Hammer's YA Picks

Precious

2009-12-08T22:31:00.000-08:00

Daniels, L. (Director/Producer). (2009). Precious: Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” [Motion picture]. United States: Lionsgate.

Why watch this film

Feeling a little low? Needing a bit of inspiration? Meet Precious. She’s probably got a lot more difficulties going on than you, but she keeps on keeping on.

Plot summary

Precious is a poor, obese 16-year-old who lives with her abusive mother in Harlem. She’s pregnant with her second child, both by her own father, and her school expels her. Her principal arranges for her to attend an alternative school, and there her teacher, Ms. Rain, believes in the power of writing to redeem her students. The film follows Precious as she delivers her second baby, confronts her mother’s abuse, and moves on with her life.

Critical evaluation

I find it very interesting that the current film season will be remembered by tens of millions of white teenage girls as the season of New Moon and by millions of black teenage girls as the season of Precious. This reality demonstrates one of the blessings of being black in this country. New Moon is a wretched model for young women (see my earlier review) that romanticizes a 17-year-old whose identity revolves around not one but two men who don’t know if they can refrain from assaulting her. Precious, on the other hand, centralizes the horror of real abuse and shows us a young woman who rises above it.

It’s not that Precious doesn’t have some romantic notions of her own. When life is at its most difficult she escapes to a fantasy world where she’s a star surrounded by adoring fans and handsome men. Precious turns Hollywood’s romanticism to good use; if I thought all of New Moon’s viewers were doing the same I wouldn’t be so opposed to the film.

It’s unfortunate that Precious doesn’t do a better job of showing us precisely how Precious manages to transcend her fate. The explanation offered is the intervention of her teacher, Ms. Rain, who forces her students to write, thus opening the possibilities of real relationships between the teens and the adult, and who is able to provide the love and support that her students need once they have opened up. That’s well and good, but the film falls short of Siobhan Dowd’s Solace of the Road or Alex Sanchez’s Bait in laying out step by step what is going on in the mind of a protagonist who experiences a life-altering transformation. Perhaps the novel Push, which I haven’t read, does better than the film on this count.

It could be said that New Moon rises above its heritage of females standing by their men by creating male demons who are not simply evil. The fact that they both know they are a danger to the object of their desire is progress of a kind. But, again, Precious goes much further in showing that even the most unsympathetic of characters may indeed deserve our sympathy. When Precious’s mother finally comes clean in the social worker’s office, revealing how she justified her treatment of Precious, we realize that she has a story that deserves hearing as well. Fortunately, Precious decides to break the cycle of abuse by walking away from her mother, no matter how sympathetic she might have become.

About the director/producer

Lee Daniels is an African American born in Philadelphia in 1959. He moved to Los Angeles in his early twenties, initially developing a placement agency for nurses before working in films. He has produced Monster’s Ball (2002), The Woodsman (2005), and Tennessee (2007). In addition to Precious, he directed Shadowboxer (2005) (Snodgrass, n.d.).

Genre: African American, Crossover, Film, Life is hard

Curriculum ties

It would be interesting to show Precious to students for whom school as we do it has not been a success in an effort to surface their frustrations with the educational system. Then you could ask them to write about their feelings …

Film-talking ideas

Because of its R rating, it is unlikely that librarians would feature Precious in a school library collection or in the teen collection of a public library, and therefore it would probably not be the subject of a film talk.

Viewing level/interest age

The film’s R rating means that only teens over 17 can legally see it without an adult. I imagine that many younger teens have seen it, either with an adult or on their own, and that it is especially powerful among African American teenagers and teens who are overweight.

Challenge issues

Again, the film’s R rating makes it unlikely that librarians would include it in a school library or a teen collection in a public library, so challenges should be anticipated in terms of adults objecting to its inclusion in general film collections. The rape scene and other child abuse is painful to watch but not sensationalized. Possibly challenges would arise from a misguided objection to a film that portrays a child on welfare as a heroine.

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 of the critical acclaim the film has received.

Why I chose to view this film

When I heard about Precious, I realized that many of the African American high school girls who read Whore would probably also be seeing the film, and I wanted to see how the two compare, especially in terms of their portrayals of violence and child abuse.

References

Snodgrass, M. E. (n.d.). Lee Lewis Daniels. Answer.com. Retrieved December 8, 2009, from http://www.answers.com/topic/lee-louis-daniels

Solace of the Road

2009-12-08T22:17:00.000-08:00

Dowd, S. (2009). Solace of the road. New York: David Fickling Books. ISBN 978-0-375-84971-8

Why read this book

Why would Holly Hogan, who’s been living in youth homes for years, throw away her chance to lead a regular life with a kind middle-class couple in suburban London? What’s she looking for when she hits the road on the eve of her fifteenth birthday?

Plot summary

Holly Hogan is 14 years old and has been a ward of the state in England since her mother suddenly returned to their native Ireland some years before. Holly’s been living in a youth home with her buddies Grace and Trim, and her counselor, Miko, but now she has a chance to live with a childless middle age couple in a nice house in suburban London. Holly is guarded in her acceptance of her new life. She gets along okay at school, but she spends a lot of time in her room at home by herself, especially once she finds her foster mother’s blond wig and starts reimagining herself as Solace, a saucy girl who looks a few years older than the real Holly. Near the end of the school year, on the eve of her fifteenth birthday, Holly decides to become Solace full time and runs away from home. She knows exactly where she’s headed. She wants to go to Ireland and find her mother.

Dowd creates a convincing and detailed narrative of Holly’s two-day and two-night run for the border. Holly takes a bus to Oxford and then hitchhikes west, through Wales, to a port where she knows she can get a ferry across the Irish Sea. Being on the road opens her mind to memories that she never understood before and helps her figure out who she is and who she wants to be.

Critical evaluation

Holly is a beautifully rendered unreliable narrator. It’s clear from the beginning of her story that she’s not coming clean on her relationship with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend and the circumstances that separated them. It’s hard for the reader to know if Holly is hiding things or if she simply doesn’t remember them well, but we know there is more going on than meets the eye. Holly is also an unreliable narrator with the people she meets on her road trip. We never know what’s going to come out of her mouth when she gets in a conversation. We know a lot of it isn’t true because we were there when earlier events happened, but sometimes Holly comes out with something that just might be true, something that might be another clue to the past that she is wrestling with.

Dowd does a remarkable job of showing the reader how Holly’s experiences on the road help her untangle her confused past. As she discovers how the world works by being out there in it, she becomes increasingly insightful about her relationship with her mother and how she has rendered it her own mind.

About the author

Siobhan Dowd was born in England to Irish Catholic parents in 1960. Although raised in England, she spent summers in Ireland with her family during her youth. She earned a B.A. in Classics from Oxford University and an M.A. in Gender and Ethnic Studies from Greenwich University. In 1984 she began working for PEN, the international writers’ organization, moving to New York in 1990 to work at the PEN American Center. During her seven years in New York she founded the Rushdie Defense Committee USA and traveled to Guatemala and Indonesia to develop support for writers in those countries.

Dowd’s first published works were two anthologies she edited in PEN’s Threatened Literature Series, This Prison Where I Live: The PEN Anthology of Imprisoned Writers (1996) and The Roads of the Roma: A PEN Anthology of Gypsy Writers (1998). Her first young adult novel was A Swift Pure Cry (2006), the story of an impoverished 15-year-old Catholic girl who gives birth to an illegitimate child. It was well received by critics, as was her second young adult novel, The London Eye Mystery (2007), which features a young boy with Asperger syndrone whose eye for detail proves valuable when his visiting cousin disappears.

Siobhan Dowd died of breast cancer August 21, 2007 (Tucker, 2007). She left two young adult novels completed but unpublished at the time of her death. Bog Child, which was published in 2008, and Solace of the Road, which was just published in October 2009. Shortly before her death, Dowd established The Siobhan Dowd Trust “to ensure that disadvantaged children and young people have access to books, experience the joy of reading and develop their literacy to safeguard their future” (The Siobhan Dowd Trust, 2009). The royalties from her four young adult novels support the work of the trust.

Genre: International, Life is hard

Curriculum ties

It would be fun to have students read Solace of the Road after they have read Jane Eyre, since Holly reads the latter in school and references it regularly while she is on the road. The literary devices that Dowd employs, such as the symbolic roles of the blond wig and a ring with an amber stone that Holly’s mother gave her, are rich enough to make this novel effective in a high school literature course.

