Not Just for Independent Reading Anymore

MIA

2012-01-20T05:59:00.000-08:00

The reason that we've both been MIA for half a year is because we have been reading tons and tons of excellent YA novels!

Okay, so that's a lie!

We have been reading tons of YA novels, but we have also been really, really busy. I moved back to Florida and took a job at my alma mater and the fall was conference season. We presented at NMSA, NCTE, ALAN, and LRA!

But, we're back and will be writing about some of the great books we've been reading.

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I actually want to revisit a book that has become a national obsession: The Hunger Games!

I used the whole series last summer in my YA Lit class and the students created body biographies (one example is below) for Peeta and/or Katniss. If you haven't tried body biographies, they are a great mechanism for students to show their knowledge and interpretation of a character and a work.

In my new role here in FL, we include YA literature in our content area literacy courses. The other sections are using The Giver, but I chose The Hunger Games. As we read, we talk about the cross-curricular and interdisciplinary connections that can be made with this book. We brainstorm every couple of class sessions based on how far we are in the book. Last fall the students came up with interesting and creative ways to use the novel in all of the content areas, including art. I can't wait to see what they come up with this semester. For this reason alone, it should be used for whole class (or whole school) reading.

I am also using the novel with 6th and 7th graders as part of my ALAN research grant. We'll hold our discussion next Monday. I am curious to hear what the students think about the book.

With a Little Help From Our Pens

2011-08-11T04:28:00.000-07:00

Several students who took my GLBTQ YA Lit class this summer created a blog called "With a Little Help From Our Pens" in order to create a space where people can submit their stories, poems, etc. about GLBTQ issues.

http://withalittlehelpfromourpens.tumblr.com/

Collaborate – from the original Latin collaborare (col “together;” and laborare “to work, labor”): To work in conjunction with another or others, to co-operate; esp. in a literary or artistic production, or the like.

The verb “to collaborate” was our initial purpose. The four of us—all from different backgrounds and possessing different skill sets—found ourselves in a class together, studying GLBTQ young-adult fiction. From the critical perspective, the overriding focus on this genre seems to be that of examining and cataloging representation. Are the novels, stories, and narratives fair? Accurate? True? The consensus finds that GLBTQ fiction is moving in the “right” direction, but that representation, historically, has had many faults.

We thought: “We could write. We know what’s missing; what’s cliché; and what the previous authors have gotten wrong.” And so, our mission was to put together a collaborative anthology: fiction, non-fiction, criticism, and poetry. How are the roots of our assurance, however, any stronger than the authors who have gone before? Millions of people have the same thought about any given situation everyday: “I could do that.”

And we don’t want to focus on being the “same.” If we’re going to speak about difference, we must understand the meaning of difference. We realize that our stories are exactly that: ours. We could never write your story, even though that’s what we wanted; so, we invite you to write it yourself.

This space is the final product. We will christen it, so to speak, with the material that we prepared for the inceptive idea; but after that, it’s yours. We want your words, in whatever form is best for you. And we want your raw emotion, from one side of the spectrum to the other, for collaboration will not otherwise bring about fruition. While the process is “to work,” which can be joyful; it is also “to labor,” which involves struggle. There are so many different ways that you can collaborate with us. Of course, we look forward to your creative submissions, but we hope for much more. Make recommendations for the users of this community: show us websites with important information; tell us about books that moved you or spoke to you; share videos of your favorite author explaining his or her work. Give feedback to your peers; a key component of collaboration is support. Begin discussion forums so that authors know how they can better speak for and about GLBTQ young-adults.

We will update the forum every weekend, and we ask only that you whole-heartedly seek the understanding that we realized: there is no “right;” there is no “same;” difference is beautiful. Until we can teach this to the world, we’ll get by with a little help from our pens.

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LGBTQ Lit and YA Lit

2011-06-25T10:42:00.001-07:00

It's been a long time since I posted--several months in fact! I am just coming off of back to back YA literature classes: LGBTQ in May and regular YA lit in June (I am still teaching the graduate level YA lit class now, just online).

I hope in the next week or so to post about the many great titles we read over the courses. I want to start with with two of the first titles we read in May:

Spring Fire was written by Vin Packer (really the famous YA author ME Kerr) and published in 1952. It is thought to be the first lesbian pulp (fiction) novel; however, it is so much more! It addresses alcohol abuse, date rape, and the pressure to conform to society's standards. The novel is about Susan (Mitch) Mitchell, a very awkward and somewhat lonely freshman at a college (somewhere in the midwest) who falls in love with Leda, a sorority sister who has, shall we say, "some issues."

We read the 2004 re-released version (Cleis Press) and according to that edition's introduction it was only republished after negotiations with the author. Packer/Meaker who had always been troubled about the books' ending: after their relationship is exposed, Leda is committed to a mental institution. Then, Mitch realizes she never really did love Leda. As with other YA literature from that time period, such sins as homosexuality (and premarital sex, and drinking, and so on) could only end badly for those involved. The book could not have a "happy ending" for the two young women.

In the 2004 edition's foreword Packer wrote that her first editor told her that because the book would be sent through the mail, there could not be any references that portrayed homosexuality attractive or the postal inspectors would return it to the publisher. One character must acknowledge that she is not a lesbian, and the other she's involved with "must be sick or crazy".

Odd Girl Out was published in 1957 by Ann Bannon (a pseudonym) and tells the story of a shy freshman, Laura, who becomes bewitched by the beautiful Beth who convinces her to join her sorority. Laura does and they become roommates . . . and then more. Like Spring Fire, there could be no happy ending for Laura or Beth. And, again, non-comformity to the social mores could only have negative repurcussions. Likewise, this book also has many of the same themes: homosexuality is bad, premarital sex is bad, drinking is bad, image is everything, etc.

I won't give away the ending . . . there is no mental hospital, but there aren't bunnies and rainbows either.

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Our class had great discussions regarding these two novels. Many of the female students are/were in sororities and we all talked about how BAD the fraternity boys were in the books. This was 60 years ago . . . if they were like that then, what does that say for today? I think these books would be WONDERFUL to use in the high school classroom--maybe not as whole class reads, but definitely in literature circles. There are many comparisons/contrast that students could make regarding the views and actions of the characters to what happens today.

We Could be Brothers

2011-03-10T08:51:00.001-08:00

I received a copy of We Could be Brothers (Derrick Barnes) while at the ALAN workshop last November. I came home, filed it with the other 100 I need to read and it sat. Until this week. I really needed to read a "middle school" book because that is my weak area. (I never taught middle school and to be honest, that age kind of freaks me out).

I really liked this book! Of the realistic "middle school" books I have read over the years this one read most true to me. I thought Brooks did a good job of balancing, juxtaposing, and exposing the mutliple stereotypes often thrown around about urban kids and schools.

The book was endorsed by Coe Booth and Alfred Tatum--not too shabby.

There is also a book trailer on the author's website.

A Book to Hook Male Readers

2011-03-06T07:42:00.000-08:00

Even the dead tell stories.

This is the first line in Marcus Sedgwick's Printz honor book Revolver. I was anxious to read this after reading the summary, and it didn't disappoint (I think I read it in less than two hours). Part history, part adventure, part mystery, the tale alternate between action in 1899, 1900, and 1910, and ultimately ends with a "closing" in 1967. Set in the Artic wilderness the novel tells the story of Sig and his family who, led by his father, settle in the cold north in search of gold. When the novel opens, Sig's father has just died having fallen through the ice on his way home.

Yet, how could the father, who knows the rules of traveling across the frozen lake make such a stupid mistake?

The reason for his blunder becomes evident less than a day after the father dies when a scary, mysterious stranger arrives calling for what he is owed by the father. And, he refuses to leave unless he gets what he wants. But, what is it?

The "it" is the purpose of the flashbacks to 1899-1900. The reader begins to trace the father and family's past and travels. Yet, Sedgwick is careful not to show his hand too much. We slowly begin to realize that Sig's father must have cheated his bosses during his job as an assay clerk (one who tests and measures the gold the prospectors find). But how? And how did Sig's father "cheat" the mystery man?

The answers to those questions are saved for the end of the book--and ending that boys will surely get to in order to find out!

Don't Ignore Vera Dietz!!

2011-03-04T05:46:00.000-08:00

OMG is all I can say about A. S. King's Printz Honor book Please Ignore Vera Dietz. I bought it to read on a trip to Madison, WI, and had finished it by the time the plane landed. I could not put this book down!!!

The story--told from different perspectives, including a pagoda (yes, a pagoda)--is mainly about the complex relationship between teenagers Vera and Charlie who have been friends since childhood. It is one of those relationships where if everything was right, they would admit they loved each other, date, and then get married and be happy. But as we know in life, and YA fiction, things aren't so simple.

First, Vera's mom left when she was 12, running off with her podiatrist (and before all that she was a stripper). Vera's dad is trying, but he can't let go.

Charlie lives next door and the physical and emotional abuse his father dishes out to his mother can be heard by Vera and her father (and others) but no one does anything to intervene. Then, there's the creepy thing with Charlie's underwear (I am not going to spoil the book and tell all!).

Fast forward: Charlie finds a new crowd, turns against Vera, and dies under some "questionable" circumstances. Vera begins to see and hear thousands of Charlies at odd times.

There is, of course, much more!

I loved the change in perspectives and the wonderful balance of humor, playfulness, sadness, and seriousness. And, the flow charts provide a very interesting dicussion and instructional tool for teachers :)

My First Book Trailer!!!

2011-02-22T21:33:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally did it!

After a year of sharing awesome book trailers with my students and telling them how great a trailer can be to promote a book, I finally made my own. It took me just over two hours using Windows Movie Maker, but I surmise that this is mostly because I have OCD, and it had to perfect. I am still not absolutely 100% thrilled with it, but I think it is awesome nonetheless.

I chose to do a book trailer for Laurie Halse Anderson's Wintergirls. This book has meant a lot to me in the past year. First, in the past, I have struggled with anorexia and bulimia in the quest to be perfect. This book reminded me just how crazy I was during that time period. Second, this was the book that began my YAL obsession. I was a Harry Potter fan and a Twilight fan, but I had never really branched out from there. Laurie Halse Anderson opened my eyes to a world of literature that I never knew existed. Finally, every student who has ever borrowed this book from my library has said that it made an impact on them in very different ways. It helped some to open up about an eating disorder and other "imperfections", others to overcome their own eating disorders, and still others to understand what their friends are going through. I hope one day to meet Laurie Halse Anderson and tell her all of this.

Without further adieu, I present to you my book trailer:

NOTA BENE: I chose a hardcore song for this, so if you are in an office or school right now, you might want to adjust your volume.

Black History

2011-02-18T19:45:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been W-A-Y too long since I posted something here, but as you may know, my father had some heart trouble a couple of months ago and that rocked my world a little bit. For about a month (or two or three) afterwards I couldn't bring myself to read any of my YA books. And you know I love to read YA books. I don't know if it was because I was too emotionally drained and/or exhausted or what, but I just couldn't do it. Not a great way to go into the spring semester and my YAL course. I ended up teaching some of the "classic" YA novels at the beginning of the semester--books I've read so many times I can talk about them in my sleep (The Chocolate War, The Outsiders, Forever). So that bought me some time. And now I'm BAAAA---AAAAACCCCKKKK and making up for lost time.

I was recently invited to join the book committee for the Children's Defense Fund Freedom Schools program. If you haven't heard about the Freedom Schools program, check it out here. I feel so honored to be a part of a great group of women who decide which books the Freedom Schools scholars will read each summer. The committee meets at the beautiful Alex Haley Farm in Clinton, TN, for a weekend in the fall and spring and we read, and read, and read, and talk about what we're reading, and write lesson plans for what we're reading. It's good stuff.

One of the books I've gotten a chance to read through this work is Kekla Magoon's The Rock and the River. I had tried to read this book last year and had a hard time getting into it--just couldn't find my rhythm, or couldn't engage with Sam, the 13 year-old main character, or something. But I gave it another try and boy, am I glad I did.

Sam is stuck between childhood and adulthood, between his father--a friend (fictional) of Dr. MLK's, and a leading voice for non-violent protest during the latter years of the Civil Rights Movement--and his older brother, who has just joined the more militant Black Panther party. Sam finds the Black Panthers seductive--their slick black jackets and berets, and their violent actions that bring about quicker changes than pacifism seems to. Ultimately, Sam is frustrated by his father's patient hope, and must decide if he will be "the rock," and stand in place, or "the river," a force for change. Lots of important history to be learned here!

Another great YA historical fiction novel that I love, love, love is Rita Williams-Garcia's One Crazy Summer. I love it as much for the historical snapshot it provides, as I do for its portrayal of a complex mother-daughter relationship.

Here's a good review about the book from a great blog you should get to know, The Classroom Bookshelf: (it has lots of good ideas for teaching this work, and lots of links to useful historical websites)

In 1968, the nation was in tumult; Martin Luther King was shot in April, Bobby Kennedy in early June. Right in the middle of this year of change, Delphine and her sisters arrive in Oakland, California to spend “one crazy summer” with the mother who left them years before. Cecile is not interested in being a mother, not interested in doing “what mothers do.”Delphine observes: “In the animal kingdom, the mother bird brings back all she’s gathered for the day and drops it into the open mouths of each squawking bird to be fed. Cecile looked at us as if it didn’t occur to her that we would be hungry and she’d have to do what mothers do: feed their young.” As the summer progresses, Delphine and her sisters, attending a summer camp run by Black Panthers, are introduced to new ways of thinking about race and identity, responsibility and community. Delphine’s worldview shifts as she compares and contrasts the beliefs of her Southern grandmother, who is the primary caregiver to the girls alongside their father in Brooklyn, to those of her mother in California, beliefs introduced more through her mother’s words than through her actions. With honesty and humor, Williams-Garcia has crafted a variety of strong and passionate girls and women. The growing pains Delphine and her sisters experience mirror the larger pains of a nation acclimating to the changes brought forth by the civil rights movement, the cultural revolution, and anti-war efforts, and foreshadow the shifting family dynamics ushered in by the women’s movement of the 1970s.

If non-fiction's more your thing, or you're looking for some good YA non-fiction for your classroom, check out Susan Bartoletti's They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group. This book is terrifying. Just look at that cover. It should invoke all kinds of fear and terror in you, and it does. You'll learn all kinds of stuff you may or may not want to know about the KKK's origins and gross misdeeds. I didn't know the KKK was formed in Tennessee, in Pulaski, TN, to be exact. (How nice that I live in the state that can claim that one). I didn't know the KKK had its hand in the murder of Emmitt Till, the murder of numerous Freedom Riders, the 1963 Birmingham church bombing--and that's just the ones the media bothered to show up at. That doesn't count the hundreds of thousands of innocent men and women terrorized, murdered, raped, lynched, that we don't know about, and that the nation's (white) leaders knowingly turned its eyes away from. This is another one of those books that makes you not like white people so much. This book will make you angry. Maybe that's what it's supposed to do.

Almost Perfect

2011-02-10T05:41:00.000-08:00

Wow--that's all I can say at this point about Brian Katcher's YA novel Almost Perfect. I was anxious to read it since it received the 2011 Stonewall Award given annually to "children's and young adult books of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered experience" (ALA).

It tells the story of Logan, an 18-year-old high school senior in rural Missouri. Fresh off a break up with his girlfriend of three years (Brenda), after she cheated on him (even though they had never had sex). Logan can't think of anyone else. He still waits for Brenda's bus to arrive, just hoping to catch sight of her. His friends think he needs to get over it--especially since he is heading off to college in the fall, and there will be tons of girls there.

Then, a tall, stunning stranger, Sage, arrives in hhis science class. She doesn't dress or act like anyone he knows. Soon, he finds himself attracted to her. He thinks she likes him too, but she is distant. Slowly, he learns some things about her: she was homeschooled for the past few years; she is not allowed to go out at all; she can't date.

Sage sneaks out to go to a movie with Logan and his friends and they hold hands. Later, after more time together they kiss. Then, Sage tells Logan the secret she's been hiding: she's really a boy.

Logan is furious and calls Sage names. They part, now avoiding each other. Yet, Logan can't get Sage out of his mind. And, Sage needs a friend--a friend to support her. So, they become friends.

Yet . . . the attraction between them does not disappear and after a weekend away together things will never be the same.

I won't give away the ending, but suffice it to say, this book will take you on an emotional roller coaster along with Logan and Sage. There is no happy ever after to contradict the plot line. And that's what is powerful.

We know from the news that for this country's GLBTQ teens, life is rough. Yet, there can be understanding. With understanding, things can change for the better.

**If you haven't read Luna by Julie Ann Peters, it also has a male character that wants to transition to a female.

The Stonewall honor books were: will grayson, will grayson (John Green and David Levithan), Love Drugged (James Klise), Freaks and Revelations (Davida Willis Hurwin) and The Boy in the Dress (David Williams), illustrated by Quentin Blake.

