caitlan accept change, and Caitlan’s own creativity with photography and a tree house she builds in her back yard show that change can heal as well as destroy.

About the author

Nina LaCour grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her B.A. from San Francisco State University and an M.F.A. from Mills College in Oakland. She currently teaches English at an independent high school in Berkeley. Hold Still is her first novel (Bio, n.d.).

Genre: Life is hard

Curriculum ties

The careful development of themes around loss, change, and healing make Hold Still a good book for a high school literature class. Used thoughtfully, it could be a good text to help students who have lost a classmate.

Book-talking ideas

• Read Caitlan’s realization on page 91 that she could have taken more seriously some of the misgivings that Ingrid had expressed about herself in the months before she committed suicide. This passage captures well the way that a person who is feeling awful sometimes disguises the hints and lets others treat them casually.

• Read excerpts from Ingrid’s journal, such as her letter to Jayson, with whom she seldom spoke, about the crush she had on him (p. 68). Discuss with students other ways they deal with crushes like that besides confiding it to their journals.

• Play the YouTube book trailer, which includes a passage from Ingrid’s journal.

Reading level/interest age

The text is probably accessible to middle school students, but the way in which Hold Still is a book of ideas and emotions rather than plot or action means that older students will probably find it more engaging.

Challenge issues

Ingrid describes one sex scene in her journal. Caitlan and Taylor mess around a little. There is no profanity and no violence. There are no villains, but the story is very sad until near the end, which might scare some parents. Some parents might object that a book that centralizes suicide is not appropriate for impressionable young souls.

Responses

• Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

• Point out that Hold Still does not romanticize suicide. The incredible pain that Ingrid leaves in her wake is more likely to dissuade a young person from thinking about suicide than encourage them (although one never knows).

Why I chose to read this book

Nina LaCour is a teacher of the daughter of some close friends, and they told me about the book when it was published in October.

References

Bio. (n.d.). Nina LaCour. Retrieved November 29, 2009, from http://ninalacour.com/

Otomen

Kanno, A. (2009). Otomen (Vol. 1). San Francisco: VIZ Media. ISBN-13: 978-1-4215-2486-2. (Originally published in Japan in 2006.)

Why read this book

Find out what teenage girls in Japan are reading. Check out Otomen, a story about a high school boy who is a super-cool and handsome martial arts expert on the outside but who secretly loves all things girlish.

Plot summary

Since he was a young boy Asuka has liked girlish things, things that are fluffy and sparkling, cute and sweet, things like cooking, sewing, and love stories. This is a problem for his mother, given that his transgender father abandoned the family long ago. She makes Asuka study martial arts (kendo, judo, and karate), where he finds great success, and by the time he’s in high school he’s the coolest guy around – tall, handsome, and quiet. But it’s very painful for him to have to hide his feminine interests, especially when he develops a crush on Ryo, a new girl in school. Her father is a martial arts expert himself, and Ryo is totally into masculine guys. Asuka can’t get close to her without her finding out about his mastery of girlish things, and when she finds out will still want to be his girlfriend?

Critical evaluation

This is the kind of book that reminds us why it is important to step out of our cultural comfort zones as often as possible. There are a lot of gender issues going on here, and they don’t make much sense in the conventional American discourse. What does it mean when a young man loves girlish things, is also a martial arts expert, and tells us he is in love with a girl? How does that package fit together? What does it say about Japanese culture? And what does it say about American culture that it has such a different take on gender?

The gender issues are complicated by the role of a third character, Juta, another high school boy who on the side writes manga for girls. He figures out Asuka’s double nature and befriends Asuka in order to use Asuka as a model in a manga series he is writing (without telling Asuka). Juta is a player, and he laments that he can’t find any girls who are as feminine as Asuka. None of the girls he meets can cook or sew nearly as well as Asuka, for example. “I guess no one like that exists,” he says. “Someone who embodies true femininity the way Asuka-chan does” (p. 124). What’s up with that? An American like myself anticipates that with plot developments like these that Juta is going to fall in love with Asuka’s feminine half and Asuka is going to be happy to find someone who appreciates him that way. Does that prospect even occur to the typical Japanese reader?