Book-talking ideas

• Read the events at the beginning of Chapter 10 where Holly’s foster parents have an argument on the morning that Holly decides to run away. Focus students’ attention on the iron, which is subtly employed to foreshadow a major development later in the novel.

• Read the first few pages of Chapter 26, where Holly is getting to know Phil, the vegan truck driver who picks her up. There’s tension about how a truck driver will treat a 15-year-old on her first hitchhiking experience, but Phil comes off pretty quickly as an okay guy while Holly is the one who isn’t to be trusted.

Reading level/interest age

The protagonist is 15 at the time of the story, and the prose is straightforward enough that I can imagine a middle school student reading Solace of the Road. The protagonist’s emotional development should make the story engaging to older teens.

Challenge issues

It’s hard to imagine anyone challenging this novel, which includes no sex, no violence, and no profanity. All the characters are presented with dignity, regardless of their shortcomings.

Responses

Why I chose to read this book

I enjoyed Bog Child very much and wanted to read another book by Siobhan Dowd. I find Solace of the Road to be even more tightly crafted and more powerful in its impact.

References

Tucker, N. (2007, August 24). Siobhan Dowd: Rising star of children’s literature. The Independent Obituaries. Retrieved November 8, 2009, from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/siobhan-dowd-462781.html

The Siobhan Dowd Trust (2009). Retrieved November 8, 2009, from http://www.siobhandowdtrust.com/

Palestine: The Special Edition

2009-12-07T07:59:00.000-08:00

Sacco, J. (2007). Palestine: The Special Edition. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 978-1-56097-844-2 (Originally published in serial comic-book format between 1993 and 1995)

Why read this book

Many people believe that the “war on terrorism” will not end until the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians is finally resolved. For a Palestinian view of the conflict, check out Joe Sacco’s graphic journalism in Palestine.

Plot summary

With little prior knowledge of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, Joe Sacco traveled to Israel in late 1991 to find out for himself what was going on in the Occupied Territories, the Gaza strip and the West Bank regions then governed directly by Israel but large populated by Palestinians. Many Palestinians were still living in refugee camps that the United Nations established after Israelis created the state of Israel and expelled Palestinians from their homes in the region in 1948. When Sacco arrived, the people of the Occupied Territories had been conducting an intifada (armed resistance) against the occupation since 1987.

Sacco based himself in Jerusalem for more than two months but spent much of his time in Gaza and the West Bank. He witnessed the intifada as it played out on the streets and interviewed dozens of Palestinians about their lives since 1948. Sacco published his reports in comic-book format between early 1993 and late 1995. The nine comic books were first published together in book form in 2000. Sacco structures the narrative around his investigative process, drawing himself into the story as he explains the historical background to the occupation; the material deprivations of Palestinians, especially those living in refugee camps; the political divisions among Palestinians; women’s attitudes toward their particular circumstances; the role of young people in the intifada; the imprisonment of large numbers of Palestinians, mostly men; and the barriers to economic development that the Israelis have imposed on the Occupied Territories. In the last chapter he reports on an extensive conversation with two Israeli women, including a visit to Tel Aviv, where they live.

Critical evaluation

As Edward Said, the late Palestinian-American intellectual and political activist, writes in the introduction to Palestine, Joe Sacco’s reporting helped fill an important vacuum in American journalism, both because of the voice it gives Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories and because of the unique graphic format. Sacco’s work is also distinguished by his decision to place himself in the narrative, which demystifies the reporting process. The reader is allowed to understand the circumstances of Sacco’s investigation, such as how he found his informants and how much time he spent with them, which gives us more information to evaluate the reliability of the reporting than we usually receive from journalists. I often found Sacco’s voice distracting, however, as his frank discussion of his motivations reveals the opportunism that drives much journalistic investigation. Sacco sometimes confesses excitement when a confrontation occurs because the action will make his comics more salable. More often he is moaning about his personable deprivations – such as the cold and mud, since he was in Palestine during the winter – which makes him seem less than heroic, especially in the context of the painful stories he is reporting.

I think that Sacco’s decision to organize his narrative around the chronology of his investigation also diminishes the power of his reporting. As he says himself in the introduction to this edition of Palestine, the narrative is “jerky” and “episodic” (p. xxi). Since he conducted his interviews in late 1991 and early 1992 but didn’t begin publishing his reports until early 1993, it seems that he had the time to organize them in a more coherent, thematic manner. It’s true that the reader’s ability to share Sacco’s journey of discovery adds an interesting dimension to the narrative, but it also means that he repeats many topics from chapter to chapter and there is no clear dramatic arc to the narrative. Perhaps if he had chosen to focus his reporting of his own role in the story less on his emotional reactions and more on intellectual and professional issues (when and how does he break through his sources' sloganeering to get to deeper truths?), the narrative might be more compelling for the reader.

About the author

Joe Sacco was born in 1960 in Malta, lived with his family in Australia from 1961 to 1972, and then moved to the United States. He studied journalism at the University of Oregon but did not find conventional journalism to be very interesting. After living in Malta in the early 1980s and writing alternative comics in the United States in the mid 1980s, he moved to Europe. While in Europe he developed an interest in the Palestinian situation. Visiting there for two months in late 1991 and early 1992, he developed his findings into Palestine, a pioneer work of graphic journalism that won the 1996 American Book Award (Joe Sacco, 2009). He has since published Safe Area Gorazde (2000), about the conflict in Bosnia; The Fixer (2003), about a man who connects foreign journalists with local sources during the war in Bosnia; Notes from a Defeatist (2003), a collection of his early alternative comics; War’s End: Profiles from Bosnia (2005); and But I Like It (2006), a collection of stories based in his experiences with music groups in the early 1990s. His latest work is Footnotes in Gaza, a Graphic Novel, which explores the massacre of 111 people in the Palestinian town of Rafah in 1956. It will be released later this month (Footnotes in Gaza, n.d.).

Genre: Contemporary non-fiction, Crossover, Graphic non-fiction, International

Curriculum ties

• Although Sacco’s reporting dates from the end of the first intifada in the early 1990s, and there have been many developments in Israel and Palestine since then, the graphic format and the author’s first-person narration make it a good resource for a unit on the Middle East in an international relations course or a contemporary world history course.

• Sacco’s introduction to this edition, which includes an explanation of how he converted his field notes, drawings, and photographs into a graphic publication, could be useful in an art class.

Book-talking ideas

• Project the marvelous two-page, bird’s-eye-view of a refuge camp (p. 146-7) and invite students to speculate about where it is and what’s going on. Then explain the image and invite them to learn more by reading the book.

• Project pages 196 through 198, the beginning of 15-year-old Firas’s story of how he became involved in the intifada. End with the text at the bottom of page 198, which reads, “What happened the time you were shot?” and invite students to learn the rest by checking out the book.

• Project some of the pages in Sacco’s introduction where he explains how he converted his field notes into images and text to tell his story. This insight into the creative process might capture the attention of students who have thought about creating a graphic publication of their own.

• Show excerpts from Sacco’s lecture at the Walker Art Center in which he talks about incidents he reported in Palestine.

Reading level/interest age

The graphic format makes this work accessible to both middle school and high school students, but I think the complexity of the topic overall means that older teens are more likely to pick up the book than younger teens. Five public high school libraries and one public middle school library in San Francisco include Palestine in their collections.

Challenge issues

Challenges to Palestine will most likely center on the book’s nearly exclusive focus on the Palestinian view of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.

Responses

• Note Sacco’s own defense on the point of focusing exclusively on the Palestinian perspective: He originally became interested in the topic because he had learned almost nothing about the Palestinian perspective from the mainstream media in the United States. He began his investigation because of his curiosity, not because of a particular political bias.

Why I chose to read this book

A high school history teacher whose classroom I visited said she uses Palestine and other Joe Sacco graphic journalism with her world history students, so I decided to check it out.