Bridge to a Classic

2011-01-17T13:11:00.001-08:00

I was in the bookstore last month (why, oh why do I go in there) to see the newest YA books and I came across Jane by April Lindner.

The novel is a modern retelling of Jane Eyre. This time our female protagonist is Jane Moore, who becomes a nanny when she has to drop out of college due to finances (her parents die in a car crash; her brother and sister take what they can get and leave their younger sister hanging). Shy, plain (per her description) and naive, Jane gets the job most prized: the nanny for famous rock start Nico Rathburn.

She moves to his estate and, well, the rest is pretty much history (if you know Jane Eyre, then you know what I mean).

While I could not put this book down, I won't say it is one of my top realistic fiction novels. However, I am not sure if part of that is my age or not. [I am quite cynical by nature, so a young and naive girl marrying one of the world's most famous rock stars doesn't register with me] I think if I had read this book as a 15-year-old, I would have loved it.

I do think it is a perfect bridge to the classic novel and that is the wonderful quality of YA literature like this. The themes, the plot, the characters, and even the setting--though they are all 21st century--will provide the connections that some of our students will need in order to read the Bronte novel. While I would not teach it as a whole class novel, I would most definitely have it in my classroom library.

Revolution

2011-01-04T11:20:00.001-08:00

I loved Jennifer Donnelly's A Northern Light when I first read it, and it is still one of my favorite YA historical fiction novels. So, I was eagerly awaiting her newest book--Revolution. Rather than write my own summary (I hate writing summaries!), below is taken from Donnelly's website (I think she writes it better anyway):

As you might expect from the title, the book is about a revolution. On one level, it’s about the French Revolution and one of its smallest victims. On another level, it’s about the revolution inside, about the changes we as human beings go through as we struggle to make sense of our world and its tragedies.

Without giving too much away, the story centers on two girls – one who lives in present day Brooklyn and has suffered the loss of her younger brother. And one who lived in 18th Century Paris and witnessed one of the worst crimes of the French Revolution. Their stories converge when Andi, the Brooklyn girl, travels to Paris and finds a diary hidden inside an old guitar case that belonged to Alex – the French girl.

Here's how we described the story on the book jacket:

BROOKLYN: Andi Alpers is on the edge. She’s angry at her father for leaving, angry at her mother for not being able to cope, and heartbroken by the loss of her younger brother, Truman. Rage and grief are destroying her. And she’s about to be expelled from Brooklyn Heights’ most prestigious private school when her father intervenes. Now Andi must accompany him to Paris for winter break.

PARIS: Alexandrine Paradis lived over two centuries ago. She dreamed of making her mark on the Paris stage, but a fateful encounter with a doomed prince of France cast her in a tragic role she didn’t want—and couldn’t escape.

Two girls, two centuries apart. One never knowing the other. But when Andi finds Alexandrine’s diary, she recognizes something in her words and is moved to the point of obsession. There’s comfort and distraction for Andi in the journal’s antique pages—until, on a midnight journey through the catacombs of Paris, Alexandrine’s words transcend paper and time, and the past becomes suddenly, terrifyingly present.

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There is so much to say about this novel that, frankly, I don't know where to start. In order for me to say as much as I want, I will refer to an old stand-by, Carol Jago's Criteria for choosing whole-class novels.

# 1: Written in language perfectly suited to the author’s purpose
Like Donnelly's other novels, that language is lush, beautiful, haunting, and intoxicating. The "diary" entries pull you in making you a part of 18th century Paris. Then, there's the modern language (inner speech too) of Andi. We feel her pain, although we don't know until close to the end of the book, what "really" happened to send spiraling down.

# Exposes readers to complex human dilemmas
Definitely! Not only do we learn extensively (and I mean extensively--Donnelly did her homework and even provides a comprehensive list of sources) about the Revolution, but Donnelly seamlessly parallels the revolution of two hundred years ago to aspects of Andi's life (hint: once you learn the whole story of Truman's death, you'll get it).
Power, class, (in)justice, and on and on.

# Includes compelling, disconcerting characters
Most definitely. Andi is a puzzle that the reader wants to solve. Yet, she's relatable. Anyone who has gone through a tough trauma or loss will understand what she is going through. Then, there's her father and mother--neither of whom is being the parent he/she could be--yet, we can understand why. We take them with their flaws.
And, then, there's the characters from two hundred years ago (I won't spoil!)

# 4Explores universal themes that combine different periods and cultures
Please! I really can't give away what I want to, but trust me! This criterion fits this book perfectly.

#5: Challenges readers to reexamine their beliefs
I think this criterion is inevitable. As Andi realizes several times in the book--as much as she was taught and thought she knew about the French Revolution, she didn't know the whole story. I think teen readers will learn a tremendous amout from this novel. Here, in Alabama, 9th graders study world history and have world literature--this book would be perfect to add to the curriculum.

#6: Tells a good story with places for laughing and crying
While I didn't cry, I know there would be many who could and would (I am not a cryer). I think teens who are going through tough times like Andi is, and there are more and more that are, will be more affected. While there are not laugh out loud places, Donnelly adeptly balances sorrow and joy.

I loved this book! I stayed up late reading it and put it down only because I had to get some sleep.

There are some other great areas for study in this book besides the obvious. For example, music plays a HUGE role for Andi. Donnelly has provided a playlist. You can also learn about what inspired her to write the novel.

When a Good Girl Does a Bad Thing

2010-12-23T09:05:00.000-08:00

Jayne Thompson, the protagonist of Susan Colebank's first YA novel, is on top of things: she's valedictorian of her junior class and she's a star on her tennis team. But on top of things isn't always that great. Her mom, a local TV reporter, is more concerned with appearances than reality; her younger sister, a diabetic, is completely irresponsible (and Jayne is pressured and counted upon to cover for her, make up for her, do things for her); her dad, while nice, seems out of touch.

And Jayne never complains out loud. But what she does do, as a knee-jerk reaction, is run a red light.

That one instance results in the death of a young girl, the sister of a "mean girl" at Jayne's school. Jayne suffers terribly for her actions--her grades drop, she isolates herself, she shuts down.

Things change when she is sentenced to a year of community service at Outreach Arizona. Jayne initially seems to be headed down a dangerous path: drinking, a tattoo, a piercing, but all of that is part of Jayne finally finding herself, rather than who others want her to be.

I liked this novel and think that teen girls would relate to it, especially those like Jayne (I was kind of like her) who are under tremendous pressure from a parent to be what the parent wants.

The book would work well in a unit on chances/second chances. Students could also read Looking for JJ and We Were Here, for example, and talk about the juvenile justice system and what seems to be fair/unfair punishments.

Could You Survive?

2010-12-20T13:54:00.000-08:00

How could/would you handle:

not having
a) your mp3 player or ipod?
b) your ipad?
c) your cell phone?
d) your computer?
e) internet access?
f) TV and radio?

It would probably tough for most of us (including me) to think about losing 1-2 of these, but what about all of them?

You could do it?

What if you lost:

g) running water?
h) electricity?
i) natural gas?
j) coal?
k) sunlight?
l) gasoline?
m) food?

It's hard to imagine.

Losing all of this is what Susan Beth Pfeffer explores in her 2006 book Life As We Knew It, the first in a trilogy. Told in diary format by Miranda, an average teenager living in Pennsylvania, from May 7 until March 20, the story takes place sometime during GW Bush's presidency [Pfeffer lets us know her political views through characters' negative comments about Fox News and the former president (evil jerk)].

At the beginning, everyone is excited: a meteor is set to crash into the moon. It's a festive time, with everyone outside waiting to see the big event. Then, something went wrong. The astronomers were not accurate about the angle of impact. Suddenly, the crash bulleted the moon closer to the earth. Almost immediately, the world felt the impact: tsunamis that wiped out the coastline and cities of every continent; then earthquakes; storms; volcanic eruptions.

Everything was chaos. And then it got worse. The ash blocked out the sun. Crops died. The weather changed. People were starving, including Miranda's family. This goes on for months and months.

I loved this book and can't wait to read the next two. I think that while girls would like the book more than boys, there certainly is enough in here to interest everyone (Miranda has two brothers, one older and one younger). While there is nothing "evil" like in Lord of the Flies or the Gone series, this book is a nice connection.

This book would also work in a cross-disciplinary unit with both science and social studies.

I loved this novel and can't wait to see what its sequels are like.

And the winner is . . .

2010-11-30T10:20:00.000-08:00

From the National Book Awards website:

ABOUT THE BOOK

In Caitlin’s world, everything is black or white. Things are good or bad. Anything in between is confusing. That’s the stuff Caitlin’s older brother, Devon, has always explained. But now Devon’s dead and Dad is no help at all. Caitlin wants to get over it, but as an eleven-year-old girl with Asperger’s, she doesn’t know how. When she reads the definition of closure, she realizes that is what she needs. In her search for it, Caitlin discovers that not everything is black and white—the world is full of colors—messy and beautiful.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kathryn Erskine was a lawyer for fifteen years before turning to her first love: writing. Her debut novel, Quaking, was one of YALSA’s Top Ten Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. She lives in Virginia with her husband, two children, and dog, Maxine.

The Curse of the Wendigo

2010-11-28T07:42:00.000-08:00

"Lush prose, devilish characterizations, and more honest emotion than any book involving copious de-facings (yes, you read that right) ought to have...Yancey has written both books in the Monstrumologist series as if they were the last, going for broke and playing for keeps, no matter who or what ends up on the chopping block. This is Warthrop's The Hound of the Baskervilles; if we hold our breath, maybe part 3 will come faster."
-- Booklist, starred review

"A page-turner of an historical horror that will simultaneously thrill readers and make them sick to their stomachs."
-- Kirkus Reviews

I didn’t think that Yancey could top The Monstrumologist. As we all know, sequels—in both print and film-- often bomb (the follow-up to Grease is the one that does it for me). However, as the reviews above suggest, The Curse of the Wendigo is just as good—I would argue it is better than—Yancey’s first book in the series.

Wendigo opens, like its predecessor, in the twenty-first century, with its “author” trying to figure out the mysterious William James Henry. How old was he? Could he really have been born in 1876?

The story begins in 1888, and to open this saga is a mysterious visitor—a woman (Muriel Chanler)! And it becomes quite clear that she and Dr. Warthrop have a past. This, to me, is one of the smartest details to add complication to the book. We gain an understanding about why the doctor is like he is. He loved and lost. His wall is deliberate. This backstory is integral to the action.

Muriel’s husband, one of the doctor’s oldest friends and colleagues, has gone missing in the Canadian woods and is feared dead. What seems to have gotten him is the Wendigo (also called Mossmouth, ‘high wind,’ and Lepto lurconis). Although he initially laughs it off, Warthrop and Will Henry travel to Canada and trek into the woods to find John Chanler.

They find “him,” but what they find is not what went into the woods . . . I won’t spoil the book for you, but I will say, run out and get it now!

The writing is fantastic. The pace and storyline in this book expand on the prior tale picking up speed and action. I also think this book has more personality. I found myself laughing more than gagging (like I did with the first book). [describing a man impaled by a tree: “We can’t leave him stuck here like a pig on a stick,’ Warthrop replied. “Snap to, Will Henry.”]

Yancey gives Warthrop more wit and sarcasm—which fits considering we learn more about his “person” in this volume. Yancey also introduces women—strong women—into this story, both in Muriel and in a young girl, Lilly Bates, who by all accounts has the resolve, wit, countenance, and strength of stomach to be the first female monstrumologist (I would add she is sneaky and evil, too, but you’ll have to judge for yourself).

Read a sample chapter here

Annie on My Mind

2010-11-21T18:30:00.000-08:00

I recently had the pleasure of reading an incredible love story, but it was not your typical love story. Annie on My Mind is the story of a chance meeting between two young girls, Liza and Annie, at a museum. Liza knows that there is something different about Annie, something that she cannot put into words. However, the reader knows exactly what is happening. Liza has a crush on Annie.

Everyone around them believes that Liza and Annie are developing a powerful friendship, which they are, but a friendship that is so much more. They spend all of their time together, and, eventually, Liza reveals to Annie that she loves her. Liza and Annie explore what this love means both emotionally and physically. They are both scared and confused, but they are also hopeful. They envision spending the rest of their lives together and growing into old ladies with one another.

The two girls are discovered in quite a compromising situation, and they are outed before they have had the chance to truly accept who they are. What surprises Liza is the support she receives from her family and other adults when she is faced with one of the most difficult trials of her young life.

Annie on My Mind is the most powerful young adult LGBTQ fiction that I have ever read. Although it was originally published in 1982, its two courageous female protagonists show that love knows no bounds, including sexuality. The author, Nancy Garden, creates a dichotomous reaction to the girls with adults taking both sides on the issue.

Additionally, Garden fires back at the Bible verses often used to vilify homosexuality with a story from Greek mythology that is older than the Bible. Liza reflects on a Greek legend she heard in school. It was the speech given by Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium. This story states that, in the beginning, every person had four arms and legs and two heads. We were essentially two human beings in one. We were constructed as forms of man/man, woman/woman, and man/woman. These original humans angered Zeus, but, instead of destroying them, he became greedy and realized that if he cut them in half, he would have double the sacrifices. Thus, everyone was cut in half and spent the rest of their life looking for their other half. To me, this is a powerful statement of reassurance to anyone who may be curious about their sexuality. Moreover, it is a powerful statement about love and the concept of "soul mates", in general.

What Garden has done is not only written a young adult LGBTQ novel, but a powerful love story that all can enjoy. This book should be in every classroom library.

National Book Award Finalists!

2010-11-08T12:52:00.000-08:00

YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE

Paolo Bacigalupi, Ship Breaker (Little, Brown & Co.)

Kathryn Erskine, Mockingbird
(Philomel Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group)

Laura McNeal, Dark Water (Alfred A. Knopf)

Walter Dean Myers, Lockdown
(Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers)

Rita Williams-Garcia, One Crazy Summer
(Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers)

I feel ahead of the curve this year! Not only have I read Ship Breaker and Lockdown, but we (a local teacher and I) are teaching Lockdown to a class of ninth grade students!!

Now, I just need to read the other three titles!

Kick Ass Females, Past and Future: Katniss and Gemma

2010-11-07T09:11:00.000-08:00

I haven’t posted in a while, partly due to my insane teaching schedule and partly because I have been READING! My post today is—literally and figuratively—on the past and the future.

I read The Hunger Games trilogy as the books were published, sadly finishing the series with Mockingjay in August. (As with the two books before it, I finished the book in one day.) Katniss, the female hero in this dystopian future, kicked ass and won me over from the start. In the past two days, I finished up the last two books (yes, all 1400 pages of them!) in the Gemma Doyle trilogy. Gemma is equally heroic, just kicking ass in the past.

As I was reading Libba Bray’s final two books—I can’t believe it took me this long to buy and read them!—I couldn’t help but think of Katniss Everdeen, Collins’s heroine of the future. What I like about them is that while they are great, they are also flawed. While they are likable, they are also contemptible at times. In short: they are real and they are us.

Beyond the two characters as areas of study, both sets of novels provide a range of perspectives for students to analyze, discuss, argue about, and critique—from violence, to societal ideals, to the roles of women, to man’s inhumanity towards the planet and each other. I would love to see both series being taught in school.

Let’s start with The Hunger Games. In the future, in what was once America as we know it, the country is a place of vast extremes. In The Capitol, excess rules and it takes more and more stimulation (food, clothes, color) for the citizens to exist. The ultimate stimulus is the annual “hunger games,” where two people are chosen (if you can call it that) from each of the twelve other districts to fight to the death—the entire gruesome spectacle is televised for “enjoyment.” Katniss, our heroine, steps in for her younger sister and through smarts, skill, luck, and strength manages to outwit the President: she and her fellow district choice, Peeta, win. And, that is just the first book in the trilogy. For those that haven’t read the series, I won’t spoil it.

However, what I want to stress is that even though I cheered for Katniss, she is not the infallible heroine; some may call her a tragic hero, but I am not sure about that. Perhaps she is simply a “real” hero. She is a reluctant hero. She hates the limelight. She doesn’t like the attention. She goads people. She can be fickle. Again, in short: she is each of us.

Then, there’s Gemma Doyle in Libba Bray’s historical/fantasy trilogy (A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, and The Sweet Far Thing). When the series opens Gemma is a typical teenager: pouty, selfish, and immature. These (self-recognized) traits are brought to the forefront when within the first 50 pages, her mother is murdered and Gemma is forced to think about her last words and actions toward her mother—and the strange vision she had where she saw her mother murdered. Shortly thereafter, Gemma is shipped off to England and The Spence School—where she is to be made a “proper” young lady. The remainder of book one and throughout books two and three, the reader is taken on Gemma’s fantastical journey to figure out not only who her mother was, but who she is—and what her role is in The Order, a group of priestesses who have ruled a mystical and powerful world called “the realms.”