About the author

Aya Kanno was born in Tokyo in 1980 and currently works there as a manga writer and artist (Aya Kanno, 2009). She has been publishing manga since 2000. Four volumes in the Otomen series have been published in English, with two more scheduled for early 2010. A live-action television presentation of Otomen began in Japan in August 2009 (Brienza, 2009).

Genre: Graphic fiction, International, Romance

Curriculum ties

Otomen would be great in a gender studies course. Here’s how an Anime News Network review explains the word “Otomen”:

… “otomen” is a Japlish pun that combines the Japanese word “otome” (maiden), with the English word, “men.” A more efficient translation of the title of this romantic comedy … would be something like “She-Man.” (Brienza, 2009)

Book-talking ideas

• Projecting, reading, and discussing the first five pages of the manga would provide a great intro to the story, since it includes an explanation of Asuka’s feminine interests and displays his martial arts expertise when he rescues Ryo from a gang of thugs.

• The section in Chapter 2 where Asuka meets Ryo’s father, a martial arts expert, who pegs Asuka as a sissy and then gets his butt kicked when he challenges Asuka to a judo match, might also pique the interest of potential readers.

Reading level/interest age

The text and graphics make Otomen accessible to both middle school and high school students, but it’s most likely to appeal to young readers already comfortable with manga and, among those, girls more than boys. I’m very curious about how American readers interpret to the gender issues that drive the narrative.

Challenge issues

Given that Otomen is a manga, a format that many adults can't penetrate, I don't think the gender issues would attract the attention of many adults. There’s no violence beyond the occasional comic book martial arts confrontations. There’s a little innocent romance but no sex.

Responses

• Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

Why I chose to read this book

The group in our class that reported on manga said something about Otomen that made me think it might be a good place to begin checking out Japanese manga.

References

Aya Kanno. (2009, July 13). Wikipedia. Retrieved November 28, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aya_Kanno

Brienza, C. (2009, February 13). Review: Otomen. Anime News Network. Retrieved November 28, 2009, from http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/otomen/gn-1

Gifts

Le Guin, U. K. (2006). Gifts. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc. ISBN 0-15-205124-4 (Originally published in 2004.)

Why read this book

Orrec is said to inherit the power to unmake things merely by looking at them, to turn a living rat into a boneless bag of hair, for example. Gry has inherited the power to call wild animals to her, which makes her perfectly suited to lure animals to their death during a hunt. But neither is comfortable using these powers. What will it mean for their lives if they challenge generations of family traditions?

Plot summary

Orrec and Gry live on neighboring feudal estates in the Uplands territory. They were born in the same year, they have been raised together, and in their early adolescence they must come to terms with the powers they have each inherited from their ancestors. Orrec’s family power is to unmake things by looking at them. His father can turn a living rat into a boneless bag of hair with a single glance or burn a line through a forest to mark the boundary with another estate. Gry’s mother can call the wild boars out of the mountains and into the clutches of hunters. Gry masters her mother’s powers easily but hates to use them to lure animals to their death. Orrec has trouble mastering his powers at all. He seems to kill a snake, to burn a hillside, and to kill his pet dog, but he doesn’t feel any control of his power and fears he will turn out like his ancestor Caddard who accidently killed his own wife and then blinded himself in remorse. Orrec asks his father to bind his eyes so he cannot misuse his power, a request his mother, who was raised in the lowland cities, finds superstitious and self-destructive. As a territorial dispute arises between Orrec’s family and an aggressive neighbor, Orrec wonders if his self-imposed blindness makes him useless in the strife or a weapon of fear.