References

Footnotes in Gaza: A Graphic Novel (Hardcover). (n.d.) Amazon.com. Retrieved December 6, 2009, from http://www.amazon.com/Footnotes-Gaza-Graphic-Joe-Sacco/dp/0805073477/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1

Joe Sacco. (2009, November 29). Wikipedia. Retrieved December 6, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Sacco

Teen Legal Rights

2009-12-06T17:05:00.000-08:00

Hempelman, K. A. (2000). Teen legal rights: Revised edition. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-30965-x

Why read this book

When you have a question about the law, you don’t have to call a lawyer. Start at the library, and in the library look for this handbook.

Summary

Hempelman covers a wide range of teen legal issues, including those related to driving, school, home life, work, independent living, personal appearance, divorce, sexual life, marriage and children, health and safety, alcohol and drugs, crime, discrimination, gay and lesbian issues, property rights, contracts, and going to court. For each topic she arranges the information in question-and-answer format, which makes it easy to find the particular information each reader seeks. She writes her answers clearly and covers a wide range of issues for each topic. In the section on schools, for instance, she includes a short section on legal issues related to school libraries. She concludes each topic with a list for further reading and a list of organizations and Web sites for further research. Although Hempelman addresses a national audience, she often provides a chart to highlight differences among the states on the topic under discussion. She also includes a glossary and an index to make this reference work easier to use.

Critical evaluation

A good reference work includes lots of information and organizes it so it’s easy to find. Hempleman succeeds on both counts. Teen Legal Rights is extensive without being overwhelming, and the clear organization of topics, the question-and-answer format, and the index make it easy to find discreet bits of information quickly. Although every topic Hempelman discusses is potentially a semester-long course in law school, her answers are concise and direct. Many of her answers, begin “Yes …” or “No …” rather than “Depends …”, which is an appropriate strategy when approaching a teen audience.

Curiously, Hempleman’s neutral approach to her topics disappears when she explains affirmative action. Here she quotes Shelby Steele, a widely known partisan for one side of the affirmative action debate. She presents a table that correlates educational attainment and income and disaggregates it on the basis of gender and race, and then she asks, “Do you think affirmative action works?” The information in the table could be used to argue for a yes or no answer to the question, but the tone suggests that Hempleman wants the reader to say, “No!”

Unfortunately, the book is probably too out-of-date to merit purchasing at this point. Hempleman answers the question “Can two men legally marry?” with an unqualified “No,” even though that’s not the case any more in several states. One hopes that Greenwood Press will publish an updated version of this useful reference soon.

About the author

A Google search for “Kathleen A. Hempleman” produced only eight results, all of them Web sites offering to sell this book. The note about the author in the book itself says only that she is an attorney in Phoenix, Arizona.

Genre: Contemporary non-fiction

Curriculum ties

• Teen Legal Rights would be a useful resource in a high school pre-law course both as a reference and as a study guide.

• The book would also be a good supplement for the unit on the judiciary in a civics or government class. Students could use the glossary to define basic legal terms and then search the index to find examples in the text of where the term applies in legal practice.

Book-talking ideas

• Read the list of topics from the table of contents and then solicit questions about legal issues from the audience. Demonstrate how easily answers are found in the book and then read the answers. Poll students in the audience to get a sense of how easy the answer was to understand and how well it supplied the information that the questioner sought.

Reading level/interest age

The text is clearly aimed for older teens, but the chunking of information means that younger teens highly motivated to find an answer to an question could probably use it, too.

Challenge issues

This reference book does not include sex, violence, or profanity. The presentation of legal information is straightforward and neutral (for the most part), making it difficult to image challenges to its presence in either a school or public library.

Responses

Why I chose to read this book

I wanted to read more non-fiction, and I found this book when browsing the teen non-fiction section of one of the branches in the public library system.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

2009-12-04T16:15:00.000-08:00

Haddon, M. (2004). The curious incident of the dog in the night-time. New York: Vintage Contemporaries. ISBN 978-0-525-42155-9

Why read this book

You might have heard the word “autistic.” If you want to know what it really means, meet Christopher John Francis Boone, one of the most interesting teenagers you will find in a novel. He’s autistic, and he sees the world differently than most of the rest of us. You’ll see the world differently, too, after you read this book.

Plot summary

Christopher John Francis Boone is a teenager who lives in Swindon, a town a few hours outside of London. One night he’s taking a walk in his neighborhood when he finds his neighbor’s dog lying dead in her yard. Someone has killed the dog with a garden tool, and Christopher decides to investigate.

Christopher’s powers of investigation are no ordinary powers. Christopher has an amazing mind for mathematics and for memorizing information like the names and capitals of all the countries in the world. But he has trouble understanding people’s emotions and motivations, he has very particular likes and dislikes (he dislikes anything yellow or brown, for example), and he’s not comfortable around a lot of people or in places he hasn’t been before. Christopher’s teacher Siobhan has helped him learn how to observe people’s expressions and actions so he can understand them better, and she’s helped him use his analytical abilities to control the confusion and discomfort he feels around new people and new places. Christopher needs all his natural talents and learned skills when his investigation into the dog’s death leads him to shocking new understandings about his father, with whom he lives, and his mother, who disappeared from his life a few years before.

Critical evaluation

Mark Haddon optimizes the power of first-person narration in this beautiful story that shows us what the world looks like through the eyes of a young person with Asperger syndrome, a form of autism. Christopher is a lovable character and the quintessential unreliable narrator. Although the reader only sees Christopher’s world through his eyes, the reader understands dimensions of that world that Christopher does not. We see when people are condescending, mean, or dismissive of Christopher, we see the challenges that Christopher’s parents face in raising him, and we can understand why their marriage has not survived the challenges. And we are glad much of the time that Christopher doesn’t see these things himself.

A well-developed unreliable narrator like Christopher is also a window into realities that most readers could not narrate on their own. Haddon shows us Christopher’s remarkable talents for mathematics, logic, and reasoning as well as Christopher’s difficulties in understanding non-literal elements of life. And Haddon shows us how, with a little help from his friend (Siobhan), Christopher can learn to use logic and reasoning to gain control over the chaotic world in which he lives. This both gives us hope for dealing with the increasing prevalence of autism in contemporary society as well as insights into how our own human capacities work. Who among us couldn’t use some tips about breathing deeply and thinking our way through some of life’s little crises instead of emoting our way through them?

About the author

Mark Haddon was born in 1962 in Northampton, England, and studied English literature at Oxford University and Edinburgh University (Mark Haddon, 2009). He has written poetry, children’s books, and television and radio scripts in addition to The Curious Incident, which was his first novel. He is also an illustrator and a painter. He published his second novel, A Spot of Bother, in 2006. Boom is scheduled for publication in 2010. Haddon lives in Oxford, England and maintains a blog at www.markhaddon.com (biog., n.d.).

Genre: Crossover, International, Life is hard

Curriculum ties

• The Curious Incident would be an interesting book for teaching character analysis in a high school literature class. Christopher presents himself differently than the people most students would know in their own lives, and his explicit descriptions of himself are a foil to the traits that the reader must infer from the narrative.

Book-talking ideas

• Read the first short chapter (less than one page), and ask students what they can infer about the narrator. Then read the second short chapter and ask students again what they can infer about the narrator. Explain that reading The Curious Incident will give them insights into a view of the world that they probably haven’t encountered before.

• Read Chapter 73, where Christopher mentions the difficulties that raising him have brought to his parents’ marriage. Ask students how they think they might respond if they have a child like Christopher some day.

Reading level/interest age

Haddon wrote The Curious Incident for an adult audience, but the reading level and the engaging world that it reveals make it appropriate for both younger and older teens. Four public middle school libraries and eleven public high school libraries in San Francisco include The Curious Incident in their collections. One middle school library has multiple copies, which suggests that the book has been incorporated into the curriculum.

Challenge issues

In his innocent manner, Christopher refers to sex and to his penis, but not in the same breath and not with an erotic sensibility. Parents might object that the book makes them look bad in a categorical way, but I doubt that would provoke challenges. Although the book’s centralizing of Asperger syndrome seems like a public service to me, I imagine someone could find the topic objectionable.

Responses

Why I chose to read this book

LouAnne Johnson incorporates references to The Curious Incident in her young adult novel Muchacho, which piqued my interest. A friend who works in autism research recommended the book as an authentic representation of the world from the perspective of someone with Asperger syndrome.