Like Katniss, I cheered for Gemma. She is a reluctant hero. She goads people. She can be immature. At times I wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her. Yet, she does good and makes positive changes. She is, again, like us.

Both series put social issues in the forefront: expectations for women and “proper” women’s roles; capitalism and greed; poverty; prejudice and racism; substance abuse (Bray even tackles lesbianism). All six books could easily be taught in conjunction with often used canonical works or on their own. For example, The Hunger Games trilogy could be taught with 1984 and/or A Brave New World. Bray’s three novels could be used with a number of Austen’s works (although I think Pride and Prejudice is best suited) or alongside Kate Chopin or Edith Wharton (or Emily Bronte).

Both series have enough allusions and cultural references for students to conduct any number of research projects. For example, after reading the Collins series students could investigate organ and limb transplants or stem cell research. With Bray’s novels students could research the prejudice against gypsies or the suffrage movement.

I could go on and on . . . and, literally, I wish I could read on and on.

I guess I will have to wait for the next kick-ass female series.

Birthday Poem

2010-11-06T16:17:00.000-07:00

On November 1, I (Susan) turned 40. I don't feel any different, maybe just a little bittersweet about saying goodbye to my 30s, which were some awesome years. Got married when I was 31, got my PhD at 33, bought my first home at 34, got tenure (and ran a half marathon) at 39. I kinda feel like I should spend my 40s celebrating. :) Anywhoo. Here's a poem I love to read every year on my birthday:

For the Anniversary of My Death by W. S. Merwin

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what

W. S. Merwin, “For the Anniversary of My Death” from The Second Four Books of Poems (Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 1993). Copyright © 1993 by W. S. Merwin. Reprinted with the permission of The Wylie Agency, Inc.

Ooh. Ouch. Might seem a little morbid to some, but I think considering one's death is all about affirming one's life. And, to make the YA tie here, has anyone noticed lately a lot of great YAL books being published about death and dying? or the consideration of death? This poem would make a good intertextual fit with Chris Crutcher's Deadline,

Jenny Dowhnham's Before I Die, Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall, and
Gayle Forman's If I Stay (which I've posted about it here), all of which encourage teen readers to consider and affirm the life they're living.

Reading YA Lit at Freedom School

2010-10-25T22:18:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't heard about the Children's Defense Fund, or the Freedom School initiative, check out their website and get educated. Freedom Schools is a wonderful summer/after-school program that has one main goal: "to help readers and nonreaders fall in love with books: the stories, the characters, the pictures, the ideas, and the values—and to give nonreaders an overwhelming desire to read, which is a basic step toward reading." The program also aims to provide safe spaces where youth can go after school and during the summer to celebrate literacy and citizenship. Personally, I think the program serves as a very necessary counterstory to the popular discourse surrounding minority youth as readers--"Black kids don't read," "Black kids are lazy," "Black kids don't have books at home, or role-models who read." Blah, blah, blah. These are dangerous lies, and the Freedom Schools serves to poke some crater-sized holes in these lies, showing that Black kids are indeed engaged, skilled readers who are passionate about books!

I had the incredible honor of being a part of the Knoxville Freedom School this summer. I met some incredible youth, some incredible adults, and read some incredible young adult literature. Every year, a committee of bad-asses meets at the Haley Farm in Clinton, TN, to read and read and read and read and select books for Freedom School (sounds like my kind of retreat). The committee wants Freedom School participants to read whole novels (not excerpted texts), and they want Freedom School kids to read literature that affirms the non-White identities and cultures of Freedom School participants--predominantly Black youth.

The Freedom School kids in grades 6-8 (called Level III scholars) read six young adult novels during the six-week program.

The first novel the Level III scholars read was Sharon G. Flake’s (2007) Begging for Change. In this book, due to a turf war, 13-year-old Raspberry Hill’s mother has been beaten with a metal pipe, and lies in a hospital. Raspberry’s father is an alcoholic and a drug addict. No wonder Raspberry decides to steal money from her well-off friend, Zora, even if it is Zora and her father, Dr. Mitchell, who treat Raspberry and her mother like family. But Raspberry’s stealing doesn’t stop there, and soon she’s lost the trust of people she cares about most. When her own father steals from her, Raspberry begins to wonder if she’s any different from him. As Raspberry mother tells her and other thugs on the street, “To be better, you gotta want better.” Ultimately, Raspberry must do some hard soul-searching to decide who she’s going to be and what “better” looks like for her.

Next, the scholars read Joseph by Shelia P. Moses (2008). This young adult novel tells the story of fourteen-year-old Joseph Flood, who is a victim of his mother’s chronic drug abuse. Spending all of the child support money sent by Joseph’s dad, who is away fighting in Iraq, Joseph’s mother lands the two in a homeless shelter. Joseph has the opportunity to go live with his mother’s sister in the suburbs, where he can attend a good school and join the tennis team. But Joseph doesn’t want to leave his mother—who will look out for her? Who will take care of her? Joseph must navigate the slippery slope between loyalty to family and self as he scrapes out a stable future for himself.

For week three, the scholars read another Sharon G. Flake (2005) novel, Bang! This young adult novel depicts the violence that mars some impoverished urban neighborhoods, and the constant state of terror its residents live in as a result. Mann, the main character, has just seen his little brother, Joseph, shot to death on the front porch of their house—an innocent victim, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mann’s mother and father are grieving in their own ways, none of which are helpful to Mann, who has started smoking weed with his best friend, Kee-Lee, and skipping school. When Mann’s father decides Joseph got shot because he was “too soft,” he abandons Mann and Kee-Lee miles from town and tells them to find their own way back home. Mann’s journey back to self-hood is fraught with violence, disappointment, mistakes, and regrets, but Mann ultimately decides what kind of man he is going to be, and what it might take for Black men to stop killing one another.

Week four, Level III scholars read Phillip Hoose’s (2009) National Book Award-winning Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice. This nonfictional work gives voice to the fifteen-year-old girl who refused to give up her seat to a White woman on a segregated bus nine months before Rosa Parks did. But instead of being celebrated, like Rosa Parks was, Claudette found herself shunned by her classmates and ignored by the black leaders of Montgomery, Alabama. Why was Claudette shunned and ignored? Why didn’t she get the credit for jumpstarting the Civil Rights Movement? What did Rosa Parks have that Claudette didn’t? This book answers these questions and elucidates a little-known piece of American history.

For week five, scholars read Sharon Draper’s Coretta Scott King Book Award-winning young adult novel, Copper Sun, which I've written about here.

Finally, for the last week of Freedom School, the Level III scholars read David Colbert’s (2009) young adult biography, Michelle Obama: An American Story. This rich biographical portrait traces Michelle Obama’s life from her ancestors who were slaves on a rice plantation in South Carolina, to her working-class, Southside Chicago childhood, to her rise as one of the most influential women living today. Unique to this biographical telling, Colbert contextualizes Michelle Obama's life story within larger movements in African American history: slavery, freedom, the Reconstruction era, the Civil Rights movement, and finally, her own era.

These are all good reads, and if you're looking to add some African-American YA lit to your classroom library or curriculum, I highly suggest all these titles. Sharon Flake, especially, proved popular with the Freedom School kids--her writing is gritty and real, and doesn't back down from honestly portraying the violence and terror and chaos that defines the lives of too many urban youth.

For the Love of Animals

2010-10-23T13:50:00.000-07:00

Despite a shelf filled with close to 100 YA novels I have yet to read, in one of my recent trips to the bookstore I picked up Kenneth Oppel’s Half Brother (Harper Collins). Set in Canada in the 1970s, the story revolves around a thirteen-year-old named Ben who becomes the big brother to a chimp named Zan. Ben’s father is a famous behavioral scientist and wants to see if a chimp can learn human language. So, Ben’s mother takes baby Zan from his mother (this is heart-wrenching) and brings him home to begin their research. When the funding for Project Zan is pulled, Ben’s father sells Zan to a university in the Southwest United States to prevent the chimp from winding up being used in medical testing. However, this new arrangement quickly seems not as promised: the director uses chains and leashes to move the chimps; a cattle prod scares the chimps into submission; and Zan winds up with a missing tooth.

On a trip to visit, Ben and his mother find out that Zan is being sold (along with several other chimps) to a medical testing facility—one with a horrible reputation. Rather than let this happen, they steal Zan and take him back to Canada. Yet, realistically, what can they do with a growing chimp who was raised to think he was part human? This is the question that they ultimately must answer. It is also the question at the heart of the novel. Even if their research wasn’t “harmful” and was only meant to help us communicate with chimps, harm was inevitable. [As an educational researcher, this question of harm is something I must always consider.]

I really liked the novel. While at times I felt the voice, dialogue, and thoughts did not match a thirteen-year-old male, I would need to get feedback from a male teenage reader to ultimately decide.

Like Ginny Rorby’s Hurt Go Happy, this novel asks readers to think about why and how we use animals for testing—whether that testing is to create shampoo or cure cancer. After reading either or both of these novels, teachers could have students complete research projects that center on issues of animal rights.Students could learn about how to be a compassionate consumer and how animals are used in labs and for experimentation (warning: some videos are disturbing).

The Humane Society of the US has a wealth of information on chimpanzees and other animals used in research.

Bones Tell Stories

2010-10-18T09:02:00.000-07:00

I may have missed my calling in life because if I had it to do all over again, I might have tried to be a forensic anthropologist. "Suuuurrrreeee, Susan," you're probably saying. "Riiiiigggghhhht." That would mean I would actually have to stomach the sight of blood or worse, decomposing flesh. And I might actually have to touch a dead body. Ok, you're right. That wouldn't be for me. I have a hard time cleaning up cat vomit.

So I guess I'll just have to stick with reading books about forensic anthropologists. See, maybe this is all about that adolescent who is still stuck inside me, because teens LOVE murder mysteries! And forensic anthropology is all about solving some murder mysteries. It's about storytelling, too--about listening to the stories bones tell and being the voice for voiceless victims.

If you're looking for some good young adult novels (or books teens will pick up and consider reading) about forensic anthropology, consider Alane Ferguson's forensic mystery series that begins with The Christopher Killer. The series follows teen-aged Cammie Mahoney as she assists her coroner-father in solving murders in their Colorado town. Cammie, who wants to be a forensic scientist when she grows up, is attracted by the science of forensics, and she--and readers--will learn a lot about the field as they read. Check out Alane Ferguson's interactive website here: http://www.alaneferguson.com/

You might also want to check out Jefferson Bass's novel, Carved in Bone, or other books based on the work of famous UT forensic anthropologist David Bass and the Body Farm, located on the UT campus.

Carved in Bone is a fun story, especially if you live in or near Knoxville or the Great Smokies. Dr. Brockton (we can assume is Dr. Bass) is called in by the Cooke County sheriff's office to help solve the case of Leena Bonds, a woman discovered preserved in Russell's Cave. Her murder involves lots of colorful locals, though, who would prefer the truth about her death not get out. Lots of local flavor and history here (maybe a little too stereotypical for my tastes), and a good mystery story to boot. Readers will learn more about how forensic anthropology is done. Perfectly fine for the upper middle school and high school classroom.

A more sombre read is Clea Koff's nonfiction account of her UN-sponsored missions to Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo to unearth physical evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Here's the editorial review from Booklist:

"Any title containing the words mass graves portends some tough reading, and Koff's unblinking, direct memoir is not lacking in ghastliness. One of her aims, however, is to contrast her interior reactions to her work of exhuming and examining the victims of the Balkan and Rwandan massacres of the early 1990s with the meticulous professionalism needed to conduct it. Koff's observation that "when I analyze human remains I am interested, not repulsed" is shown in her objective descriptive writing about particular victims' physical characteristics and traumas. Away from the grave or autopsy table, however, Koff allows glimpses of the mental effort her professionalism requires by relating her numerous nightmares and manifestations of stress. She accepts this burden out of a deeply idealistic motivation--her hope that her career in forensic anthropology will reduce human rights violations in the world. Koff also writes about incidents of her field experiences such as privations, the dangers of gunfire and mines, and the interpersonal relations with her colleagues and UN guards."

This is a much grimmer, darker read without all the fictional cushions. Still suitable for older, mature adolescent readers, especially those adolescents who--like Koff--want to make a difference in the world.

Also, consider this fun book series for the classroom: the Bones books, based on the Fox TV show by the same name. The investigative crime show drama is inspired by real-life forensic anthropologist and best-selling novelist Kathy Reichs (the Temperance Brennan novels).

Last but not least, these CSI books were hugely popular when I taught middle school. Might make a good addition to your classroom library shelves if you're trying to motivate reluctant readers.

Monsters for Halloween

2010-10-08T17:36:00.000-07:00

Lisa talked a bit about this book in an earlier post, explaining that it scared the bejezus out of her when she read it. I second that emotion. I'm the type who has to leave the room when commercials about scary movies come on TV. And recently, there's lots of scary movie commercials on TV. There's that weird "Case 39" movie with Renee Z., and Wes Craven's got a new one out, "My Soul to Take." Don't ask me what any of these are about--like I said, I leave the room when the commercials come on. All I have to hear is the creepy music, or see claws, or heads spinning, or children saying things like, "I see dead people," and I'm outta there.

So WHY? Why would I subject myself to Monstrumologist, a bona-fide horror YA story if ever I've read one? I guess because the cover's so cool. I mean, just look at it. And the title's cool. I mean, do "monstrumologists" even exist? Is that a real word? And then Rick Yancey is coming to Knoxville in March, to a middle school where I'm doing some research with some bad-ass teachers who use YAL every day to motivate the life-long love of reading in the adolescents they teach. So I figure I better be familiar with his oeuvre (although I've yet to read his Alfred Kropp series, or his books for adults. But I will, before March. I promise).

There are certainly monsters in this one--monsters so scary you hope to GODDESS they are just fiction. But what's scary about this one, too, is the humans--humans who are so ambitious and driven by their hunger for knowledge (and bloodlust) they will do anything to satisfy that hunger. The lines between right and wrong blur here--or, at least, they do when the scientist and the serial killer start trying to rationalize their madness.

But there's also the stuff of great YA fiction here: Will Henry, the orphan-monster-apprentice, who longs for his dead parents, for connection, to anyone--even if it's a mad scientist who must bear the weight of his own emotionally absent father's misdeeds--is the clear(er) conscience, the lone light in the underground tunnels of human darkness. He comes off clean and true, and you'll find yourself rooting for him and hoping he's got your back when the anthro-popo show up.

I think sophisticated readers will appreciate all the allusions in this one--this book is a literary scavenger hunt in its own right. I could also see teachers pairing this with Frankenstein and/or using the book in a small-group literature circles activity (perhaps with Nancy Farmer's House of the Scorpion and Pearson's Adoration of Jenna Fox, or even some of Darwin's works) and focusing on the theme of "humans playing God."

Get it, and read it, but don't put this in the "by the bed" stack. You'll want to read this one in broad daylight, with all the lights on.

Stolen

2010-10-05T10:00:00.001-07:00

Patty Hearst.
Elizabeth Smart.
Natalie Holloway.

Their names conjure up images of young females kidnapped and not always returned. Lucy Christopher’s Stolen (2009, Chicken House Publishing) brought these stories to mind from the moment I started reading.

It has been a while since I have sat down and read a book in one day—not even a whole day at that (and that book was Catching Fire). From the first line, I was sucked in reading with sweaty palms and heart palpitations. I COULD NOT PUT THIS BOOK DOWN.

Here’s part of the first two pages:
You saw me before I saw you. I’m sure of it. In the airport, that day in August, you had that look in your eye, as though you wanted something from me, as though you’d wanted it for a long time. No one had ever looked at me like that before, with that kind of intensity. It unsettled me, surprised me I guess. Those blue, blue eyes, icy blue, looking back at me like I could warm them up. They’re pretty powerful, you know, those eyes, pretty beautiful too. Surely I’m not the first girl to be frozen up by them.
You blinked quickly when I looked at you, and turned away, as if you were nervous…as if you felt guilty that you’d just been checking out some random girl in an airport. But I wasn’t random, was I? And it was a good act. I fell for it. It’s funny, but I always thought I could trust blue eyes. I thought they were safe somehow. All the good guys have baby blues. The dark eyes are for the villains…the Grim Reaper, the Joker, werewolves. All dark.
I’d been arguing with my parents. Mum hadn’t been happy about the dirty jeans I’d chosen for the flight, and Dad was just grumpy from lack of sleep. So, seeing you … I guess it was a welcome diversion from that. Is that how you’d planned it; wait until my parents had a go at me before you approached? I knew, even then, that you’d been watching me for a long time. There was a strange sort of familiarity about you. I’d seen you before … somewhere … but who were you? My eyes kept flitting back to your face.
You’d been with me since London. I’d seen you in the check-in line with your small carry-on bag of clothing. I’d seen you on the plane. And now, here you were, in Bangkok airport, sitting in the coffee shop where I was about to order coffee.
I ordered the coffee. I waited for it to be made. I fumbled with my money. I didn’t look back, but I knew you were still watching. It probably sounds weird, but I could just feel it. The tiny hairs on my neck bristled every time you blinked.
The cashier held onto the coffee cup until I had my money ready. Stan, his name badge said; strange I can remember that.
“We don’t take British coins,” Stan said, after he’d watched me count them out. “Don’t you have a note?”
“I used it in London.”
Stan shook his head and pulled the coffee back towards him. “There’s a cash machine next to duty free.”
I felt someone move up behind me. I turned.