Critical evaluation

Ursula Le Guin’s beautiful coming-of-age story works on many levels. It’s a story of young people finding their identity by learning if they are their mother’s child or their father’s child. It’s a story of finding discipline to use one’s talents wisely. It’s a story of moving beyond the old rural traditions and superstitions into a wider, new urban world.

Le Guin creates her setting carefully to allow all these possibilities to emerge from the story. Orrec and Gry live in the Uplands, a region halfway between the large, wealthy estates higher in the mountains and the cities in the lowlands. It’s a pre-industrial world with an economy based on farming, domesticated animals, and the bounty of the forests. The people in the Uplands live by feudal social traditions, with the most powerful family living in a large stone manor and the other families living both in service to and protected by the landlord. Le Guin evokes this environment so beautifully that the supernatural powers of the leading families seem perfectly natural and the younger generation’s challenges to their heritage are completely heartfelt.

Two figures from the lowlands offer Orrec and Gry glimpses of an option for a more modern way of living. Orrec’s mother is a lowlander whom his father kidnapped, although she connived in her own abduction on the hunch that she would find a better life with him than what she had. They are loving mates and warm parents, but they bequeath Orrec different paths to follow. Emmon is a thief who has wandered up from the lowlands and stays in Orrec’s house for a few months one winter. As Orrec and Gry describe their world to him, his questions help them see that they have more options than reliving the tragedies of their ancestors. Although the world that Le Guin creates for Orrec and Gry is far away and long ago, the dilemmas she spins for them will resonate easily with many contemporary teen readers.

About the author

Ursula Le Guin was born in Berkeley, California, in 1929. Her father was the noted anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and her mother was the writer Theodora Kroeber. Le Guin is a highly regarded writer who has published more than 20 novels and more than 100 short stories, most of them science fiction and fantasy, for adults and young adults. She has also published children’s stories. She has received a National Book Award, five Hugo Awards, five Nebula Awards, the Kafka Award, a Pushcart Prize, and the Howard Vursell Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Gifts is the first volume of a trilogy called Annals of the Western Shores that also includes Voices (2006) and Powers (2007) (Thompson, 2007; Le Guin, 2009).

Genre: Coming of Age, Supernatural powers

Curriculum ties

• When teaching the Industrial Revolution, it’s important that students first understand the nature of pre-industrial life. Le Guin’s early descriptions of life in Caspromant would be a useful way to convey that concept.

• Gifts would be a good resource for any course or unit designed to help young people explore their identity, since that is what Orrec and Gry are doing in this novel.

Book-talking ideas

• Reading any of the three passages where Orrec seems to exercise his powers should catch the attention of students who like reading fantasy stories.

• Read the passage where Orrec decides to bind his eyes (p. 121-124) and discuss whether students would choose to limit a supernatural power like that if they had one.

Reading level/interest age

The innocence of this story makes it appropriate for younger teens and the richness of the themes means that many older teens will also find it engaging.

Challenge issues

The innocence of the story makes it hard to imagine that anyone would challenge its place in either a school library or a public library. There is no sex, no profanity, and almost no violence. The battle near the end is brief and not sensationalized.

Responses

• Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

Why I chose to read this book

I was browsing the teen section of the public library when this book caught my eye. I’ve heard good things about Ursula Le Guin for many years but had never read one of her books. Now I see why everyone enjoys her so much.

References

Le Guin, U. K. (2009). Ursula K. Le Guin: Biographical sketch. Retrieved November 28, 2009, from http://www.ursulakleguin.com/BiographicalSketch.html

Thompson, C. (Ed.). (2007). Le Guin, Ursula K. World Authors 2007. Retrieved November 28, 2009 from http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/hww/results/getResults.jhtml?_DARGS=/hww/results/results_common.jhtml.33

Grl2grl

Peters, J. A. (2007). Grl2grl. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN-10: 0-316-01343-9

Why read this book

Next time you are looking to relax or escape, read some really good writing about girls who like girls. Reading these short stories is as easy as watching TV, but they’re way better for your mind and your spirit.