References

Biog. (n.d.) A Spot of Matter. Retrieved December 4, 2009, from http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/minisites/aspotofbother/

Mark Haddon. (2009, December 1). Wikipedia. Retrieved December 4, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Haddon

Little Brother

2009-12-04T09:36:00.000-08:00

Doctorow, C. (2008). Little Brother. New York: TOR Books. ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-1985-2

Why read this book

Imagine how your life might change if the government started using all the technology at its disposal to monitor your every move. When this happens to Marcus Yallow, he fights back, outsmarting the government at its own game. Until he gets caught.

Plot summary

Marcus Yallow is a tech-savvy student at a high school in the Mission district in San Francisco. He’s figured out how to get around the firewall the school has imposed to limit student access to the Internet, how to keep school officials from snooping in his online activities, and how to evade the surveillance network so he can ditch school without getting caught.

But one afternoon when he’s left school to hook up with some friends to play an alternative reality game out on the streets of San Francisco, terrorists blow up the Bay Bridge and the subway tunnel that connects San Francisco and Oakland. In the ensuing chaos, Marcus and his friends get swept up by national security forces and end up incarcerated in a secret prison. Marcus is treated harshly, but he gets out after a few days and returns home to a world where the intense security that he was accustomed to in high school has been extended to the whole Bay Area. Shaken at the prospect that he will spend the rest of his life in an authoritarian atmosphere, Marcus organizes an online, underground resistance to the pervasive government surveillance. To his surprise, a whole movement develops, and he’s able to mobilize public demonstrations despite the government crackdown. How far can he get before he ends up back in the secret prison? How far can the government go before citizens demand their freedom from surveillance?

Critical evaluation

Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother alerts readers to the dark side of the technological revolution. We are all vaguely aware that someone – our employer, the government, big corporations – is recording a ton of information on our personal lives, but so far it doesn’t seem to impinge on our privacy. Still, it’s all sitting there in storage somewhere, available to anyone with the power and desire to check us out. Writing in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Doctorow imagines what the world could be like if another terrorist attack motivates the government to deploy its massive surveillance capabilities to control the civilian population.

A number of Doctorow’s decisions about how to frame his story add to the intensity of its impact. For paranoid liberals in the Bay Area such as myself who suspect a right-wing government would love nothing more than to swoop in and clamp down on us, the San Francisco setting of Little Brother adds a sinister subtext to the government’s response to the terrorist attack on the Bay Bridge and the BART tunnel. Positioning the hero as a tech-savvy high school student reminds the reader that many students already think of school as the authoritarian nightmare that Homeland Security imposes on the rest of society after the terrorist attack. And the title Little Brother both champions the role of youth in challenging authority and connects the story to the landmark novel on the topic of government surveillance, George Orwell’s 1984, which gave us the term “Big Brother” to define the government’s overbearing role in the lives of citizens.

About the author

Cory Doctorow was born in 1971 in Toronto and since then has also lived in the United Kingdom and the United States. He has been a peace and social justice activist since his youth, and he currently defines himself “a science fiction novelist, blogger and technology activist” (Doctorow, 2009). He has published short stories (including Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present, 2007), novels (including Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, 2003, and Makers, 2009), graphic fiction (Cory Doctorow’s Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now, 2008), and non-fiction (Content, 2008). Although his works are available for purchase in print, Doctorow also makes most of them available for free downloading from the Internet, an expression of his commitment to the free flow or information in a technological society (Cory Doctorow, 2009; Doctorow, 2009).

Genre: Adventure, Contemporary life

Curriculum ties

• Little Brother would be a good book for software or hardware technology courses. Students could research the various technologies referenced in the book and report on whether they are real or imagined.

• Little Brother could be used in a civics or government course to explore the relationship between national security and individual liberties.

Book-talking ideas

• Play the YouTube video where Cory Doctorow talks about Little Brother.

• To attract the attention of the techno crowd, read the section where Marcus converts his Xbox into an Internet access device whose activity can’t be monitored (p. 86-88).

Reading level/interest age

Little Brother will definitely appeal more to the tech-savvy reader than to others, although the action in the story and the political themes will pull in some readers who otherwise wouldn’t have much interest in the technology. Younger teens with an interest in technology could probably handle the book despite its high reading level. Of the seven San Francisco public school libraries that own copies of Little Brother, three are middle schools.

Challenge issues

Violence, sex, and profanity are not likely to be challenge issues for Little Brother, but the political content might be. Readers who value national security over individual liberties may challenge the book as unpatriotic.

Responses

Why I chose to read this book

This book was required reading for our young-adult literature course, but I would like to think it would have caught my attention even if it were not.

References

Cory Doctorow. (2009, November 22). Wikipedia. Retrieved Dec. 3, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow

Doctorow, C. (2009, September 21). About Cory Doctorow. Cory Doctorow’s craphound.com. Retrieved Dec. 3, 2009, from http://craphound.com/bio.php

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

2009-11-30T19:15:00.000-08:00

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

• 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

2009-11-30T07:45:00.000-08:00

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

• 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

2009-11-29T10:28:00.000-08:00

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

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

2009-11-29T09:46:00.000-08:00

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

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

2009-11-28T10:07:00.000-08:00

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 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

2009-11-28T09:51:00.000-08:00

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

• 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/

Luna

2009-11-28T09:35:00.000-08:00

Peters, J. A. (2004). Luna. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN-10: 0-316-01127-4

Why read this book

You’ve probably heard the word “transgender.” Do you know what it means? Can you imagine what life is like in our mostly heterosexual world if you are a transgender student in high school? Luna will expand your horizons.

Plot summary

Liam is a senior in high school, and he’s doing very well by many traditional benchmarks. He gets good grades and he drives a nice sports car that he bought with money he earns writing computer software and selling computer hardware to other students at school. But he’s torn between this world and his internal life, where he has always known he is female rather than male. He sees himself as a girl – whom he names Luna – who is trapped in a boy’s body, and it’s getting harder and harder to deal with the contradictions.

One of the bright spots in Liam’s life is his sister Regan, who is two years younger. They have bedrooms and a rec room in the basement of their parents’ suburban home, and that’s the only place where Liam can be Luna, dressing as she chooses and talking about the things that really matter to her. Liam’s best friend since they were kids, other than Regan, is Alyson, and that presents a problem. Regan thinks Alyson wants Liam to become her boyfriend, making it all the harder for Luna to be honest with Alyson.

But Luna has no choice. She has to come out to Alyson, and to her parents, and to the world, if she is to find happiness. How much pain will this cost, both to Luna and to Regan, whose life revolves around supporting Liam and Luna?

Critical evaluation

By creating this intimate portrait of transgender reality, Julie Anne Peters does a great service to transgender people as well as those of us whose understanding and acceptance is essential for their well being in this world. Positioning Liam as a successful young man diminishes the push factors in his need to become Luna (he’s not running away from anything) and focuses his transformation on the pull factor, the desire to achieve Luna’s potential as a person rather than to bury it. Telling the story through Regan’s first-person narration adds an important dimension, the role of allies in the journey to actualization. Regan is important not only for the support she gives Liam and Luna, but also because her acceptance of her role and her awareness of the price she pays for it give non-transgender readers a lot to think about. We see clearly that Luna’s liberation turns out to be liberating for Regan as well.

About the author

Julie Anne Peters was born in New York in 1952 and 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, Life is hard

Curriculum ties

Because Liam’s identity issues are so dramatic, the novel would be good material for any lesson or unit that helps students explore their identities. Obviously it would be most useful to transgender youth, but many others could find a provocative model in Liam’s struggle. Regan’s identity as an ally also provides a lot of food for thought.

Book-talking ideas

• Chapter 1 is short, conveys the nature of the story quickly, and ends dramatically. Reading it during a book talk should be effective.

• Reading the early scene of Liam and Alyson playing computer games in Liam and Regan’s basement rec room (p. 34-5) would show potential readers that the book is not about someone exotic but about someone they could know.

Reading level/interest age

Although I think the novel was written with older teens in mind, many middle school students would find the reading level accessible. Three middle school libraries in the San Francisco Unified School District own copies of Luna, along with seven high schools.

Challenge issues

Although the book does not include sexual scenes, many people mistakenly associate transgender issues with taboo sex topics. I imagine Luna would provoke challenges in many school and even public libraries.

Responses

• Remind the challenger how important it is for all readers to find materials in the library that tell their own stories.