**********************
What happens after this? Even if you didn’t know the premise of the book, by this point as female, you know deep down. The narrator, Gemma, gets “taken” by a man she meets in the coffee shop in the Bangkok airport.

Christopher wrote this debut novel as part of her doctoral program in the UK; I am impressed with it both in terms of content, writing, and genre. It was the winner of the 2010 Branford Boase Award and was short-listed for the CBCA Award.

The novel is, in essence, a letter to Gemma’s captor, a man named Ty who has been watching (stalking?) her since she was ten.

I think all young females should read this book to see just how easily it can happen (I am a grown adult and it scared the shit out of me!). We learn how he was able to get her out of a crowded airport in one country and to another. We see how the Stockholm Syndrome happens. We can also see how a “bad” person can have good qualities [earlier this year I wrote about Elizabeth Scott’s Living Dead Girl; the kidnapper in that novel, Ray, has no redeeming qualities].

To watch an interview

Pitch Black

2010-10-01T10:25:00.000-07:00

PITCH BLACK: DON”T BE SKERD by Youme Landowne and Anthony Horton is one of the most powerful graphic novels I have come across of late. Not only could it be used as a stand-alone text in secondary classrooms, but it is a natural for a supplemental text in a range of units. The novel tells the story of how Youme and Anthony met and provides a brief, but powerful and shocking glimpse into the world of the homeless (and the homeless that live under New York City’s subways.

The drawings--all in black and white with some comic-book style--are beautiful yet sad and will haunt you. Youme and Anthony seemed to capture the breadth and depth of life for our country's forgotten citizens.

I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, but if you want to know more, you can see an interview with Youme and read a New York Times Story. The graphic novel was selected as one of YALSA’s Top Ten Best Graphic Novels for Teens in 2008.

What I love about this graphic novel is the range of teaching possibilities, from the “traditional” (i.e., New Critical analysis), to new literacies, to critical literacy, to visual literacy, and on and on.

This past summer, in my advanced YA literature course, I used Latrobe and Drury’s Critical Approaches to Young Adult Literature (2009, Neal-Schuman) which provides a range of approaches teachers can take when studying YA literature. When thinking about Pitch Black, some clear directions emerge. For example, teachers could start with reader response techniques and then move to a close reading of the text (I particularly think that studying the role of conflict, setting, tone, and theme apply here).

Likewise, teachers could study the novel in terms of the moral development of those that impacted Anthony. Using Gilligan’s “Caring and Connectedness Perspective” teachers could ask students about the extent to which others (and Anthony) recognized the interdependence of humankind, condemned exploitation and violence while making decisions (p. 35). Teachers could also try the sociological lens and look at social content, the reader, the author, and the text (p. 156).

I would also suggest using Root’s (1996) notion “border crossings” with it . . . and, of course, Marxist, race, and critical race theories apply as well.

Incarceron

2010-10-01T02:28:00.000-07:00

I have found myself becoming obsessed with dystopic, big brother-esque, totalitarian YA Lit recently. (Please see my last blog on The Line for a great example.) Incarceron turned out to be no exception to this trend. And, yes, I am still judging books by their covers. That is how teenagers choose books, so, if I want to know what they are reading, I have to choose like they do. Look at this cover.

It is hard to pass this cover up. So...I did not, and I bought it without even knowing what it was about. It turned out to be a good choice.

As I am not a blurb writer (and never will be), here is the blurb on the inside cover:

"Incarceron is a prison unlike any other: Its inmates live not only in cells, but also in metal forests, dilapidated cities, and unbounded wilderness. The prison has been sealed for centuries, and only one man, legend says, has ever escaped. Finn, a seventeen-year old prisoner, can't remember his childhood and believes he came from Outside Incarceron. He's going to escape, even though most inmates don't believe that Outside even exists. And then Finn finds a crystal key, and through it, a girl named Claudia. Claudia claims to live Outside - her father is the Warden of Incarceron and she's doomed to an arranged marriage. If she helps Finn escape, she will need his help in return. But they don't realize that there is more to Incarceron than meets the eye. Escape will take their greatest courage and cost far more than they know. Because Incarceron is alive."

If that does not give you chills, then I do not know what will.

The book is wonderfully written. It flashes back and forth between Finn's world of Incarceron and the Outside world of Claudia. There is never a dull moment between the two, either. This book has so many twists and turns, and it constantly leaves you guessing, which, of course, forces you to keep reading. This should explain to you why I am writing this blog at 4 in the morning.

However, it has so many more merits to it than just "edge of your seat" fiction. The main character of Claudia is a powerful female protagonist. She is quite intelligent and very "take charge" in the most dire of situations. She also is forced to resolve some serious ethical dilemmas regarding the bonds between family and what is just.

An important evaluation of every YA text that I read is to determine what is its classical alternative currently used in secondary schools. In a standards driven system of education, we find ourselves constantly defending YA Lit to every colleague, principal, and supervisor in the school system. As with my last blog, which connected The Line to Brave New World or 1984, Incarceron has several connections to the current "canon". The connection that stands out most is 2001: A Space Odyssey. In both stories, an artificially intelligent machine is making decisions based on what it thinks is right for humanity, as well as what is necessary to preserve itself. Both texts lend themselves to great class discussions regarding universal themes, including what is the place of technology in today's society, is the innate nature of man so evil that machines are necessary to keep man in check, and what will lead to the destruction of humanity: man himself or the technology man creates? Another "canonical" link can be made to Lord of the Flies. Inside Incarceron, humanity has deteriorated to every man for himself, even within the small communities that have been created. Thus, a great conversation can be had regarding the state of man. Does man desire civilization or savagery, order or chaos? What about reason versus impulse?

Some great connections can also be made to prominent popular culture movies, such as The Matrix or Escape from New York/L.A. For those interested in language and mythology, the book relies heavily on Greek and Roman mythology, including the use of Latin throughout the text.

There is only one problem with the text. As usual with every book I seem to choose, this is not the end of the story. Once again, I read the last page of a book, only to find a note about the release of a sequel, which is Sapphique, scheduled for release in December of this year. However, do not worry, my fine YA fan friends, this book has already been released in the U.K.! Apparently, Incarceron was released in the United States this year and in the U.K. in 2007. Sapphique came out in 2008 in the U.K. For £4.49, you can order the book from the U.K.'s Amazon.com. I am seriously contemplating this, and I probably will.

The author, Catherine Fisher, is a prominent fantasy writer and has won several awards for her work. Incarceron won The Times Children's Book of the Year award. Incarceron is already set to be a big budget motion picture, as Fox 2000 won a bidding war for the right to produce both Incarceron and its sequel, Sapphique.

I want a Grace

2010-09-28T17:37:00.000-07:00

Kristin Cashore's second YA novel, Fire, won the Walden Award for YA Fiction this year, so I've been wanting to read it and find out what all the buzz is about. It's a pre-quel, a companion novel to Cashore's first YA book, Graceling. So I read Graceling first, and thought it was pretty rockin'.

Katsa (very close to Katniss, huh?) is a bad-ass, a femme fatale, the adolescent "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (and bad attitude). She is graced, meaning she has a special talent, only hers is killing people. Or so she thinks. It takes meeting a dreamy guy named Po and helping him save the Seven Kingdoms from a bad guy named Leck to realize her Grace might be something she didn't expect after all.

While I thought the book's pacing was uneven and it got yawner long in some places, I can't help but respect Cashore's brand of YA feminism. Katsa will be no one's wife, or mother. She will take Po as a lover, and to hell with anyone who thinks that's wrong. She's a fighter, and decides that she will spend her life training young girls to fight. At one point in the novel she wonders why the weaker gender (in physical strength) never gets encouraged to learn to fight when young, like boys do.

(Got me thinking about my own childhood, how I was encouraged to set the table, do laundry, wear panty hose, while my twin brother was encouraged to play with GI Joe figurines and watch "The Incredible Hulk." Me, spoons and forks. Him, a big green man with bulging muscles, a short temper, and a penchant for violence. Interesting).

The book also made me want a Grace..but what would I want my Grace to be? Mind-reading? I think that would get exhausting, but it'd be fun. Camouflage? That'd be cool. I always wanted one of those capes Harry Potter wore, the one that makes you invisible. Or maybe I would just settle for being able to multiply myself by 10 so I could get everything done in a day that needs to get done. Yes, I like that Grace idea very much.

Cashore's second book, Fire, is the pre-quel companion novel to Graceling, which means it is set some 30 years before the events in Graceling take place. There's one crossover character who plays a big role, but you'll have to read the book to see who that is. My complaint with this one (and this may just be a sign of me getting old) is that I couldn't keep up with everyone and the who's-who of which kingdom. I had to turn back a couple of times and re-read to remember--why is Fire at that castle again? What is she supposed to be doing? Who is Murgda? And Mydogg? (I couldn't tell if some of the names were meant to be funny...I mean, don't you just want to say, Whassup Mydogg?! ha).

But other than that, again, I really like the strong female protagonist. Like Katsa, Fire refuses to marry or have children (for one, she's a human monster, and human monsters are hated by just about everyone, so ethically, there's that issue with bringing another little monster into the world), and like Katsa, she sleeps around, with girls and boys alike. And Fire kills her father because he has a serious screw missing in the morality department. And this book kept me guessing, and surprised (as did Graceling). Not predictable at all.

I like how Cashore doesn't shy away from the dark underside of life that is, well, present in everyone's life, whether we admit or not. Fire has a lot of insight into this underside, since she can read minds. She can also control others' minds, and the book raises interesting questions about privacy and power, and why some people with power choose to do good, while others abuse their power.

I think the book also presents opportunities to talk about the "male gaze"--Fire, as a human monster, is gorgeous--brightly colored and flashy and mesmerizing. You can't help but look at her. But Cashore does a nice job of showing the reader what it feels like for women to be constantly objectified--leered at as objects to be consumed. It takes its psychological toll, in ways we probably don't even realize. Because Fire can read minds, she always knows what the male (and female) gazers are thinking--and wanting--and she constantly has to defend herself, mentally and physically, against their insults.

Ultimately, I think we need more fairy tales like Cashore's. Reminiscent of the Tatterhood tales.

Check out Cashore's blog for more information on the books. Cashore is at work on her 3rd book, Bitterblue. Bitterblue is a character in Graceling.

Check out Cynthia Leitich Smith's blog for more info. about the Walden Award.

Bullied: A YA Media Text

2010-09-20T11:46:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching the documentary Bullied, from the Southern Poverty Law Center, about the true story of Jamie Nabozny, a kid tormented in middle and high school because he is gay.

The irony of his being bullied is not lost on me as I read Anne's and Susan's posts about Speak (where a "Dr." is essentially bullying readers).

If you have not ordered this free documentary from Teaching Tolerance, do so now!

There is also a facebook fan page: http://www.facebook.com/BulliedMovie.

I am going to use this film tonight, instead of a short story, to talk about the levels and dimensions of setting (Smith & Wilhelm, 2010).

Amen, Sister (Teri)

2010-09-20T11:42:00.000-07:00

I love, love, LOVE Teri Lesesne. Check out her latest response to the Doc who thinks Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak is "soft porn." http://professornana.livejournal.com/

The banning continues... Next up, SPEAK?!

2010-09-19T22:19:00.000-07:00

The situation regarding censorship in the United States is becoming a little ridiculous. It is one thing to teach your own children what your own family values and believes, but, when you start forcing those values and beliefs upon others and their children, you have crossed a line, especially when it comes to a book like SPEAK.

SPEAK is one of those rare books that has the ability to assist an adolescent in putting a horrible experience that they may have had into a perspective that they so desperately need. SPEAK teaches adolescent girls that it is okay to speak up against violence and rape. It is okay to confront your accuser. You do not have keep in the emotion and be silent. Tell someone and the closure may begin.

However, according to Dr. Wesley Scroggins, SPEAK is nothing but "soft pornography". Wait...what?!?!?! Can someone please explain to me how a young girl being raped is "soft pornography"?

Here is what Dr. Scroggins has to say:

"This is a book about a very dysfunctional family. Schoolteachers are losers, adults are losers and the cheerleading squad scores more than the football team. They have sex on Saturday night and then are goddesses at church on Sunday morning. The cheer squad also gets their group-rate abortions at prom time. As the main character in the book is alone with a boy who is touching her female parts, she makes the statement that this is what high school is supposed to feel like. The boy then rapes her on the next page. Actually, the book and movie both contain two rape scenes." (Read the full article here.)

I am not sure what book Dr. Scroggins read, but it sure was not SPEAK.

If you go to any YA author's blog right now, you will find a discussion of this situation. Here are a couple of good reads:

Sarah Ockler's Blog (Her book Twenty Boy Summer was also mentioned by Scroggins. His exact words: "How can Christian men and women expose children to such immorality?")
Laurie Halse Anderson's Blog

However, if you do not quite feel angry enough, yet, why not read Dr. Scroggins 29 page manifesto about everything that is wrong with the curriculum in his town of Republic, MO, which includes a discussion of how the separation of church and state is a myth and freedom of expression was created by a liberal Supreme Court to "justify many perversions in our society".

This needs to stop. It has to stop!!!! What will be next on the chopping block?

Ship Breaker: A Tale of Foreshadowing?

2010-09-18T06:37:00.000-07:00

Earlier this summer--during the middle of the Gulf oil spill crisis--I came across a review (somewhere) of Paolo Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker, a futuristic story set in the Gulf Coast. When the story opens we meet Nailer, the teen protagonist working for a light crew whose job it is to go into old, rusted out tankers and strip their parts. Nailer, being so small, gets into the innards of the old ships and strips the copper wire.

It is a rough, sad world, where everyone on crew is tired and hungry and half-men guard the men running the crew, men who live slightly better lives than the workers. Nailer and his friends see the huge clippers way out in the water rushing to bigger and better places where the "swanks" (the wealthy; i.e., anyone who is not poor like them) live. In essence, Nailer and his friends keep the swanks in their lifestyles.

It is a place where luck and fate are talked about and lived every day. People make sacrifices to the rust gods and other incarnations of "religious" figures that happened over the years.

Nailer becomes one of the lucky, in terms of fate, when he survives falling into an old oil holding tank in one of the ships, even after his coworker, Sloth (who swore a blood oath with him) found him but left him to die. Luck follows him when he and his friend Pima finds a wrecked ship after a city killer (hurricane) that contains a single living passenger: a girl, Nita, whose family controls one of the largest shipping companies in the world at the time.

But, luck does not last for long. Nailer's father and his mean crew finds the trio and knows that Nita is worth money, and he won't hesitate to do anything, even kill his son to get it. Nita and Nailer make their escape, jumping a train to Orleans (a new city built on the edge of the underwater New Orleans) to find one of her family's ships.

I won't divulge any more of the story from there.

While this book has some gaps in terms of plot, it is a fantastic read. I could not put it down and read it every chance I got. What I like most is the many messages it delivers for readers. For example, there is quite a bit about the future of the planet and the environment and characters provide the warning and scolding. At one point, as they are on the train going over the old city of New Orleans Tool (their half-man guard) says, "No one expected Category Six hurricanes. They didn't have city killers then. The climate changed. The weather shifted. They did not anticipate well."

The novel is an examination of social class, too. While they are in Orleans trying to find Nita's people, they can't afford a water taxi and are forced to wade through the filty water using a system of buoys and wooden planks under the water (p. 209).

[Nita asks] "Why don't they just use boats?

"For these people?" Tool looked around at their fellow waders. "They are not worth it."

"Still, someone could make a boardwalk. It wouldn't even cost that much."

"Spending money on the poor is like throwing money into a fire. They'll just consume it and never thank you," Tool said.

Tool himself is an interesting character for discussion. As a half-man (essentially half man half dog), he was created and bred to be loyal to his patron, to the death. But Tool is not and throughout the book we never quite learn why--although this would make a great discussion question for students to explore.