Plot summary

These ten short stories cover a lot of territory, but they have in common that they are all first-person narratives from the mouths of high school girls who like other girls. A couple of the stories are about the people who make life harder for these girls (“Boi,” “Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder“), but most of them are just about the girls. Girls trying to get to know someone special (“Passengers,” “Outside/Inside”), girls trying to get over each other (“After Alex,” “TIAD”), and girls in a lot of pain (“Can’t Stop the Feeling,” “Stone Cold Butch”). One story features a nascent courtship via sports (“On the Floor”), and one features the climax of a long courtship via music (“Two-Part Invention”). And all these girls are people you’d like to know, young people who are embracing life as they struggle to be who they want and need to be.

Critical evaluation

One challenge with a collection of short stories is to develop common themes that help the stories fit together while providing enough variety in setting, plot, characters, and form to keep them from sounding too much like each other. Julie Ann Peters accomplishes both of these goals in Grl2grl. The young lesbian (and, in one case, transgender) voices work together to present a whole movement of girls ready to make their way in the world, but the voices are quite distinct from each other, from Mariah’s hesitate steps toward her first GSA meeting to the unnamed basketball player whose every move against her opponent on the court is a double entendre. A lot of the action happens in schools (classrooms, hallways, a gym, a storeroom off the library), but some of it happens at work, online, and driving down the highway. Although a couple of the narrators suffer serious abuse, overall the collection leaves the reader with an appreciation of the enormous potential for love and happiness that the protagonists embody.

About the author

Julie Anne Peters was born in New York in 1952 but grew up in Colorado. She still lives there, now with her partner Sheri, whom she met in college, “and we’ve been together ever since” (Peters, n.d.). She worked as a teacher and then as a computer software person before turning to writing in the late 1980s. She has published 15 books for tweens and young adults, many of them with LGBTQ themes, including her most recent novel, Rage: A Love Story. To be published in January 2010 is By the Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead, which explores teen suicide. Peters maintains a Web site and a blog.

Genre: LGBTQ, Short stories

Curriculum ties

As noted above, Peters presents an array of engaging voices, which makes this a useful collection for teaching first-person narration in a creative writing class.

Book-talking ideas

Emphasize that (for the most part) this is not a collection of stories about oppressed young lesbians seeking their identity and getting beat up but a collection of stories about high school girls dealing with love and romance who happen to be finding it with other girls.

Reading level/interest age

Although I think these stories were written with older teens in mind, many middle school students would find the reading level accessible.

Challenge issues

The sexual abuse described briefly in “Stone Cold Butch” and in more detail in “Boi” might be the peg on which those opposed to including LGBTQ issues in public discourse would hang their challenges to this collection. Otherwise, there are no sex scenes, violence, or profanity.

Responses

• Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

• Remind the challenger how important it is for all readers to be inspired by stories that relate to their lives.

Why I chose to read this book

I’m looking for material to use in a high school LGBTQ course that I hope to teach this spring, and I thought short stories would be a good resource.

Skim

Tamaki, M., & Tamaki, J. (2009). Skim. London: Walker Books Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4063-2136-4 (Originally published in Canada in 2008.)

Why read this book

These fragments from Skim’s diary leave a lot of room for speculation and imagination. Why did John, a volleyball player in another school, commit suicide? Why is Katie, his ex-girlfriend, so angry with the girls who try to help her? Why is Lisa, Skim’s best friend, so cynical until all the sudden she gets a boyfriend? And what does Skim feel for Ms. Archer, the English teacher who suddenly disappears?

Plot summary

Skim is a 16-year-old 10th grader at a private girls’ school in Canada. Her mother is Japanese Canadian and her father is European Canadian, but they’re divorced. Skim only has one friend in school, Lisa, and they are into Wicca and being Goths. Life doesn’t get any easier for them when a classmate’s ex-boyfriend commits suicide, the classmate breaks both her arms falling off a roof, and all the girls in school go on suicide watch a bit too enthusiastically. Skim’s got her own private dramas since she and Ms. Archer, her English teacher, got to know each other outside of school. Kim secretly visits Ms. Archer at her home until Ms. Archer suddenly quits her job and disappears without saying good-bye.