• Remind the challenger that Luna is about gender, not about sex. Assure the reader that it is unlikely any young person would choose a life as difficult as being transgender simply because he or she read a book about someone else being transgender.

• Inform the reader that Luna was a 2004 National Book Award Finalist, a high honor in the world of young adult literature, and won many other awards.

Why I chose to read this book

The book was required reading for my library science course, but I hope that I would have found it even if it hadn’t been.

References

Peters, J. A. (n.d.) Young Adult and Children’s Author Julie Anne Peters. Retrieved November 27, 2009, from http://julieannepeters.com/

Annie on My Mind

2009-11-28T09:21:00.000-08:00

Garden, N. (1982). Annie on My Mind. New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0-374-30366-5

Why read this book

How do two young people sustain their love when many of their classmates and the adults around them oppose it? Liza and Annie find out in this romance set in New York City.

Plot summary

One day in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Liza, a 17-year-old senior at a small private school in Brooklyn, is drawn to a gallery where she hears someone singing quietly. The singer turns out to be Annie, a senior at a public high school on the north side of Manhattan. Liza and Annie quickly become the best of friends. Through the fall and winter they hang out together in museums, cafes, and their families’ apartments whenever their school schedules allow. Before long they know that their love is more than friendship. Annie has already realized that she is a lesbian, but Liza hasn’t really thought about it before. By spring their exploration of their relationship brings them into confrontation with unaccepting classmates and adults, threatening Liza’s ability to finish high school and testing the strength of the love between Liza and Annie.

Critical evaluation

The dramatic arc of the novel is nicely structured around three spirals of tension. First there is the suspense over whether Liza and Annie will become lovers, then the suspense over what consequences they might face, and then the suspense over whether their relationship can endure the challenges. Liza’s first-person narration is written from the perspective of her first year in college, a year after she and Annie met, and we know from the beginning that Liza has not responded to Annie’s letters for some months. Will this be a story of a love succumbing to external opposition or a story of love prevailing?

Garden’s careful dramatization of the deepening love between Liza and Annie, which was on the cutting edge in the early 1980s when the book was published, holds up well now, nearly 30 years later, when popular culture and the public struggles of the LGBTQ community and their allies have moved the public further along on these issues. Garden does not deny the oppression within which Liza and Annie must define their relationship, but she centralizes their resistance to the hostility around them, and that, hopefully, is the lesson that young readers are most likely to take from the story. Garden also positions this same-sex drama partially within a more universal context. Heterosexual readers are likely to identify with many aspects of the romance, such as the pleasure that Liza takes in describing the townhouse that becomes a physical haven for her and Annie in the spring of their senior year.

About the author

Nancy Garden was born in 1938 in Boston and grew up in New England and New York. She worked in the theater and in publishing before becoming a full-time writer. She published her first books in 1971, and has since written some three dozen, mostly fiction for children and young adults but also non-fiction and one adult novel (Garden, 2009).

Garden decided to write a book like Annie on My Mind as a teenager after reading Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness, a lesbian novel from the 1920s:

That made me vow, at around 16, to write a book for my people that ended happily. The result of that vow, after a few false starts, was Annie, which was published in 1982 when there was still very little written or published for kids about homosexuality, and even less that had a gay or lesbian main character and a happy ending (Interview with Nancy Garden, n.d.).

Nancy Garden currently lives with her wife Sandy Scott in Massachusetts and Maine (Interview with Nancy Garden, n.d.). She maintains a web site at www.nancygarden.com.

Genre: LGBTQ, Romance

Curriculum ties

Annie on My Mind provides great opportunities for students to explore three ways that oppression can function in our lives: internalized (Liza’s difficulty in accepting herself as lesbian), intrapersonal (the hostility that classmates express to Liza), and institutional (the school’s persecution of Liza and the two lesbian teachers who are unwittingly swept into the drama). The novel also provides rich materials for discussing the role of truth in resisting oppression. At several key points Liza lies as she tries to fend off the hostility closing in on her; do her lies help or hurt her in the short run and the long run?

Book-talking ideas

• Reading the lovely scene where Liza first encounters Annie singing in a gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is likely to grab the attention of potential readers who are romantics and/or cosmopolitans.

• Although reading very much of the scene where Liza and Annie are busted in their teachers’ townhouse would reveal too much too early, perhaps some paragraphs could be read to capture the drama of that scene without revealing the outcome.

Reading level/interest age

Except for the end of the novel, when tension builds around the secret time in the townhouse, readers of Annie on My Mind must be inclined to enjoy a slowly developing romance, taking their pleasures in the New York City setting and the narrator’s thoughtful reflections on her experience rather than dramatic plot developments. Within those parameters, I think both middle school and high school students could access and appreciate most aspects of the story. Seven middle school libraries and 11 high school libraries in the San Francisco Unified School District own copies of Annie on My Mind.

Challenge issues

The lesbian theme is a lightning rod for some, of course, and Annie on My Mind was the center of a well-publicized censorship struggle in Kansas in the early 1990s (Nancy Garden, 2007). But the lack of explicit sex in the novel (as well as the lack of violence and profanity) might make it less of a target than some more recent works in this genre.

Responses

• Remind the challenger of how important it is for everyone, and especially young people, to have access to stories that help them understand their own identity and the identity of the people around them.

Why I chose to read this book

Having read several stories about gay teenage boys, I wanted to read about lesbian experiences; several articles that survey this genre list Annie on My Mind as an early landmark.

References

Garden, N. (2009) Nancy Garden: Author, teacher, speaker. Retrieved November 27, 2009, from http://www.nancygarden.com/

Interview with Nancy Garden. (n.d.). TeensReadToo.com. Retrieved November 27, 2009, from http://www.teensreadtoo.com/InterviewGarden.html

Nancy Garden. (2007, October 2). authors4teens. Retrieved November 27, 2009, from http://www.authors4teens.com/introduction.jsp?authorid=ngarden

Name Me Nobody

2009-11-26T14:09:00.000-08:00

Yamanaka, L. (1999). Name me nobody. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 078680452-1

Why read this book

The Hawaiian teenagers in this book will show you what life is like in a part of the country that most of us don’t know much about. Although the issues around friendship and love, including girls falling in love with girls, occur in all communities, the way that Yvonne and Emi-lou’s families and friends support them and complicate matters has a distinctly Hawaiian spirit.

Plot summary

Emi-lou Kaya is 14 years old and in 9th grade in a school in rural Hawaii. Her friends call her Lou or Louie, but she doesn’t have many. Her best friend is Yvonne, whom Louie calls Von. They are the same age and they’ve been raised together like sisters. They’re really tight. Louie’s a little fat, and she gets teased a lot. Von always stands up for her. Von knows Louie’s tough on the inside, and Louie helps Von through her tough times, too.

Von’s a good athlete, and when she joins the local girls’ softball team, Louie joins, too. Louie’s an awful ball player, but she’s there for Von. She knows Von has a chance for an athletic scholarship, and she knows Von needs her close by to make sure Von makes the most of her opportunities. Things get complicated when Von takes an interest in another ballplayer, Babes. Louie is worried Babes is going to displace her in Von’s affections, especially as Louie gradually realizes that Von and Babes have feelings for each other that are different from what Louie and Von have ever had. Meanwhile, Louie’s got a crush on Kyle, Babes’ cousin, and another guy named Spencer is kind of interested in Louie. They and all their friends and families are hanging out together all the time in their small community, and things are complicated as these high school students try to figure out how to negotiate love and friendship.

Critical evaluation

Three factors set Name Me Nobody apart within the young-adult novel crowd. First, it deals with lesbian relationships and how they are both similar and different from non-sexual relationships among teenage girls. Louie knows that she’s isn’t a lesbian – she’s very attracted to Kyle, despite the fact that he treats her badly – but her friendship with Von is as intense as any lover’s could be. Plus she has to deal with everyone assuming that she might be a lesbian because she and Von are so close. This creates confusion on her part that drives much of the narrative of the novel.

Second, all the dialogue in Name Me Nobody is traditional Hawaiian pidgin (Hawaiian Creole American). The authentic dialogue adds character to the narrative, helping non-pidgin readers understand the unique setting of the story and helping pidgin speakers see themselves in the story. However, the non-dialogue narrative is standard American English, which presents a bit of a problem. Since the narration is in the first-person, from Louie’s perspective, we are presented with a situation where her dialogue is in pidgin while her background narration is in another language. Since the background narration presents Louie’s unspoken thoughts, it is awkward to adjust to the concept that she thinks in standard English while she speak in pidgin.