Another issue in the book is the idea of family and loyalty. Nailer's father is loyal only to himself, so friends become family. Throughout the book Nailer and others have to choose between trying to get rich(er) or staying true to themselves. Some are and some aren't. Given the state of our culture, this is too good a theme to not explore.

All of these themes--our planet, conservation, loyalty, fate, greed, family, etc.--are interrelated in this novel. I highly recommend it.

Sherman Alexie Banned. Can I Move to Canada?

2010-09-15T15:09:00.000-07:00

Can you imagine being told your life story isn't "appropriate"? is "indecent"? I'm feeling really down about this.

http://ncacblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/09/sherman-alexie-novel-officially-banned-from-missouri-school/

http://www.news-leader.com/article/20100909/NEWS04/9090375/Stockton-book-ban-upheld-7-0-in-packed-public-forum

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/an-introduction-to-native-amer.html

I'm posting Ellen Hopkins' rage against censorship, her "Manifesto." Makes me feel a little better reading it:

To you zealots and bigots and false
patriots who live in fear of discourse.
You screamers and banners and burners
who would force books
off shelves in your brand name
of greater good.

You say you're afraid for children,
innocents ripe for corruption
by perversion or sorcery on the page.
But sticks and stones do break
bones, and ignorance is no armor.
You do not speak for me,
and will not deny my kids magic
in favor of miracles.

You say you're afraid for America,
the red, white and blue corroded
by terrorists, socialists, the sexually
confused. But we are a vast quilt
of patchwork cultures and multi-gendered
identities. You cannot speak for those
whose ancestors braved
different seas.

You say you're afraid for God,
the living word eroded by Muhammed
and Darwin and Magdalene.
But the omnipotent sculptor of heaven
and earth designed intelligence.
Surely you dare not speak
for the father, who opens
his arms to all.

A word to the unwise.
Torch every book.
Char every page.
Burn every word to ash.
Ideas are incombustible.
And therein lies your real fear.

Amen, Sister (Sarah)

2010-09-13T05:32:00.001-07:00

Check out YAL author Sarah Ockler's (Twenty Boy Summer) excellent blog post on why censorship sucks: http://sarahockler.com/blog/

A Poem About YA Lit

2010-09-08T08:40:00.000-07:00

I am currently taking a course regarding composition techniques for secondary students. One of my assignments was to create a map poem. This type of poem is generally a list poem that maps an area. We were supposed to map some place that was important to us. I decided to map my YA book shelf. However, I took it a step further, and, instead of just a list, I wrote a full poem using YA Lit titles. The titles are capitalized, and I was somehow able to do this in alphabetical order by author. I hope you like it.

The YAL Path

The CATALYST which helps me break my CHAINS
is the desire to SPEAK up against the FEED of oppression.
I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS,
and I do not need to GO ASK ALICE.
The isn't THE SONG OF AN INNOCENT BYSTANDER
or a HATELIST about ALL THE BROKEN PIECES.
But BEFORE I DIE I will be FORGED BY FIRE in the DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN,
because there is SOMETHING WICKED about this world,
and I must break the RULES before I WAKE, FADE, and am GONE.
But FALLEN ANGELS are not always MONSTERs,
and BEFORE I FALL I will write one LAST SONG.
It will cause some to SHIVER and others to LINGER.
The UGLIES will rise and overcome the PRETTIES, SPECIALS, and EXTRAS.
But in the end this is just THE STORY OF A GIRL.

Our Book...Coming Soon!

2010-09-06T08:07:00.000-07:00

We're not crazy about the cover (we had little input in that decision), but we're super excited about our book on YA lit coming out in November. (You can pre-order through the NCTE Bookstore website now, though). :)

Description of book:

Sales of young adult literature are stronger than ever. When we pay attention to what teens are reading outside of the classroom, we see that young adult novels are the books teens buy with their allowance money, pass around to their friends, and write about in their blogs or at fan fiction sites. These are the books that tell teens their lives matter and their own life stories are important.

Authors Susan L. Groenke and Lisa Scherff offer suggestions for incorporating YA lit into the high school curriculum by focusing on a few key questions:

•Which works of YA literature work better for whole-class instruction and which are more suitable for independent reading and/or small-group activities?
•What can teachers do with YA lit in whole-class instruction?
•How can teachers use YA novels to address the needs of diverse readers in mixed-ability classrooms?

Each chapter opens with an introduction to and description of a different popular genre or award category of YA lit—science fiction, realistic teen fiction, graphic novels, Pura Belpré award winners, nonfiction texts, poetry, historical YA fiction—and then offers suggestions within that genre for whole-class instruction juxtaposed with a young adult novel more suited for independent reading or small-group activities.

Groenke and Scherff present a variety of activities for differentiated instruction for the novel they’ve chosen for whole-class study, and provide an appendix of titles, by genre, that interest adolescent readers.

This book helps English teachers address the different reading needs and strengths adolescents bring to our classrooms. Highlighting some of the best young adult literature published since 2000, this book shows that YA lit is for all students and deserves a more central place in secondary literature instruction.

Go ahead and get your copy, and we'll sign it for you! :)

Remembering Katrina

2010-08-29T19:10:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted (thanks to new semester starting and other job duties that keep me from reading YA lit, boo hiss), but on this 5th anniversary of Katrina I thought it appropriate to FINALLY read Josh Neufeld's A.D. New Orleans: After the Deluge. It's been reviewed here, and it's available in its original SMITH Magazine format here. I love the graphics, from the first pages of slanted rain and the before/after bird's-eye views of the city, to the use of muted greys to denote flashbacks.

The story follows 7 very different New Orleanians in the days leading up to the flood, and then a year later. There's Leo and Michelle, young hipsters who decide to leave town at the last minute. Leo frets about leaving his beloved comic books behind. Abbas owns a convenience store, and although his family leaves town for Houston, he decides to stay to protect the store against looters. Darnell is Abbas' friend, who decides to wait out the storm with him. Kwame is a high school senior, son of a pastor, who flees with his family to his older brother's college dorm in Tallahassee, FL. Brobson is a rich doctor who doesn't believe a storm's really coming. In fact, he throws a "hurricane party" the night before the storm hits. Denise is living with her mother, a surgical tech at a hospital. They plan to wait out the storm and take shelter at the hospital. Only, when they get to the hospital, it's overcrowded and Denise decides to head back home.

Then the storm hits, and the levees hold at first...

...but then they breach, and the flooding starts.

Denise and her family end up at the Superdome, and when no one arrives with water or medical attention, or help of any kind, all she can think is, "They are trying to kill us all." Abbas decides to leave his store behind when Darnell, who has asthma, has an attack. They are able to hop on a boat that happens by the store's rooftop and both men are eventually reunited with family. Nothing happens to the rich white doctor--he's safe in the French Quarter, and bemoans the loss of his favorite snazzy lunch spot, Galatoire's. Kwame and his brother are sent to live with relatives in California, while his mother and father struggle to rebuild their church in New Orleans. Leo loses all his beloved comic books, and he and Michelle spend time with various family members until deciding to return to New Orleands to re-build.

This is a touching, poignant read, especially as you watch Denise, Leo/Michelle, and Abbas agonize over what they lose in the flood--material items, their homes, their sense of place/identity, and time. Denise struggles further in her decision to return to New Orleans, and Abbas struggles with the decision he made to leave his store during the flooding. To stay, or flee, or return home? Agonizing questions, made all the more tragic against the backdrop of larger unanswered questions about humanity and our responsibilities to each other.

Mudbound

2010-08-22T18:05:00.000-07:00

I just finished rereading Mudbound by Hillary Jordan as I am preparing to teach it to a class of ninth grade students. I read it over the course of my flight from Birmingham to Madison, Wisconsin. I completely marked up the margins with notes, comments, and questions, and I underlined so much of the text that it is ridiculous.

You must read this Alex award winner! I'll be honest, I can't do the book justice trying to write my own summary, so I have copied and pasted from Jordan's website (where you can also read the first couple of chapters and download a reading guide):

In the winter of 1946, Henry McAllen moves his city-bred wife, Laura, from their comfortable home in Memphis to a remote cotton farm in the Mississippi Delta — a place she finds both foreign and frightening. While Henry works the land he loves, Laura struggles to raise their two young children in a rude shack with no indoor plumbing or electricity, under the eye of her hateful, racist father-in-law. When it rains, the waters rise up and swallow the bridge to town, stranding the family in a sea of mud.

As the McAllans are being tested in every way, two celebrated soldiers of World War II return home to the Delta. Jamie McAllan is everything his older brother Henry is not: charming, handsome, and sensitive to Laura’s plight, but also haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black tenant farmers who live on the McAllan farm, comes home from fighting the Nazis with the shine of a war hero, only to face far more personal — and dangerous — battles against the ingrained bigotry of his own countrymen. It is the unlikely friendship of these two brothers-in-arms, and the passions they arouse in others, that drive this powerful debut novel.

Mudbound is told in riveting personal narratives by the individual members of the McAllan and Jackson families. As they strive for love and honor in a brutal time and place, they become players in a tragedy on the grandest scale and find redemption where they least expect it.

This is storytelling at its most indelible — fierce, unflinching and deeply human. Mudbound won the 2006 Bellwether Prize for Fiction, awarded biannually to a first literary novel that addresses issues of social justice.

You can hear the author read from the novel here: http://www.kqed.org/arts/programs/writersblock/episode.jsp?essid=24835

Common Core Curriculum Maps

2010-08-20T11:29:00.001-07:00

I encourage you to check out the Common Core's Curriculum Maps in English Language Arts...dodgy business, as some are saying these are not grounded in good literacy research. Not only do teachers have lists of books to teach, now they have maps of what to teach, when. These maps are available for public comment until 9/17...take a look and respond! http://www.commoncore.org/maps/

Common Core’s Curriculum Maps in English Language Arts were written by public school teachers for public school teachers. The maps translate the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for Kindergarten through 12th grade into unit maps that teachers can use to plan their year, craft their own more detailed curriculum, and create lesson plans. The maps are flexible and adaptable, yet they address every standard in the CCSS. Any teacher, school, or district that chooses to follow the Common Core maps can be confident that they are adhering to the standards. Even the topics the maps introduce grow out of and expand upon the "exemplar" texts recommended in the CCSS. And because they are free, the maps will save school districts millions in curriculum development costs. The draft maps are available for public comment until September 17. Please tell us what you think!

Life or Death?

2010-08-14T06:47:00.000-07:00

...I think about what the nurse said. She's running the show. And suddenly I understand what Gramps was really asking Gran. He had listened to that nurse, too. He got it before I did.

If I stay. If I live. It's up to me.

Hoo-boy! This is an intense read. Reminds me a bit of Crutcher's Deadline and the wonderful Before I Die by Jenny Downham, but unlike the characters in those two books, who don't have a choice whether or not they die--they're both terminally ill--17-year-old Mia in If I Stay, does. She's got a ruptured spleen, broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and she's missing some skin thanks to a horrible car accident that landed her in a coma and killed her parents and younger brother. She has good reason for wanting to die.

To go down as a family. No one left behind.

Reminiscent of the main character Susie in Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, Mia narrates the story from some nebulous purgatorial middle world. She's in a suspended state--not dead, not sure if she wants to be alive--and walks around in the hospital, unseen, describing her treatment by doctors and nurses, and grandparents' and friends' (and boyfriend Adam's) reactions to her comatose condition.

What does death feel like? The nicest, warmest, heaviest, never-ending nap?

The narration moves seamlessly back and forth between Mia's real-time observations in the hospital, and the past, where we see Mia and Adam's relationship grow, Mia's burgeoning talent as a cellist (she had applied to Juilliard before accident, but hasn't heard anything back yet), and Mia's loving family. Her parents were hip and wacky, and totally supportive of Mia, even though Mia often felt like she didn't quite "fit in," didn't "belong" because she doesn't consider herself very cool. (She's cooler than she gives herself credit for. As Adam describes her, she's fragile and tough, quiet and kick-ass...one of the punkest girls [he] knows, with a sense of humor so dark you almost miss it. And can I just say for the record, this book has quite possibly the hottest, no-sex-involved make-out scene I've ever read).

But Mia's not sure a world without her parents and younger brother is one she belongs in, either.

Dying is easy. Living is hard.

I won't spoil the ending for you. Go get the book and read it. This is smart, compelling, warm writing--young adult literature at its best.

Pop Culture in the Classroom

2010-08-10T08:37:00.001-07:00

We all hear the term pop culture, and as teachers many of us try to incorporate it. But what exactly is pop culture? How do we meaningfully incorporate it into our instruction? These are the questions that Hagood, Alvermann, and Heron-Hruby address in Bring It to Class: Unpacking Pop Culture in Literacy Learning (2010, Teachers College Press).

This short book is a wonderful addition to any literacy teacher’s library; it combines theory with practical classroom applications (and also self-checks for educators). One idea I really like is having students complete their own “textual day in the life” charts (pp. 3-7), noting their various identities, (student, teenager, friend, etc.), what values are associated with those identities (education, communication, friendship, etc.), what social networks those identities are a part of (teachers/students, family/friends, friends, etc.), and what literacy learning relates to them (English/math, pop culture, maintaining close bonds).

The authors also define the ways we can view pop culture (mass culture, folk culture, and everyday culture) as well as ways to connect pop culture texts to the curriculum (they also provide many great resources and teaching ideas). I think this is especially relevant to young adult literature.

We won’t see the characters in Great Expectations IMing each other, nor will we read emails from Romeo to Juliet (although having students create these types of messages as part of an assignment might be interesting).

What we do see are novels that incorporate aspects of pop culture like L8r, g8r (Myracle) and Little Brother (Doctorow).

Behind the Eyes

2010-08-07T04:47:00.001-07:00

Hector missed his brother’s wake. He missed the funeral. Dr. Hernández, the intern who treated him in the emergency room, had told him it would be at least a week before he could leave. The ear, the ribs, the spleen, all had to be evaluated. All needed stillness in order to begin to heal.

So begins Francisco X. Stork’s wonderful, and powerful, novel about what it means to really learn to be in control of your life and not let the actions of other negatively influence or direct it. Behind the Eyes is about Hector Robles, a 16-year-old bright, intelligent Chicano living in the projects of El Paso, Texas. We find that Hector is the hope of his family, including his father who died about a year before, his sister, Aurora, and his brother Filiberto, who like the father suffers from a lack of control over his life.
The novel is told in the present with flashbacks and we learn that Filiberto wants the girlfriend of Chava, the leader of the Discípulos, a local gang. A series of events resulting from this “crush” lead to the death of Fili and Hector attacks Chava; Chava is a better fighter and causes serious injuries to Hector. Then the family finds out that there is a contract on Hector’s life. Whether seen as a blessing or curse, Hector is sent to Furman, a reform school in San Antonio.
Hector’s bunkmate is X-lax, who progresses from crass and obnoxious to redeemer; Sansón, seems dumb, and he is “slow” school-wise, but he has the heart of a peacemaker. Forced to take part in the school’s rehabilitation programs or else leave, Hector takes a “mind training” with weights class taught by Díaz, an inmate serving a life sentence without parole at a nearby prison. With the help of X-Lax, Sansón, and Díaz, Hector gets hope back. However, a new student named El Topo arrives and begins to start a psychological warfare with Hector. Thinking that El Topo is there to kill him because of the contract, Hector struggles with fear and whether and how to take action to protect himself.

I won’t give away the ending, but it is very satisfying—and not what readers will expect.

I loved this book and I think that teen readers, especially males, will relate with the struggle to protect, be proactive, take revenge, and all of the other behaviors that only serve to often make things worse. In this novel, it is the “tough” guys who live in peace rather than fight.

The schools here are getting more and more Latino/a students and there are not enough books in the library with Latino/a and Chicano/a characters in them. Behind the Eyes is a book that should be in classrooms and libraries. It resonates with Matt de la Pena's books, but would be an especially good pairing with We Were Here.

Other

Once...

2010-08-03T08:35:00.000-07:00

"Once upon a time" is how children's stories usually start, and you expect princesses and castles and fairy godmothers. Not so in this compelling, somber story about young Felix in Nazi-occupied Poland. The story opens with Felix, a Jewish boy, day-dreaming about escaping the orphanage where his parents, former bookstore-owners, have placed him to keep him safe while the Nazis go about their exterminating. Felix, being young and full of ideas and an overactive imagination, expects his parents to show up any minute. But they don't, so he must go look for them and tell them about the Nazis. Only when he escapes and sees the atrocities caused at the hands of German soldiers does reality slowly begin to sink in.

Felix--probably because he's grown up reading, and/or being read to, is a gifted storyteller, and it's his stories that keep him and others alive, or at least hopeful. But gradually, Felix must come to terms with the horrible realities surrounding him and reconcile fact and fiction. At one point, when Felix returns to his family's abandoned, ransacked house, he's told: "They're all gone...your parents, all of them." Felix thinks, I want him to stop. I want him to tell me it's just a story.