Critical evaluation

Skim manages to raise issues of Wicca, smoking, teen suicide, and inappropriate same-sex relationships between teachers and students in one short graphic novel. Skim creates a mosaic of intense, scattered feelings, including confusion, anger, and cynicism, that add up to loneliness above all else. It’s an interesting effort to evoke adolescence as an emotional state of being rather than a traditional textual narrative. Skim suggests a fourth type of young adult plot – the plot of mood – to add to Roxburgh’s plots of character, action, and ideas (2005). Creating mood is an especially appropriate use of the graphic novel format, where the visual images can contribute a great deal to the effort. Key points of the story’s plot, such as a kiss between Skim and Ms. Archer (p. 40-41), are conveyed visually but not in the text, leaving the reader wondering if they actually happened. The writer’s deft use of Skim as an unreliable narrator adds to the ambiguity of the mood the story creates. Skim tells us what’s going on in her life – such as her visits to Ms. Archer’s house – but we have to make our own assumptions, based mostly on the drawings, about what happens there and how Skim feels about it. Even Skim’s dialogue often conveys mood more than action, as when she says, “My stomach feels like it’s popping, like an ice cube in a warm Pepsi” (p. 33), or “I had a dream / I put my hands / inside by chest / and held my heart / to try to keep it still” (p. 43). The unconventional narrative form and the ambiguity of the mood that Skim creates is likely to engage both die-hard readers looking for something different and reluctant readers who look to the graphics for meaning.

About the creators

Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki are cousins. Mariko, who wrote the text for Skim, is a writer and stage performer who lives in Toronto. Her other works of fiction include a novella, Cover Me (2000), a collection of short stories, Fake ID (2005), and another young adult graphic novel, Emiko Superstar (2008). She has also published a collection of essays, True Lies: The Book of Bad Advice (2002). She maintains a web site at www.marikotamaki.com.

Jillian Tamaki, who created the drawings for Skim, is a Canadian who lives in New York City and works as an illustrator. She maintains a web site at jilliantamaki.com.

Genre: Asian American, Graphic fiction, LGBTQ

Curriculum ties

It would be fun to use Skim in an art class to teach students how drawings convey emotion and create mood. In a creative writing class, Skim could be a good model for using text to convey ambiguity rather than precision in one’s writing.

Book-talking ideas

• Every ten pages or so there are full-page illustrations that are especially engaging. Any two or three of them could be projected to provoke discussion about what information they convey and to preview some of the moods the book evokes.

• Show the YouTube video in which the creators talk about themselves and Slim. (There’s a YouTube summary of Slim, too, but it’s narrated poorly.)

Reading level/interest age

The visual presentation and the simplicity of the text make the narrative accessible to younger teens, but they might not be as patient as older teens with the importance of mood in the experience of reading Skim.

Challenge issues

As noted before, Skim manages to raise issues of Wicca, smoking, teen suicide, and inappropriate same-sex relationships between teachers and students in one short graphic novel. The ambiguity of what Skim is trying to say about these topics will probably only add to the discomfort that some adults might feel about the book.

Responses

• Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

• Be sure that the challenger understands that, above all, Skim is about loneliness, an important issue for many teens, and that teens suffering from loneliness need to have access to stories that help them understand their feelings.

Why I chose to read this book

I saw Skim on a list of graphic novels or a list of LGBTQ novels early in the semester and bought a copy. I started it once and didn’t find it very engaging, but when I returned to it after reading other graphic fiction and non-fiction I found it more interesting than the first time around.

References

Roxburgh, S. (2005, Winter). The art of the young adult novel. The ALAN Review, 4-10. Retrieved August 23, 2009, from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/v32n2/