The third factor that distinguishes Name Me Nobody is the role that community plays in the story. Unlike many young-adult novels, where the parents, teachers, and other adults are distant figures or absent altogether, Louie’s story plays out in a traditional Hawaiian community where the generations interact extensively and where everyone knows everyone else’s past and present. Louie’s grandmother has raised her, since her own mother was only 16 when Louie was born and has moved to the mainland. Von’s father was Louie’s grandfather’s best friend (Louie’s grandfather has died some years before the story), and the two families are together constantly, sharing meals, watching movies, playing cards, etc. Spencer’s grandmother coaches the girl’s softball team, Babe and Kyle are cousins, and everyone’s family is everyone else’s auntie, uncle, or cousin. This complex web of relationships complicates the narrative, as can be seen in this passage:

They all think I don’t know what’s going on. I know Von wanted to distract Viva when she gave her all of those extra duties outside of the bus. I know Viva wants to make me jealous by asking Kyle to sit by her. I know why I’m sitting in front of Von and Babes, too. That must’ve been part of the deal. So I can’t see. So I can’t interfere. So I’m not the third wheel. And does Sterling really want to sit with me or is that just a part of this game? (p. 113)

As with Matt de la Peña’s Mexican WhiteBoy, the community becomes a force in the narrative, a dynamic that I am beginning to see characterizes the best of ethnic young-adult literature.

About the author

Lois-Ann Yamanaka was born in Hawaii in 1961 into a working class family that had emigrated from Japan several generations earlier. Hawaiian Creole English (Hawaiian pidgin) was her first language. When she decided to become a writer after teaching school in Hawaii for several years, she began using pidgin in her poetry and fiction, which generated unexpected opposition to her work. The Hawaiian school system banned her first publication, a collection of short stories titled Saturday Night at the Palaha Theatre (1993), although the book won several awards. Persevering despite the controversy, Yamanaka produced a trilogy of coming of age novels set in working-class Japanese-Hawaiian families (Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, 1996; Blue’s Hanging, 1997; and Heads by Harry, 1999). As with Name Me Nobody, Yamanaka integrates gay and lesbian characters into the families and communities she writes about in these adult novels (Lois-Ann Yamanaka biography, n.d.). Since publishing Name Me Nobody in 1999, Yamanaka has written two more adult novels (Father of the Four Passages, 2001, and Behold the Many, 2006), and a children’s book (The Heart’s Language, 2005) (Lois-Ann Yamanaka, 2009).

Genre: Asian American, LGBTQ

Curriculum ties

If the novel were to be used in a literature class, I think one of the most interesting points of discussion would be whether students think Louie was right or wrong to confide in your grandmother after her return from the volleyball championships in Honolulu. This issue brings into question the concept of a hero or heroine in a novel. Readers are generally presumed to identify with the narrator of a novel; is Louie a flawed heroine, and, if so, is that okay?

Book-talking ideas

• Read Chapter 1 (two pages), where Louie introduces herself by talking about her names. This surfaces her estrangement from her mother, who was 16 when Louie was born.

• Ask students whether they think writers should write in dialects like Black American English, with which they are probably already familiar, and discuss the controversy that Yamanaka encountered when she wrote in Hawaiian pidgin. Briefly explain the history of Hawaiian pidgin and read a passage with interesting pidgin dialog amount the teen characters, such as Chapter 10, where Von talks to Louie about losing weight.

Reading level/interest age

The story is accessible and appropriate for both middle school and high school students (five middle school libraries and five high school libraries in the San Francisco Unified School District own copies of Name Me Nobody), but I am afraid that some will find the use of pidgin for the dialogue difficult to get into.

Challenge issues

There is no sex, violence, or profanity (in English, at least; I can’t tell about the pidgin) in Name me Nobody. Yamanaka’s work has been challenged in Hawaii for her use of pidgin, which some readers feel stereotypes and denigrates the image they would like others to have of Hawaii. The usual crowd might challenge the lesbian themes.

Responses

• Cite the author’s defense of her use of pidgin in her writing: “… I came to terms that pidgin was not an ignorant language, that I was speaking a dialect and that my feelings and thoughts were so connected to the language that in order for me to write truthfully, I needed to connect to that voice. But it was hard. Very, very hard” (Takahama, 1996).

Why I chose to read this book

I was reviewing the list of books about lesbians in Herald’s guide to young-adult materials and was glad to find something set in Hawaii, about which I know very little.

References

Lois-Ann Yamanaka. (2009, November 17). Wikipedia. Retrieved November 25, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois-Ann_Yamanaka

Lois-Ann Yamanaka biography. (n.d.). biography.jrank.org. Retrieved November 25, 2009, http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4852/Yamanaka-Lois-Ann.html

Takahama, V. (1996, February 15). Controversial adventures in ‘paradise’: Bully burgers and pidgin. The Orange County Register. Retrieved November 25, 2009, from http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/engl52a/engl52a.1999/yamanaka.html

What a Song Can Do

2009-11-23T20:05:00.000-08:00

Armstrong, J. (Ed.) (2004). What a song can do: 12 riffs on the power of music. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-82499-5

Why read this book

Like listening to your favorite music, reading these stories will make you feel hopeful about life.

Summary

This collection features twelve short stories, all with teen-age protagonists, whose themes involve the power of music. The range of settings and times is impressive, from the battlefields of the Civil War (“The Song of Stones River,” by Jennifer Armstrong) to a gypsy camp in Europe during World War II (“The Gypsy’s Violin,” by Gail Giles) to contemporary urban and rural communities. The music that enriches the protagonists’ lives is also diverse, from traditional American Indian music (“A Warrior Song,” by Joseph Bruchac) to classical European music (“The Audition,” by J. Allison James) to Cuban music (“New Town,” by Alexandra Sly). Two of the stories are written in verse (“Ballad of a Prodigy,” by Jude Mandell, and “What a Song Can Do,” by David Levithan). Most of the protagonists are musicians (such as the nine members of a band whose individual reflections form “Variations on a Theme,” by Ken Koertge), but some are not (such as Cora, in “Tangled Notes in Watermelon,” by Dian Curtis Regan, whose ability to see colors and shapes when she listens to music has made it impossible for her to learn to play the piano, even though her grandmother is a piano teacher). Music helps one young man in Los Angeles establish his own identity in the face of his family’s legacy as Holocaust survivors (“Riffs,” by Ann Manheimer) and helps a young Palestinian girl in a long-term refuge camp find beauty in a life surrounded by violence (“Piano Obsession,” by Ibtisam S. Barakat). In the final story, a teenage girl learns to love her piano lessons while the adults around her are tensely following the news of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis (“A Third Kind of Funny,” by Sarah Ellis).

Critical evaluation

All twelve stories are well-crafted and clearly inspired by the authors’ love of music. The collection is probably especially interesting to young adults who play music themselves, but anyone who listens to music (which, as the introduction points out, is all of us) is bound to be engaged by the revelations of the various ways in which music enriches our lives.

About the editor

Jennifer Armstrong was born in 1961. She grew up in New Salem, New York, and currently lives in Saratoga Springs, New York. Since the 1980s she has published dozens of fiction and non-fiction works for readers of all ages under her own name and other names. She ghost-wrote over 50 titles in the Sweet Valley High and Sweet Valley Kids series and wrote five titles in other series using the pseudonym Julia Winfield. Much of her writing under her own name has focused on historical topics, both fiction, such as The Dreams of Mairhe Mehan (1996) and Mary Mehan Awake (1996), about an young Irish immigrant during the Civil War, and non-fiction, such as two books on the 1914 Shackleton expedition to the Arctic, one for young adults and one picture book for younger readers. She maintains a Web site at www.jennifer-armstrong.com .

Genre: Music, Short stories

Curriculum ties

If I were a high school music teacher, I would consider asking students in the band or orchestra to read some of these stories and then write about how music has affected their lives.

Book-talking ideas

• Read “Ballad of a Prodigy” by Jude Mandell. It’s a short story written in verse and the theme of identity is one that teenagers can probably relate to easily.