The Holocaust--and the murder of 1.5 million children--is not "just a story." It's a very real part of our history, one we can never forget. I'm thankful to the author for telling the childrens' stories, and keeping the history alive. This book had me boo-hooing by the end. Add it to your Holocaust YAL collection, and/or use it in a human rights unit to consider the modern-day genocides occuring in Rwanda and the Sudan. Would make a good pair with Boy in the Striped Pajamas and The Book Thief.

Traveling Back in Time

2010-08-02T08:53:00.000-07:00

I had high hopes for this book. I mean, just look at the cover. And when you go to Holt's website and click on this title, there's a lovely old-timey, bluegrassy song playing that gets you in the mood.

The story is set in 1800s Missouri, during the time when newly-emigrated Americans are heading west in search of land and luck. Amos Kincaid is the central character, and he's ready for some good luck. His mom, Delilah, dies during childbirth, and his Dad--a trapper--hands him off to his brother for long seasons of time, only to come back and claim him years and years later. The story stretches over many years, and many miles, as Amos's dad, Jake, becomes a scout for a group of families traveling west to Oregon's Wilamette Valley. When Jake returns to Missouri for Amos, it's to bring Amos on the trip west with him.

The traveling west stuff is good and interesting, providing historical and realistic details about the great Western Migration. But the thing is--Amos and his Dad, Jake, are "dowsers," which means they have a magical gift of being able to locate water in the ground. This is a big help to families looking to settle, as many want to be close to water. Jake hates being a dowser, and only uses his gift when he needs to provide for his family. Amos eventually, as an older man, embraces the gift and eventually is able to provide for his family and community.

I really wanted to see Holt do more with this magical element of the story--maybe build up the tension between the son and father's differing views on their gifts, or make it a story, maybe, about the use of natural resources, and the power man has in making decisions about how individuals/communities use life-giving resources.

And what's up with Delilah--Amos's mom?? Before she dies, you get the sense that she's pretty powerful in her own right--there's always birds around when she's in the picture, and a group of mockingbirds attack her abusive dad, Eb, at one point. When she finds out she's pregnant with Amos, she has a dream that he gets passed down from woman to woman, and Amos does, losing a sense of home and family, only to figure out he can redefine those things on his own. What's cool is that each woman who becomes Amos's surrogate mom "sees" Delilah's ghost, as if Delilah is checking in, making sure Amos is properly tended to. She finally disappears when Amos becomes a man, which the reader learns has nothing to do with age but the choices we make. I wanted more Delilah, and I wanted more dowsing, so overall, I left this book feeling like I didn't know what it wanted to be about.

I think if teachers want a good middle-grades historical fiction book about early US settlement and western migration, this is a good one to have around. I think it would make a good pair, too, with We Never Speak of It: Idaho-Wyoming Poems, 1889-1890, a book of poems about Pioneer women and children's experiences during the Western Migration.

Ever wish someone dead?

2010-08-01T13:55:00.000-07:00

This question that Todd Strasser explores in Wish You Were Dead (2009), a book I devoured in just 90 minutes on the stationary bike at the gym. I literally could not put this book down and until very close to the end (I stayed on the bike in order to finish!), I could not figure out who was responsible for the kidnappings of three high school students.

The book crosses genres: suspense, thriller, and realistic fiction. We learn on thge first page that a high school student is miserable and hates herself because of a popular girl named Lucy (among other classmates). In fact, the mysterious blogger wishes Lucy was dead. Shortly after, Lucy is kidnapped and we get the perspective of the kidnapper who has no mercy for the teen.

Then, there are two more kidnappings--Lucy's ex-boyfriend (Adam) and the classmate he was "cheating" on Lucy with, Courtney.

Alternating between anonymous blog posts with responses, the kidnapper's thoughts, and the actual story, told by Madison, a fried of the missing trio of teens, the book is fast-paced and will keep readers hooked (I was not totally sold on the last page, but I couldn't think of any other way to end the book).

I am a big Strasser fan, ever since I found and used his short story "On the Bridge" (which he still provides free of charge for classroom use here. This book will not disappoint teen readers.

I am now on to Gone by Michael Grant (the first in a series), Terry Pratchett's Nation, and Libba Bray's Rebel Angels . . . all building up for August 24 and Mockingjay!

Tennessee Approves Common Core Standards

2010-07-31T09:07:00.000-07:00

I'm worried--Tennessee's wholehearted approval of the national Common Core Standards does not bode well for our efforts to get more young adult literature in the high school English classroom, and to center today's teenager in curricular decisions. The standards committee has suggested titles for each grade level, and we know what that means--teachers will feel like they have to teach/use these titles because the assumption is "they're on the test." The first common core standards tests will be in 2014-2015, so I'm sure we'll see the following titles in Knox County curriculum to come (notice the year of publication for each text, and predominance of White, Western canon):

Grade 6-8 texts:
•Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1869)
•The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (1876)
•“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost (1915)
•The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper (1973)
•Dragonwings by Laurence Yep (1975)
•Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor (1976)

Grade 9-12 texts:
•The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare (1592)
•“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1817)
•“The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe (1845)
•“The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry (1906)
•The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939)
•Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)
•The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (1975)

Grade 11-12
•“Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats (1820)
•Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1848)
•“Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson (1890)
•The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
•Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937)
•A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (1959)
•The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (2003)

Can I just say: the folks who dictate curricular policy--now at national levels--are so out of touch with today's adolescents.

The Common Core Standards Initiative website states that three things were considered when suggesting texts: complexity, quality, and range.

To judge "quality," the standards commission says they chose texts of "recognized value" (recognized by whom?? who values?). They furhter, "From the pool of submissions gathered from outside contributors, the work group selected classic or historically significant texts as well as contemporary works of comparable literary merit,cultural significance, and rich content." Historically significant how? to whom? Why no contemporary young adult literature? Why no texts that present postmodern structures/text features? Texts that include images, digital media, etc?

I mean, when I look at these titles and think THIS IS REPRESENTATIVE OF US, NATIONALLY, I feel invisible. I'm not anywhere in this list of literature, either through interest, or relation to experience, etc. I'm not saying literature has to be immediately relevant to me to matter, or that this literature is not historically significant to some, but I am saying that the gals in Little Women, Tom Sawyer, Emily Dickinson, and Jay Gatsby are not my (ONLY) EXPERIENCE or REALITY as a White, female, Southern American. And I don't appreciate a group of seemingly well-minded policymakers assuming they can decide what literature matters to and speaks for me or my history!!! Do you feel me? (If I were asked what American literature speaks to me, it would certainly include Dorothy Allison, Bobbie Ann Mason, Carson McCullers, Toni Morrison, and Lorrie Moore, with some Arrested Development and Dirty South rap playing in the background).

The commission says even less about "range," explaining they tried to "ensure that the samples presented in each band represented as broad a range of sufficiently complex, high quality texts as possible." Where's the range? in consideration of reader ability? in consideration of text genre?

To gauge "complexity," the commission explains they considered 1)a quantitative piece (reading level, which we know is usually a measure of word length, not comprehension ability), 2) a qualitative piece, which measures comprehension?? (how are they determining this??), and 3) "reader variables (such as motivation, knowledge, and experiences), and task variables (such as purpose and the complexity generated by the task assigned and the questions posed)."

Really??? I am very interested to learn how these folks are assessing reader motivation and readers' experiences (looking at a diverse range of readers??), as well as the purposes readers bring to reading literature...if they've looked at any "real" research they would know that NONE of the literature selections they've suggested fit what teens like to read and choose to read when given opportunities to choose. And isn't choice part of motivation and purpose?? of encouraging a life-long joy of reading? (No. I'm increasingly convinced the point of school reading instruction is to pass a (the ACT) test. I haven't read the more "detailed explanation" provided in Appendix A at the website, so maybe more of this will make sense once I do (but somehow I doubt it).

Alfie Kohn weighs in on national standards here

Books in Verse/Poet Biography

2010-07-30T19:16:00.000-07:00

Looking for some good books to add to your classroom poetry collections? Check these out!

The Dreamer, by Pam Munoz Ryan and Peter Sis

Which is sharper? The hatchet that cuts down the dream? Or the scythe that clears a path for another?

Neftalí Reyes hears music in the rain and sees his beloved Andes Mountains as a “white-robed choir.” Neftalí wants to read and write, and daydream about the objects he collects on his walks—twigs, feathers, waxy leaves, smooth stones. But his father, a railroad man, thinks Neftalí needs to beef up, become a man. He calls his son "dim-witted," "absent-minded," a "good-for-nothing." But this "good-for-nothing" doesn't stop dreaming, and becomes the great Pablo Neruda, poet of the people, unafraid to speak truth to power under Pinochet’s regime. Excerpts from several of his poems and odes are included at end of this beautiful book.

Lots of awards buzz about this book...hear an interview with author here and listen to author read from work at NPR.

Borrowed Names: Poems about Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madam C.J. Walker, Marie Curie, and Their Daughters

Three extraordinary women were born in 1867, two years after the Civil War ended. These women shared a love for work and motherhood, and all raised daughters who went on to shape the world in their own ways. Each section follows one daughter from young childhood to adulthood, capturing nuanced details of her life. You definitely get a sense of each daughter's personality, but also the complex and (in)tense relationships that existed between mother and daughter.

Reminded me a bit of Stephanie Hemphill’s Your Own, Sylvia and the Center for Cartoon Studies’ graphic novel biographies. A creative way to read/write biography. Would make a great reader’s theatre project.

Mirror, Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse, by Marilyn Singer and Josée Masse

This book is so much fun!

Singer introduces the “reverso” poem, her own creation, in this witty take on classic fairy tales. When you read a reverso down, it is one poem. When you read it up, with changes allowed only in punctuation and capitalization, it is a different poem. The form works well when goal is to tell two sides of one story.

Use this book when teaching the double- or multi-voiced poem. Pair with Fleischman’s Joyful Noise, Phoenix Rising, and Big Talk.

Boy YAL 2010

2010-07-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

Hope any blog readers in the Knoxville area can make the "Best of the New, So Far" YAL workshop this Friday, but if not, here's some info. about some of the books for younger (upper middle grades) male readers I'll be talking about.

Missing in Action, by Dean Hughes

Jay’s dad, who is part Navajo, is Missing in Action (MIA) as he fights in WWII. When Jay and his mom move in with Jay’s grandparents in a new town (Delta, Utah), Jay builds up his dad to be a sports and military hero who will one day return. But who is Jay’s dad, really? Why is his mom always in a bad mood? And what will Jay’s new friends think when they find out he’s working with a “Jap” on his grandfather’s farm?

Heavy, complex themes abound in this book, but they're handled in a graceful, understated way. Reminded me a bit of Ann Burg's All the Broken Pieces.

This one would make a good addition to WWII-themed small-group literature circles, with Judy Blundell’s What I Saw and How I Lied, Sherri Smith’s Flygirl, Mal Peet’s Tamar, Virginia Euwer Wolff’s Bat 6, and Cynthia Fletcher’s Ten Cents a Dance.

Revolver, by Marcus Sedgwick

It's the early 1900s, it's cold as all-get-out (Arctic wilderness cold), and Sig's dad, Einar, has been a bad boy. So bad that he's being hunted by someone doubly bad, the "Bear Man." But before Bear Man can get to Einar, Einar dies mysteriously, leaving his son, Sig, and daughter, Anna, to deal with the consequences of their father's actions. When Bear Man finally does show up, Sig remembers his dad's old revolver that's hidden away...if he can just get it and distract Bear Man long enough, maybe he can take care of the brute once and for all. But it's never that easy, is it?

In spare, minimalist language (reminiscent of Paulsen, Hemingway, and Jack London), Revolver gets in your blood and stays there. Short, suspenseful chapters will keep readers interested, but the back and forth in time may confuse some. Reminded me a bit of Per Patterson's Out Stealing Horses. Would make a cool one-act play.

Woods Runner, by Gary Paulsen

Speaking of (short) bears, Gary Paulsen was in Knoxville not too long ago. It was the first time I'd ever heard him speak, and I loved him immediately. He kinda reminds me of Santa Claus. I'll forgive him his politics for a couple of reasons (he had good things to say about Sarah Palin, his fellow statesman): 1) I think he's a reformed beaver hunter and I'm sure he loves dogs; 2) he can spin a good yarn; 3) he's funny, and 4) his own childhood story about seeing his name on a library card for the first time (something he could actually call his own--he grew up dirt poor), and being turned onto books by someone who believed in him is so dang inspiring. I love this guy! And look what he's done for young (male) readers! I think he made it cool to read before reading was cool. I mean, remember the first time you read Hatchet?!?

So, in Paulsen's latest, readers meet thirteen-year-old Samuel, who lives in the Pennsylvania woods at the onset of the Revolutionary War. The French would call Samuel a courier du bois, a "woods runner," because of his hunting prowess and intuitive knowledge of the forest. The book reads: Samuel's knowledge grew until when he heard a twig break, he would know whether it was a deer or bear or squirrel that broke it. He could look at a track and know when the animal or man made it, and whether or not the creature was in a hurry and if so, why, and how fast it was going and what, if anything, was chasing it and how close the pursuer might be. And the more he was of the woods, of the wild, of the green, the less he was of the people...his skills and his woods knowledge set him apart, made him different.

It's this difference that might just save the lives of his parents, who were savagely attacked and captured by British soldiers (aided by the Iroquois), while Samuel was out hunting bear. Samuel must travel deep into enemy territory, tracking his parent's attackers, relying on his wits and knowledge of the forest to protect him. Along the way, Samuel witnesses the insanity, horror, and brutality of war.

Paulsen has said Woods Runner is not an attempt to write the history of the War for Independence, but instead, to "clarify some aspects of that conflict that have often been brushed over," such as the "real and horrible truths." Paulsen says in the Epilogue, "...the simple fact is that all combat is outrageous--thousands and thousands of young soldiers die horrible painful deaths lying in their own filth, alone and far from home, weak and hallucinating, forgotten and lost." But Paulsen says it is also "astonishing" to consider the "young men and boys [who] stood to as they did, in the face of withering odds, and actually won and created a new country with their blood."

Interspersed with the narrative are historical segments that provide some context and "reality" to Samuel's story.

Read more about Paulsen and Woods Runner here: http://bookpage.com/books.php?id=10012790

The Cardturner, by Louis Sachar

Ok, enough about guns and war (although card-playing can get pretty brutal). Sachar's latest is about bridge! As in cards, as in tricks and trumps! This is Sachar at his best, weaving together a smart, sophisticated, multi-layered story about bridge, of all things, and so much more.

Alton's girlfriend has dumped him for his best friend, his father's just been laid off, and now his mom has indentured him to be the cardturner for his rich, blind Uncle Lester, who just so happens to be a genius bridge-player. Part tribute to (and how-to) for the game of bridge, part coming-of-age story, and part philosophical take on things perceived and things real, this book hits home the importance of learning to turn over your own cards.

Read a well-written, witty review here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/24/cardturner-louis-sachar-review

and then read the book! And play some cards!

Why We Need a (Gay) Superhero

2010-07-24T07:53:00.000-07:00

This past spring, when looking for a YA novel to fit the GLBTQ genre, I was quite honestly overwhelmed with the list of really good choices. I went to the Stonewall Awards list from the ALA and the Lambda Literary Awards, too.

I would look titles up on amazon and then see where the “you might like” links too me . . . it was a really tough decision. I was torn between some titles, including Perry Moore’s Hero.

Ultimately, I went with The God Box by Alex Sanchez. In the book, Manuel, who is openly gay, pulls Bible verses that show that God and Jesus did not outright say homosexuality is a sin. I hoped my students would like the book, and they did.

However, still interested in Hero, I broke down and bought it (although I have 100+ books I have paid for and not yet read) and LOVED it.

Here’s the summary from Moore’s website:

Thom Creed is used to being on his own. Even as a high school basketball star, he has to keep his distance because of his father. Hal Creed had once been one of the greatest and most beloved superheroes of The League-until the Wilson Towers incident. After that Thom's mother disappeared and his proud father became an outcast.

The last thing in the world Thom would ever want is to disappoint his father. So Thom keeps two secrets from him: First is that he's gay. The second is that he has the power to heal people. Initially, Thom had trouble controlling his powers. But with trial and error he improves, until he gets so good that he catches the attention of the League and is asked to join. Even though he knows it would kill his dad, Thom can't resist. When he joins the League, he meets a motley crew of other heroes, including tough-talking Scarlett, who has the power of fire from growing up near a nuclear power plant; Typhoid Larry, who makes everyone sick by touching them, but is actually a really sweet guy; and wise Ruth, who has the power to see the future. Together these unlikely heroes become friends and begin to uncover a plot to kill the superheroes. Along the way, Thom falls in love, and discovers the difficult truth about his parents' past.

