Precious

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

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

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

Why I chose to read this book

I 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

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

• 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.”

• 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

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

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

Why I chose to read this book

I 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

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

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

Why I chose to read this book

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