• Read two or three of the first-person narratives that comprise “Variations on a Theme” by Ron Koertge. They are short but give a feel of what students will find in the collection.

Reading level/interest age

Most middle school and high school students would find the reading level accessible, and the topic of music interests some students of all ages.

Challenge issues

There’s no sex, violence, or profanity in any of the stories. It’s hard to imagine that anyone would challenge any of them, although one involves a same-sex couple.

Responses

Why I chose to read this book

My group covered music for the genre reports, and I ran across this collection when I was looking for young adult books about music.

References

Armstrong, J. (n.d.). Jennifer Armstrong, Author and Historyteller. Retrieved November 22, 2009, from http://www.jennifer-armstrong.com

Jennifer Armstrong (1961 – ) biography. (n.d.). biography.jrank.org. Retrieved November 22, 2009, from http://biography.jrank.org/pages/1907/Armstrong-Jennifer-1961.html

Hush, Hush

2009-11-22T20:00:00.000-08:00

Fitzpatrick, B. (2009). Hush, Hush. New York: Simon & Schuster BFYF. ISBN 978-1-4169-8941-7

Why read this book

Why is that bad guy so attractive? Should you be in control so you don’t get in trouble or should you follow your feelings to see what you discover? That’s Nora’s dilemma when the cool new but kind of sinister senior takes an interest in her.

Plot summary

Nora Grey is a 16-year-old sophomore who lives in a farmhouse outside a small town near the Maine coast. Her mother has a job that keeps her out of town quite a bit, and her father was murdered a year earlier in robbery, so Nora is pretty independent. She handles her independence well, focusing on her school work, until she gets a new biology partner, a guy name Patch. Patch is new to school, he’s cute, he’s a bit sinister, and from their first encounter he beams his attention straight on Nora in ways that excite her and make her nervous.

Threatening events start complicating Nora’s life shortly after she meets Patch. Nora starts hearing voices as if someone has invaded her mind. She thinks she sees a peeping Tom outside her bedroom window. Someone seems to be following her when she is out about town. She thinks she hits someone while driving home in the fog but then there’s no evidence that it ever happened. On a dark night, her best friend Vee is mugged while she is wearing Nora’s jacket. Is Nora imagining these things? Is there some connection to her father’s murder? Is there some connection to Patch?

Despite the warnings, the more time Nora spends with Patch the more she falls for him. She knows he has secrets – like those two long scars on his back – and she wants to dig them out, even though she knows he’s manipulating her every step of the way.

Critical evaluation

My first foray into the angel genre of young-adult literature was a fun read. As with vampire stories, the sexual tension between danger and desire makes for a page-turner. There’s plenty of action to keep the plot running through the book’s nearly 400 pages, and the characters are as lively as the plot. Nora is a pretty sophisticated 16-year-old, with a lot of spunk, and Patch is convincing as a maybe-kind-of-bad guy who you want to think is good inside.

Hush, Hush engaged me because of the possibility through most of the book that it wasn’t really an angel fantasy but a psychological thriller. Although the prologue, which relates some kind of deal between a fallen angel and a young nobleman in the medieval French countryside, defines the territory clearly from the beginning, the fact that Nora lost her father only a year earlier to a violent assault keeps alive the possibility that she is experiencing some kind of psychological trauma from that event. Is Nora an unreliable first-person narrator who will come to see that her mind has invented the threats she seems to experience? If Fitzpatrick had developed that angle, or at least let the ambivalence of the situation prevail to the end, she might have a piece of literature as well as an entertaining, good-read of a book.

About the author

Becca Fitzpatrick was born in 1979 and currently lives in Colorado. She spent five years writing Hush, Hush, which is her first novel. She is currently working on a sequel, Crescendo, which she plans to publish in fall 2010. She maintains a Web site and a blog.

Genre: Romance, Supernatural powers

Curriculum ties

This is an entertaining read that is appropriate for an independent reading list for middle school and high school students, but it’s not likely to be used in literature or history classes.

Book-talking ideas

• Play the audio presentation of the first chapter of Hush, Hush, available on Fitzpatrick’s Web site.

• Show the Fallen Archangels Web site, which presents a YouTube video of Becca Fitzpatrick talking about how she wrote the book and a print interview with the hot model featured on the hot cover of Hush, Hush.

Reading level/interest age

Most middle school and high school students with an interest in angels would find Hush, Hush to be accessible reading.

Challenge issues

Although sexual tension permeates the novel, there is no explicit sex. The threat of violence hangs in the air throughout, but there isn’t much actual violence and what's there is handled in a PG kind of way. Religious groups who oppose the popular fascination with angels are likely to find this book objectionable.

Responses

Why I chose to read this book

One of the groups in our course that reported on young-adult genres featured Hush, Hush, and since I hadn’t read any young-adult suspense or fantasy novels I thought it might be a good place to start.

References

Becca Fitzpatrick. (n.d.). Retrieved November 22, 2009, from http://beccafitzpatrick.com

Hush, Hush cover week. (2009, November 9-13). Fallenarchangel.com. Retrieved November 22, 2009, from http://www.fallenarchangel.com

United States Constitution

2009-11-22T11:55:00.000-08:00

Hennessey, J., & McConnell, A. (2008). The United States Constitution: A graphic adaptation. New York: Hill and Wang. ISBN-13: 978-0-8090-9470-7

Why read this book

Having trouble making sense of all that old-fashioned, legal language in the U.S. Constitution? Read this graphic presentation that explains the Constitution in modern English.

Summary

This graphic presentation is a primer on the Constitution rather than the Constitution itself, which is not included in its original wording. The book includes a background section the summarizes the War for Independence and the Articles of Confederation, explanations of the preamble and each of the seven articles of the constitution, and explanations of each of the 27 amendments.

Critical evaluation

The goals of a graphic primer on the United States Constitution for high school readers should be (1) to explain the Constitution clearly in contemporary language and (2) to provide clever illustrations that add meaning to the words. It would be good if in addition both the text and the artwork had a sense of humor. Hennessey and McConnell’s work leaves quite a bit to be desired on the two primary goals and doesn’t even make a stab at adding humor.

Lack of clarity in the written text comes both in the choice of language and in the organization of the ideas. Hennessey employs the same unfriendly writing style that conventional high school history textbooks use. Take this randomly selected example:

This is called judicial review, and it can override the will of a citizen, a state government, Congress, the President, even a majority of the people. Judicial review, or the license to interpret the Constitution, is probably the best-known grant of power by the people to the judicial branch (p 68).

I think it would be easier for high school students to understand judicial review if Hennessey had written:

The federal courts have a power that is greater than any other part of government. The federal courts can throw out decisions by state governments, by the U.S. Congress, by the U.S. President, and even laws created directly by a vote of the people if the courts decide the decision violates the Constitution. This power is called “judicial review.”

The following pages of the primer, which try to explain how Marbury v. Madison established the practice of judicial review (p. 68-71), are an unfortunate example of the lack of clarity in both the text and the artwork. The text left me thoroughly confused, and I already knew what Marbury v. Madison is about. The graphic that introduces the section has no meaningful relationship that I could see to the topic at hand. As the text introduces the 1800 presidential election and the subsequent Marbury v. Madison Supreme Court case, the image shows rainswept streets in some vaguely late-19th century city. The streetlights are way post-1800, and the connection between the scene and the story about to be told completely eludes me.

Several of the major recurring visual symbols of primer are also quite weak. In sections where the relationship between the state and the federal governments is explained, McConnell uses birds to represent the states. I think teenagers are likely to find that weird rather than interesting or entertaining, and I don’t see how birds help convey the concepts in the text. Similarly, McConnell represents the branches of the federal government as men in suits that have buildings for heads (Congress for the legislative, the White House for the executive, and the Supreme Court for the judicial). Again, the images are not particularly useful in conveying the concepts involved. If they are intended to add humor, I think they fail there as well.

Some students will find the information in this primer easier to digest than a conventional text-only narrative, but I think the publishers have missed a big chance to reach a wider audience. More thoughtful writing and more clever art would make the investment in a class set of these primers worthwhile, but as they are, they don’t seem particularly useful to me.