What a great, and might I say, much needed concept and what a complex book to use with students. What I loved most about the book is that the main focus is not that the main character is gay (although I think it is very important that he is) but the emphasis on keeping secrets (can secrets also be lies?) and how that impacts the people around us. Thom has his secrets; so does his dad; so does his mom (what a way Moore introduces her later in the book). Those around him, the other heroes, all have their secrets too. Eventually, the secrets have to come out, but there is a price. Yet, in the end, what Thom feared most (and he had good reason to because of the prejudice and threats), that being gay would ruin him with not only his father but the public, never happened. We need (gay) heroes like Thom Creed for our students, especially those who are GLBTQ. Judging by how many times I still hear “that’s so gay” or “homo” or “faggot” in school hallways, GLBTQ kids must not feel like the heroes they are.

There are many opportunities for discussion with this book and I encourage you to read it for yourself. On a side note, started after he read about how women were treated (abused and killed off) in comics, on his website, Moore has compiled a list of gay comic book heroes!!!

Tuesday Night Guilty Pleasure

2010-07-21T05:16:00.000-07:00

I am not ashamed to admit it: I watch, like, and am addicted to Pretty Little Liars, a TV show on ABC family based on Sara Shepard's YA series (Shepard also writes the TV show).

Think 90210 meets Gossip Girls meets Mean Girls and you have at least part of the show. But, I think there is more, too. There is a mystery to solve: who killed Alison, the bitchy leader of a pack of well-dressed, high-heeled, model type high school girls? And, what do the girls know that the myterious "A" wants to put in the open?

From the show's website:
Rosewood is a perfect little town. So quiet and pristine, you'd never guess it holds so many secrets. Some of the ugliest ones belong to the prettiest girls in town -- Aria, Spencer, Hanna and Emily, four estranged friends whose darkest secrets are about to unravel.

One year ago, Alison, the Queen Bee of their group, disappeared and the girls swore they'd never tell what really happened that night. They thought their secrets would bond them together, but just the opposite is true. Then again, who's to say what the truth is in Rosewood. It seems everyone in town is lying about something.

Now, as the mystery surrounding Alison's disappearance resurfaces, the girls begin getting messages from "A," saying – and threatening – things only Alison would know. But it couldn't be Alison. Could it? Whoever it is, they seem to know all the girls' secrets, and seem to be watching their every move. The girls are friends again, but will they be there for each other if their dark secrets come to light?

There's times when I have seen TV shows/series or movies and thought, I would never read the book that this is based on. This is not one of those cases. I like a good mystery, which this show has. I like frivolity, which this show has. I also like social issues, and this show has that too.

So far, we have had one character, Aria, who caught her father having an affair (the cute Chad Lowe stars as the father) and he asks her to keep it a secret from her mother (she does for a year and then "A" sends the mom a letter). [Aria also begins a relationship with her English teacher, think Teach Me]

Then, there's Emily, who is struggling with her sexuality. Too bad for her that "A" gets his/her hands on some compromising pictures of her kissing a girl.

Hanna? [who Alison used to call hefty Hanna] Well, Hanna's parents are also divorced and we see Hanna get caught stealing in episode 1.

Finally, there's Spencer whose family believes in the motto win at all costs--which Spencer then puts into practice. We see some positive changes, though, in Spencer and I have the most hope for her character.

All of this drama, just from the first 2-3 episodes surrounds the mystery of Alison's death and "A" who seems to be hell bent on destroying the girls.

I missed these books entirely, and hadn't seen any of the high school girls reading them, but think I will read them now based on the TV show.

If you're in Knoxville on July 30, and you love YA Lit...

2010-07-19T16:53:00.000-07:00

The Center for Children’s & Young Adult Literature and Knox County Public Library Present:

The Best New Books So Far, 2010 Workshop
Friday July 30, 2010
East Tennessee History Center, 601 S. Gay St.
8:30 am to 4:30 pm

Morning Session: 9am-12pm:
Books for Birth through 6th Grade

Afternoon Session: 1pm to 4pm:
Books for 6th to 12th Grade

Cost: $25 for half day, $50 for full day

Participants provide their own lunch and parking. Certificates of Attendance will be provided for professional development purposes.

Register today! https://kcpl.wufoo.com/ forms/best-new-books-so-far/

For more information, please email ccyal@utk.edu or call (865) 974.2305.

Schedule:

8:30 a.m.- 9:00 a.m.: Meet and Greet, coffee
9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.: Books for birth through grade 6
Presenters: Amelia Bell, Kristie Atwood, Julie Danielson

12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m.: Lunch Break

1:00 p.m.- 4:00 p.m.: Books for grades 6 -12
Presenters: Scot Smith; Susan Groenke PhD; Kimberly Black, PhD
Book sale throughout the day until 4:30 p.m.

Yours truly will be presenting on Boy YA books, historical fiction (Civil Rights era), and verse novels/poetry books. Scot Smith will present on teen series, fantasy/sci-fi, and Kimberly Black will present on popular graphic novels.

Come on down!

Living Dead Girl

2010-07-19T09:31:00.001-07:00

I am really tired today. Tired because I stayed up late to start Living Dead Girl--which I ended up not being able to put down until I finished it.

WOW.
Creepy.
Powerful.
Sad.

It was won an impressive list of awards:

A 2010 International Reading Association Young Adults' Choices Pick
A 2010 YALSA Popular Paperback
A 2010 YALSA Amazing Audiobook
A 2009 YALSA Best Book for Young Adults
A 2009 YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers
A 2009 Amelia Bloomer Project Young Adult Fiction Pick
A 2009 NYPL Stuff for the Teen Age Pick
A 2008 BCCB Blue Ribbon Award Winner
A 2008 VOYA Editor's Choice for Teens
A 2008 ABC Best Books for Children Teen selection
A Teenreads.com Best Book of 2008
A Cynsations Cynsational Book of 2008

The book starts out in third person, with a description of "the girl" living with her father in an apartment complex. Three pages later, we hear from the girl: her name is Alice, but it used to be something else. And, we know that the father is no father at all. Alice had been kidnapped five years earlier. I was hooked from the beginning and needed to find out what happened to Alice (I won't spoil it for you).

In some ways it reminded me (as it has others) of The Lovely Bones or the writing of Cormier. I had not read any of Elizabeth Scott's books before but if they are anything like this one, then you can count me in.

You can access a reading guide (written by Pam Cole) and the first few pages here.

Hear the author talk about the idea behind the book here: http://www.simonandschuster.com/multimedia?video=6625375001.

Female teens will love this book. It is fast paced, has suspense, and the chapters are short, no more than six pages each.

Winter's Bone

2010-07-17T19:57:00.001-07:00

I haven't read this book--have never heard of Daniel Woodrell--but I saw the movie adaptation recently and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. In the movie, 17-year-old Ree Dolly has a shit family, all tied up as they are in cooking, dealing, and snorting crank in the w-a-y back-woods of the Missouri Ozarks.

Ree hasn't "developed a taste for it yet," and you have to wonder--watching her skin squirrels for dinner, or beg her mentally checked-out mother to help her make a hard decision about the family timber, or cut the hands off her dead father to prove to the bondsman he's dead--why she hasn't succumbed to the siren song of meth, also known as the "poor man's cocaine." Ree's hard-nosed, paranoid relatives resent her for it, even though they're culpable in making Ree the "meth-orphan" she is. Ree learns blood ties take on new meanings when money and greed are king.

Life hasn't been easy on Ree or her younger siblings, and you know it never will be. Yet Ree perseveres, destined to forge her own way, and write her own definition of selfhood and family. Thanks to writer and director Debra Granik for this portrayal of a resilient, courageous adolescent girl who survives by sheer willpower and grit. A true heroine, reminiscent of Katniss in Hunger Games (and the movie makes me think, too, about Tyrell in Coe Booth's YA novel of the same name). New Yorker movie critic David Denby calls the film "one of the great feminist works in film."

I'm looking forward to reading the book, and getting to know Woodrell's fiction. The movie won for best dramatic film at Sundance this year, so I imagine we'll hear more about the book in days to come.

The Beauty of The Book Thief

2010-07-14T18:45:00.001-07:00

Three times in the past I have tried to read Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief; I Am the Messenger is my favorite YA book since 2000 (I voted for it when Joan Kaywell sent her email around), so I figured I would dive in and read the monster book in no time flat. Well, each time I was interrupted and had to start over from the beginning. Well, after sitting on my bookshelf for four years and with the fall semester rapidly approaching, I decided it was time to read it so I will have time to plan with the teacher I will be working with.

I will be co-teaching in a local high school again this year in a 9th grade class with the teacher who worked with me and the summer reading program. We will be teaching entirely through YA lit! No boring textbook! No grammar book! No test preparation!

Back to The Book Thief.

Beyond the story, the writing is amazing! Last year, in my teaching writing class, I used Jeff Anderson’s Mechanically Inclined. In it, he promotes the use of “mentor texts,” wonderfully crafted sentences from literature to teach and reteach mechanics and grammar.

I thought it would be worth mentioning some of the beautiful language and stylistic devices in Zusak’s novel as they provide wonderful examples for students. And these are only a few from only the first 35 pages!

Fragments:
• I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that’s only the A’s. (p. 3)
• Then warming up completely. Healing. (p. 21)
• Wirelike shins. Coat hanger arms. (p. 31)

Personification:
• It was like the whole globe was dressed in snow. Like it had pulled it on, the way you pull on a sweater. (p. 6)
• The plane was still coughing. Smoke was leaking from both its lungs. (p. 9)
• The train limped through the snowed-in country. It hobbled in and stopped. (p. 22)
• That strange word was always there somewhere, standing in the corner, watching from the dark. It wore suits, uniforms. (p. 31)

Similes:
• The sky was like soup, boiling and stirring. (p. 12)
• The boy’s spirit was soft and cold, like ice cream. (p. 21)
• The cemetery welcomed me like a friend. (p. 22)

Metaphors:
• Liesel was sure her mother carried the memory of him, slung over her shoulder. (p. 25)
• The day was gray, the color of Europe. (p. 27)

Here, Zusak describes the inspiration behind this fabulous book: http://www.randomhouse.com/features/markuszusak/author.html#3

Totalitarian YA Lit...Huxley and Orwell Would Be Proud

2010-07-12T20:40:00.000-07:00

I accidentally came upon an incredible book by a brand new YA author. I do truly mean accidentally. I was looking for something else, and the cover of this book drew me in like a moth to a flame. Just look at it!!! That is quite hard to pass up. I digress.

Teri Hall makes her literary debut with The Line, and oh what a debut it is.

The book is about a 14 year old girl named Rachel, who lives on The Property with her mother, Vivian. At the edge of The Property is the Line, essentially an invisible, impenetrable bubble that is part of the National Border Defense System, which surrounds the entire Unified States. Rachel can see the Line from the greenhouse, but she can also see...Away.

Strange things begin happening on the Away side of the Line, and Rachel begins to ask questions, too many questions. Who are the Others? How did Away come to be? What secrets is her mother hiding? What does Ms. Moore, the owner of The Property, have to do with all of this?

This book is a page turner from start to finish, but it also provides teachers with a great source of discussion in the classroom. As both an English and Social Studies teacher, I can see so many possibilities for the use of this book. English teachers, in my opinion, can use this book in place of Orwell's 1984. Although it is written more at the upper elementary level, the subject matter works great for discussions regarding:

The loss of individual rights for the benefit of one's country.
Government control and suppression of what is discussed in the media.
Nuclear warfare and its impact on society.
Xenophobia.
Individual action to institute change.

Teri Hall even has a FREE comprehensive teacher's guide on her web site. The teacher's guide is designed mostly for middle school students, but I believe it can be adapted for any classroom. The entire first chapter is on her web site, as well. However, if you read the first chapter online, be prepared to drive to your local bookstore to buy the book.

There is only one problem with the book: The sequel does not come out until 2011!!! Trust me, this book has one heck of a cliffhanger. For me, the wait for this sequel is becoming more stressful than the wait for some of the Harry Potter books.

The good news is that we will definitely be hearing about this author a lot in the future. Although it was only published on March 4, 2010, it has already been nominated for the Best Fiction for Young Adults List by YALSA and Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers List by YALSA.

So...in 2011, you and your students will finally have the answer to the ultimate question: What lies beyond the Line?

IMing in Teen Fiction

2010-07-12T17:04:00.000-07:00

This book came out several years ago--the first young adult novel written entirely in Instant Messaging-style (IM)--and I didn't like it the first time I read it. It wasn't hard for me to read, since I've spent some time in chat rooms and know what most of the chat lingo means (e.g., "ttyl" means "talk to you later") (at least, I knew the lingo in this book). But I didn't like the story--3 teen girls are best friends and are starting their 10th grade year in high school together. They promise to always be friends and not let the pettiness of cliques and gossip and all the other crap that goes along with high school social dynamics get in the way of their friendship. But, as things tend to go, their friendship is tested in big ways.

Author Lauren Myracle writes at the end of the book that in TTYL she wanted to debunk the myth that high school friendships don't or can't last, and she does do that.

I guess I didn't like the story because it seemed so traditional considering the new medium in which it's couched. I figured if Myracle was going to push the boundaries of fiction (she says in a Cynsations interview that she really had to re-think conventional fiction to make the story work in this format), then p-u-s-h the boundaries and write a really radical story. One where, oh, I don't know, teenage girls think about things other than boys, what to wear, and what others think about them. With this (for me) cliched story, I felt like the IMing was just a gimmick, an appropriation of teen culture to tell a cliched teen story, to hook teens in with flash and flare only to give them fizzled-out fiction.

But I recently re-read the book because I'm teaching it in my summer "Digital YAL" class. One objective of the class is to get beginning English teachers to think about what teens' migration to the digital world means--why teens go online, what they do there--and how these technological changes effect how we understand communication (e.g., reading/writing, "texts") and today's teens.

Upon my 2nd reading of the book, I realized that TTYL really does comment on teens' (especially teen girls') uses of the Internet, specifically IM, and for this reason, it makes an interesting commentary on teen culture in the digital age. These are some things I'll highlight when we discuss the book in class:

Many Internet & digital literacy scholars say that contrary to popular belief, teens go online to talk to people they already know. They also go online to maintain their friendships and social lives, create and negotiate identities, and police peer behavior. All of this happens in TTYL; it's why the girls go online. But teen girls have always done this, haven't they? Maybe this is Myracle's point--that just because the technology is new, teens are using it to do the same things they've always done. They now just have faster, more public tools to do it with.
Cynthia Lewis and Bettina Fabos have researched adolescents' use of IM in their daily lives and say that these youths viewed their IM sessions not as individual, separate exchanges, but as "larger, entwined narratives." The IM dialogue relied on knowledge of and participation within an offline network of friends. Again, I think TTYL exemplifies this--the story told in the chat medium isn't the only story--the chat story comments on other things that happen in the girls' lives. It's a back-and-forth between f2f life where things happen and virtual life where the girls talk about what happened in f2f life--kind of like a de-briefing, or as Myracle says, "post-op." As Lewis & Fabos explain, we need to rethink the offline/online binary, as the techno-space and offline spaces are more entertwined than we think.
Some technology gurus say the Internet has become the 21st century mall or arcade--the 21st century teen hang-out. They do "hang-out" online, but in the age of the Internet they can stay connected at all hours, even when the parents have said "go to bed," or "stay off the phone," etc. As I've read somewhere, teens are now the "overconnecteds." A good or bad thing? Who knows...
Also obvious in the book is how linguistically versatile the girls are--they create new words and "play" with language in ways we don't typically see in school-related writing tasks. Also, they literally are bilingual in ways many adults aren't, as they know a sophisticated language (chat language) and its linguistic rules. And unlike what we tend to hear (especially from angry English teachers) they know the difference between chat language and Standard English. They know there are different audiences for different kinds of writing.
Again, Lewis & Fabos encourage us as English teachers to celebrate the flexibility and versatility teens exhibit in their reading pracitices. Indeed, knowing how to read TTYL implies the reader is flexible and can read "across surfaces, genres, modes."
Writing and speaking entertwined in IM medium--"voice" evoked through writing. Too easy distinctions between speech and writing break down in IM/chat medium.

What a great adventure!

2010-07-08T10:57:00.000-07:00

I just finished The Evolution of Calpuria Tate by Jacqueline Kelly, and I loved every minute of this enchanting story about eleven year old Calpurnia. It's 1899, the cusp of a new millennium, and Calpurnia Tate discovers her grandfather, the natural world, and some things about herself. This story will make you laugh, make you think, and leave you extremely satisfied.