About the creators

The limited information I found about writer Jonathan Hennessey and artist Aaron McConnell does not indicate any expertise in teaching, in history, or in political science, which may explain the mediocre nature of their work on the U.S. Constitution. Hennessey’s bio on the publisher’s Web site references his work on films in Hollywood, and the Internet Movie Database lists Hennessey as the writer and director of a feature film called An Evening of Christian Radio (1999); as second unit director or assistant director on eight films and television episodes, ranging from Playboy: Girls of Mardi Gras (1999) to Pumpkin (2002); and as miscellaneous crew on eight other films and television episodes (Jonathan Hennessey, n.d.a). For Aaron McConnell, the publisher’s Web site reports only that “Aaron McConnell is a freelance illustrator living in Oregon” (Aaron McConnell, n.d.).

Neither the publisher’s Web site nor Amazon.com lists any other publications for either Hennessey or McConnell, but the American Constitution Society blog has recently published a five-part series they created called “We the Patients: Health Care Reform and the Constitution” (Hennessey & McConnell, 2009). This series continues the visual style of The United States Constitution, including the branches of government illustrated as men in suits with buildings for heads.

Genre: Graphic non-fiction, Historical non-fiction

Curriculum ties

The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adoption could be used in any history course or government course that requires students to read and understand the U.S. Constitution. Some students will find it easier to learn information from this primer than from a conventional textbook, but many students will find it only slightly more accessible.

Book-talking ideas

• Make the most of the silly men in business suits with buildings for heads by projecting a series of their images from the book. Explain that this is the way the authors present all the key concepts in the Constitution and ask students to check out for themselves if this is more interesting than reading their textbooks.

Reading level/interest age

In California, the U.S. Constitution is taught in 8th grade U.S. history classes, 11th grade U.S. history classes, and 12th grade American government classes. The primer will probably work as well for this range of students as their conventional textbooks.

Challenge issues

The primer attempts to be neutral in its presentations of controversial issues such as gun control and women’s right to abortion, but partisans on these issues might find biases in the writing and artwork.

Responses

Why I chose to read this book

I first heard of this book during the class presentations on various genres of youth-adult materials. Shortly afterward a teacher I work with mentioned that she uses it in her class, so I decided to check it out.

References

Aaron McConnell. (n.d.). macmillan. Retrieved November 21, 2009, from http://us.macmillan.com/author/aaronmcconnell

Hennessey, J., & McConnell, A. (2009, September 14). We the patients: Health care reform and the Constitution. American Constitution Society Blog. Retrieved November 21, 2009, from http://www.acslaw.org/node/14107

Jonathan Hennessey. (n.d.a). Internet Movie Database. Retrieved November 21, 2009, from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0377257/

Jonathan Hennessey. (n.d.b). macmillan. Retrieved November 21, 2009, from http://us.macmillan.com/author/jonathanhennessey

Muchacho

2009-11-21T16:38:00.000-08:00

Johnson, L. (2009). Muchacho. New York: Alfed J. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-375-86117-8

Why read this book

Teetering on the edge between making it and not making it? Suspecting that you could do better but not sure you want to risk trying? Read how Eddie Corazon decides to change his fate from the dubious to the hopeful in Muchacho.

Plot summary

Eddie Corazon is an alienated teenager in small-town New Mexico. He’s maneuvered himself into the alternative high school where things are a little more flexible than the regular high school, but he hasn’t given up on his education completely and he’s keeping himself out of trouble with the law, even if his dad is always pissed at him. When he decides to follow a teacher’s advice and take a dancing class, he meets Lupe, who is too good to be true. She’s smart, self-confident, and pretty, and for Eddie it’s love at first sight and time to clean up his act to be worthy of her attention.

Critical evaluation

LouAnne Johnson develops two themes in this novel to suggest how a young person can choose to do better in life. One theme involves the power of love and the other involves the power of books. Eddie’s relationship with Lupe is an obvious force for good in his life. Lupe is remarkably mature and Eddie picks up on it right away. She has her priorities figured out and she understands emotional intimacy, as when she tells Eddie why she isn’t the jealous type:

I’m not jealous because I’m really smart and I’m not bad-looking and I really really really care about you … I’m a wonderful girlfriend to you. And if you didn’t appreciate me enough to be faithful, then you would be too stupid to have for a boyfriend (p. 165).

Eddie realizes he’s onto something good having Lupe as his girlfriend and he figures out how to be the kind of guy she’ll stay with.

Johnson is equally explicit about the power of books to change Eddie’s life. Eddie calls himself a secret reader and talks about books that have led him to think differently, including an unspecified short story by Sherman Alexie, Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and Miguel Riuz’s The Four Agreements. Eddie’s poem that ends Muchacho also salutes books:

If you don't like your life
You can open a book and follow the words to some new place ...
Or if you don't like your life
You could create your own book
And follow your own words to some new place
Where you write yourself a new life ... (p. 196)

Muchacho’s fast-paced and cleverly written first-person narration adds a lot of spirit to the novel. But I frequently found myself questioning the authenticity of this voice, especially when Eddie takes off on a political spiel. Taken altogether, his political observations become a litany of progressive political analyses that, in the voice of a teenager in small-town New Mexico, stretched my credibility. Similarly, Lupe’s maturity seemed more ideal than realistic, despite the suggestion that the loss of her mother in a car wreck had led to wisdom beyond her years. But perhaps this points toward a legitimate distinction between adult fiction and young-adult fiction. Perhaps younger readers are a little more willing to value the ideal over the real, and perhaps it’s more important for an author of young-adult fiction to explicitly model good choices for teen readers than to aim for completely authentic narration.

Setting the story in a Mexican-American community raises similar issues. Ethnicity is not as unimportant to Muchacho as it is to Alex Sanchez’s young-adult novels, but neither does it play the central role that it occupies in Matt de la Peña’s Mexican WhiteBoy. There’s a lot of Mexican-American context to Eddie’s story, but the novel could have worked about the same if the protagonist had been an alienated white youth. The benefit of the Mexican-American context is that Mexican-American young adults may be more likely to read the story and benefit from it. But not if they find the ethnic features inauthentic, which is something I can’t judge as well as they will.

About the author

LouAnne Johnson grew up in rural northwestern Pennsylvania and served in the U.S. military (both the Navy and the Marines) for nine years before becoming a teacher of reluctant high school students. Her 1992 memoir My Posse Don’t Do Homework was made into the 1996 film Dangerous Minds. Her work as both a teacher and a writer focuses on how to make education work better for students who have been poorly served by the traditional system (Johnson, L., n.d.).

Genre: Latino, Coming of age

Curriculum ties

Johnson provides an excellent student reading guide on her web site. Her guide is not so much about following the plot or understanding the themes of Muchacho as it is a guide to reading and journal writing in general. Teachers could employ her strategies to address the needs of reluctant readers while students are reading Muchacho or other fiction and non-fiction.

Book-talking ideas

• Play the YouTube video of LouAnne Johnson channeling Eddie.

• Tie in the book with Becoming Eduardo, a movie based on the book. Becoming Eduardo was completed this year but apparently not yet released (Becoming Eduardo, n.d.).

Reading level/interest age

The engaging narrative, the level of the vocabulary, and the topics addressed in Muchacho make it appropriate for younger teens as well as older teens.

Challenge issues

There is no sex in Muchacho (Lupe’s focus on becoming a doctor leads her to draw the line short of where Eddie would like to go), no explicit violence, and no profanity. Eddie articulates a thoroughly liberal view of education and life in New Mexico that conservatives might consider propaganda if the book were required reading in a public school course.

Responses

• Direct the challenger to the positive reviews in School Library Journal, (September, 2009, Vol. 55 Issue 9, p. 162) and Booklist (August 1, 2009, Vol. 105, Issue 22, p. 58).

Why I chose to read this book

The local high school librarians’ young-adult reading group chose Muchacho for its monthly selection.

References

Becoming Eduardo. (2009, October 11). The Internet Movie Database. Retrieved November 21, 2009, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1273198/

Haddon, M. (2002). The curious incident of the dog in the night-time. New York: Doubleday.

Johnson, L. (n.d.). Biography. LouAnne Johnson. Retrieved November 21, 2009, from http://www.louannejohnson.com/bio.htm

Ruiz, N. (1997). The four agreements: A practical guide to personal freedom. San Rafael, CA: Amber-Allen Publishers.