Calpurnia, the only girl from a family of seven children, fights to find her way in the world and discover what has meaning for her life. She also begins to realize the stereotypical expectations for girls of that time. But, she is determined to make her life count for more than tatting, sewing, and cooking. You will discover that some of the ways people think and act are timeless.

Jacqueline Kelly is a practicing physician and lawyer, and this is her first novel. I really hope she keeps writing!

War-Themed Graphic Texts

2010-07-04T15:01:00.000-07:00

Today being July 4th, I thought it would be fitting to take a first look (and revisit) some graphic novels that would not only be appealing to teens but fit nicely in the ELA curriculum and promote cross-curricular collaborations.

I just finished Refresh, Refresh which was written by Danica Novgordoff based off the award-winning short story by Benjamin Percy (also adapted into a screenplay by James Ponsoldt). [the graphic novel has also been honored: one of the top 10 graphic novels by USA Today, ALA great graphic novel for teens,The Young Adult Round Table (YART) of the Texas Library Association (TLA) named it A Texas Maverick Graphic Novel.]

The story centers on three teenage boys--Josh, Cody, and Gordon--living in Oregon whose Marine reservist fathers are fighting in the Iraq War. The boys, trying to stay strong and prove they are men (to themselves and their absent fathers) engage in increasingly self-destructive behaviors as the novel progresses.

I won't give away the ending, but this novel is one that left me feeling hollow . . . in a good way. There is so much teachers could do with this novel, although I would love a multi-point of view war study unit, which would include the next title, one of my favorites of all time: Pride of Baghdad.

Pride of Baghdad (Vertigo) is the powerful grahic novel written by Brian K. Vaughan with art and cover by Niko Henrichon, and edited by Will Dennis. In this allegorical tale Vaughan recounts how a pride of lions escaped from the Baghdad zoo after a 2003 US bombing raid. Confused, hungry, and scared the animals roamed the streets before being killed by US soldiers.

The artwork is breathtaking.

The story is horrific.

We (a ninth grade teacher and I) are actually going to use this novel to open up the school year. The students have had a hard time with "taking action" after reading many of the books we have taught, Ties that Bind comes to mind, because either the book is set too far in the past or too far away, geographically. However, we are using this novel as a springboard to social justice/action oriented research [sadly, we have some recent and present issues relating to animals that we can work from--Katrina and the Gulf oil spill].

I HIGHLY recommend this graphic novel--if you haven't read it, you need to.

Finally, I am left with Howard Zinn's (with Paul Buhle and Mike Konopacki) A People's History of the American Empire, which I bought last summer and never got around to reading. With his passing this year and my re-reading of Pride of Baghdad, I pulled it from the shelf--and it fits nicely with my war-themed graphic novel talk.

A colleague in social studies education and I are going to have our methods students collaborate and co-plan their unit plan this fall in methods and Zinn's book is one that we are going to list as an option (all units must include a YA title).

The book opens with the September 11th attack as a prolouge and then begins from "our" beginning, note the irony ("The Internal Empire") and goes all the way up to Bush II and Guantanamo Bay. The graphics are amazing, combinations of black and white photos with comic illustrations, maps, primary documents, etc. There's even a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg narrated by Viggo Mortensen as a supplemtnal text.

For supporting work, there's also the American Empire Project: http://www.americanempireproject.com/americanempireproject.htm.

Copper Sun

2010-07-03T13:24:00.000-07:00

Wow, wow, wow. Holy friggin' moly, is this book good. It's gut-wrenching--made me feel angry, sorrowful, solemn, dejected--and made me hate White people. And I'm White. (Well, not all White people. Just mean, racist ones).

Copper Sun weaves together the stories of Amari, a teenaged African girl stolen from her homeland (after she witnesses the slaughter of her family/village), and Polly, a White teenaged girl who is an indentured servant. Polly must pay off the indenture of her deceased parents. Amari and Polly are thrown together on Mr. Derby's plantation in South Carolina. Mr. Derby tells Polly she must teach Amari how to speak English and, at first, Polly is appalled that she must work with a slave and not serve in the "big house." Slowly, however, the two become friends, and as Polly witnesses the brutality and violence of slave-life, she becomes an ally to Amari and other slaves on the plantation. Amari and the other slaves start to see, too, that not all Whites have it so good, although as Amari reminds Polly, she could escape whenever she wanted to and not lose her life for it. Amari reminds Polly throughout the novel that, while they have some things in common, Polly's skin color will always protect her.

Sharon Draper says she spent years doing research for this novel, and I believe it. The story feels unapologetically authentic--it doesn't skimp on the details of the brutal acts committed in the name of slavery, especially those against African women who were sex toys to their White masters by night and chattel by day. A student in my YA class read Copper Sun last year and said the book made her "feel" what slavery must have been like. Like me, she was emotionally impacted by the story--it's got an impact like Toni Morrison's Beloved, a classic contemporary slave narrative that you continue to think about for a long time after the last page is turned.

You can see Sharon Draper's website here: http://sharondraper.com/

Reviews of Copper Sun are here http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/0689821816.asp
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6298133.html

You can also learn more about the Coretta Scott King book awards here: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/rts/emiert/cskbookawards/about.cfm

If you're looking for something to read on this July 4th weekend, consider Copper Sun.

Mal Peet

2010-07-02T19:23:00.000-07:00

If you don't know about Mal Peet, you'll want to. Relatively new on the YA scene, Englishman Mal Peet's first YA novel, Keeper, was published in 2003, followed by Tamar in 2005. I actually read Tamar first and LOVED it. It's about Dutch resistance fighters during WWII, the consequences of war, the consequences of being alienated and disconnected from the past. I use it with Judy Blundell's What I Saw and How I Lied, Fletcher's Ten Cents a Dance, Sherri Smith's Flygirl, and Art Spiegelman's Maus in small-group literature circles when I do historical fiction in my young adult lit. class. All of these novels provide a unique perspective on the WWII time period, letting us hear the oft-neglected voices and stories of those people who weren't American (male) soldiers or Holocaust survivors of WWII, but were also effected by the war in complex ways. There's a good review of Tamar here: http://writingwrongs.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/review-tamar-by-mal-peet/

and Peet talks about the book here: http://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm?author_number=1481

Keeper is about a famous soccer player called "El Gato" (the Cat) who, as goalkeeper, has just helped his team win the World Cup. I didn't watch a single bit of the soccer madness over the last couple of weeks. I just don't give a whit about soccer. But this book makes me wish I at least knew what a penalty kick is, or how the defensive line works, or what a forward does. I get the idea, and that's probably because Peet's writing about the game is so breath-taking. You can tell Peet's a real soccer fan. But this book, as all good sports YA books are, is about much more than soccer. There's the ghost in the jungle who trains "El Gato," there's the relentless journalist after a good story (and a fat bonus), and then there's all that clear-cutting going on in Gato's village...lots of stuff to think about here. I'd recommend putting this in the classroom library, or use it in differentiated whole-class instruction if your thematic goals involve exploring the intersections among Third World poverty, corporate exploitation, environmental destruction, and sports. I found out about the book through Teaching for Change's suggested summer reading list: http://bbpbooks.teachingforchange.org/

The journalist who interviews "El Gato" in Keeper pops up again in Peet's next book, The Penalty, about a teenage football prodigy. Haven't read this one, but plan to. Word on the street is that Peet's most recent novel, published in 2008--called Exposure--is about a Black football player and was inspired by Shakespeare's Othello. Add it to the stack.

I also like what Mal Peet says about how he got started writing for adolescents: "Like many people (I suspect) I had no real interest in children's literature until I had children of my own. It'll sound a bit evangelical, I suppose, but I truly believe that there are few things more important, useful, and protective than sharing stories with your children. After their bath, heaped into a big, deep chair, doing the voices, discussing the pictures, softening your voice as the rhythm of their breathing deepens. . . . You start to understand why certain books work and others don't."

His books work!!

The right amount of gay?

2010-07-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

Ellen Wittlinger has written a provocative piece in the July/August The Horn Book Magazine in which she responds to the Lambda Literary Foundation's decision to only give their yearly award for LGBT books to LGBT-identified authors.

Wittlinger is the author of three books that have been nominated in the past--one of which won (Hard Love). She writes: "Winning an award is not the bottom line here. What this new policy feels like to me is a misunderstanding of my intentions in writing the books I do and a rejection of my abilities as a writer. When I speak to students in Kansas City and Spokane (and maybe someday even in South Carolina) and when these teens read my books, I am sometimes the first author they’ve encountered who is willing to address the topics of sexual and gender identity. And they are hungry to talk about it."

So, if this the new policy, suppose Will Grayson, Will Grayson wins . . . what then?

Middle School YA Lit?

2010-06-30T17:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, I admit it: I am a snob and lazy. As much as I know I should read more "middle school" YA literature, I just find it hard to do. I was never a middle school teacher and haven't spent any extended time in a middle school since I was in eighth grade (1982, I think). I love high school! I love YA and Alex award winners that push the boundaries. So, what do I with middle school YA lit?

I received a copy of Torrey Maldonado's Secret Saturdays recently and picked it up after a very happy reading of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate--which I loved.

However, I just am having a hard time with Secret Saturdays.

His book has gotten some good endorsements, and two very good reviews on amazon.com, but I am not loving it but I think it is because I (a) don't know how middle schoolers, especially sixth graders talk; (b) don't know how urban, big city middle schoolers talk; (c) don't know how middle schoolers think.

I am just over halfway through and am curious to learn the mystery of the secret Saturdays. I do think this novel, subject-wise, would resonate with many students: bullying, self-image, doing the right thing, single-parents.

I am curious if anyone has read this book yet and can tell me if it is authentic.

Little Brother

2010-06-29T17:23:00.000-07:00

Finally got around to reading Cory Doctorow's spin on privacy and security in the age of the Internet, Homeland Security, and the Patriot Act. An intriguing read, but I had to really drag myself through it. I don't think the writing's that great--I couldn't pin down W1n5t0n (aka M1k37, aka Marcus Yallow) as a character, couldn't imagine him (see him in my head), couldn't really come to care about him. The pacing was up and down, and I just couldn't wrap my head around a lot of the techno-speak about hacking, arphids, and LARPing (although the VampMob sounded very, very cool. I want a cape, or a Gothic Lolita maid's dress, and some elaborate kabuki eye makeup).

Reviews of the book and lots of other good stuff (including free downloads of the book) can be found here: craphound.com/littlebrother

I will say this, though: reading Little Brother makes me want to go and read George Orwell's classic 1984. I'm not ashamed to say, I've never read 1984. But now I want to. In the back of Little Brother, Doctorow says:

This book couldn't have been written if not for George Orwell's magnificent, world changing Nineteen Eighty-Four, the best novel ever published on how societies go wrong. I read this book when I was 12 and have read it 30 or 40 times since, and every time, I get something new out of it. Orwell was a master of storytelling and was clearly sick over the totalitarian state that had emerged in the Soviet Union. Nineteen Eighty-Four holds up today as a genuinely frightening work of science fiction, and it is one of the novels that literally changed the world. Today, "Orwellian" is synonymous with a state of ubiquitous survelliance, doublethink, and torture.

I can't wait to go read 1984 and see how Doctorow played off of and appropriated Orwell's ideas for today. This is what I love about young adult literature, especially YA lit that is inspired by and dialogues with older classics. It keeps the conversation going, showing how themes written about in books published decades and centuries ago are still relevant today. I think if YA lit can make teens (and adults) want to go read and discover the classics--well, that's saying something.

2010-06-29T15:00:00.000-07:00

Saw this bumper sticker on car today. Must get.

Found it here: http://www.bumperart.com/ProductDetails.aspx?SKU=2004082101&productID=8801

Wonder if I could make my own: (Some) (Not Enough) English Teachers Are YA Novel Lovers

A Real Life Lesson: Students' Inability to "Find" Books to Read

2010-06-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

Today is one of my favorite days in our summer reading program: Barnes and Noble Day! We set aside money each year to take the high school students to Barnes and Noble to buy books. Each student is allowed up to $15 to pick any type of book he or she wants. I encourage my YA lit students to help--letting the class out 1.5 hours early. I provide my students with tape recorders and flip cameras to "record" their conversations with the teens: What book are you looking for? What type of book do you want to buy? Do you have any favorite authors?

The questions start there, but what my students quickly find out is that it can be hard for them to help the high school students find books. One female student stared at the teen section shelves.

"Can I help you find something?" I ask.

"I want a scary book," she replied.

"Okay," I say. "What type of scary would you like? Monster? Vampire? Blood and guts? Teenagers involved?"

NOTHING. Not a sound.

It was clear that she had no idea what type of scary she wanted. I pressed on.

"If it was a movie, what type of scary movie do you think you would want to see?"

Still nothing.

At that point, another student came up and I grabbed a Lois Duncan book and asked her to read the back and let me know if this was the type of scary she was looking for.

This scene was being played over and over throughout the store. I could tell by my students' faces--and the way the high school kids looked lost.

After the bus took the high school students back to campus, my students stayed behind with me, voicing their frustration over not being able to help the kids (six of us tried to help one student--he ended up getting a nice sketch book instead of a book to read).

Gretchen Dougherty** writes, "One thing that I have taken for granted as a lifelong reader is how I choose books that are right for me and that I know I will enjoy. I noticed that this skill does not come naturally for many of my unmotivated and uncommitted readers. Non-readers are unfamiliar with different authors and genres, and they don’t know how to use the book itself to determine whether or not they might enjoy reading it. These students also have unformed ideas about the types of books that might interest them."

For students to know what they want or like to read, they need exposure to and many opportunities to read for pleausre--without the penalty of lost points for AR. Without a 10 question quiz. Without the mandatory book report. This problem is compounded for our students who are reading several grades below level. They don't like to let others see them reading "baby books." So, they often don't read, not realizing the consequences that lie ahead.

I hope that the experience today stays with my students as they enter their methods block this fall and student teaching in the spring--and their own classrooms down the road.

**http://www.otterbein.edu/education/JTIR/volumeII/dougherty.pdf

What Every Student Deserves

2010-06-27T07:18:00.001-07:00

By the time the all of the preservice teachers in our program have graduated, they have had me for at least two courses (YA lit and Methods), so I apologize in every course if they hear me repeat my mantra: "Every student deserves an AP education."

I was lucky enough to go through middle and high school in the advanced/honors/ AP track. At times, like when considering whether or not to take a "harder" science, I opted out (i.e., had the choice) of AP Physics and went for the easy Marine Biology. I was in an insulated world--I had no clue and didn't think to ask what all my non-honors peers were doing in their classes.

And, it wasn't until my second teaching position that I fully realized the different (tracking) worlds in our country's high schools.

At that school (one with an IB program), not only were the "upper" track students given more resouces, so were their teachers. Who knew there were fewer resources for regular teachers like myself!? This is when I first started using YA literature in the classroom [provided with only the textbook and a a classic title or two, I raided the department closet and borrowed novels from my friend who taught pre-IB classes]. But, I didn't just teach them "for fun," I taught them using the same ideas and resources I had learned in my AP training at Duke several years before.

That became the foundation for my beliefs as an English/reading teacher.

So, when I teach YA lit classes, I bring literary theories to the table [there are several fantastic resources for teaching YA lit with literary theories; two I like are Lisa Schade Eckert's How Does It Mean? Engaging Reluctant Readers Through Literary Theory and Anna Soter's Young Adult Literature and the New Literary Theories: Developing Critical Readers in Middle School].

My students and I start with reading for enjoyment, move to reader response, and then dive in deeper with applicable theories. My hope is that these ideas will "stick" when they are classroom teachers and they will not resort to low-level, "right there" questions. Each week, I ask them to write reflections based on the novels we read and the discussions we have had in class.

The reality here (in Alabama) is that YA literature is not read in many classes. The state standards pretty much dictate what is read in each grade and the list is pretty narrow (and identical to what Applebee reported back in 1993). So, my students will teach the classics, whether or not their students are interested in or can read them. My hope is that they can convince their administrators to bring in YA lit as a bridge. And, I do have hope, based on my students' reflections:

"Overall this first week has taught me how to keep my mind open to different theories and connections within texts. Copper Sun, Sold, Little Brother, and Mister Pip contain themes that work across texts but also themes that are particular to their own. By applying literary theories to texts and by finding connections between young adult literature and classic literature an instructor can effectively teach their students ways of thinking critically and may even motivate them to enjoy canonical literature a little more."

One of the most interesting and fun activities was completing the “Literary Theories/Critical Approaches to Literature” worksheet. This activity was done as a group, and it allowed me to interact and discuss the stories with the other members of my group. I found that one questioning idea led to another, and in my particular group, we were springing ideas off each other’s comments. This activity also made the information previously presented more interesting and helpful in analyzing the stories, a coming together of information presented with the selections read. I especially liked completing the hand-out with my group. Each member of the group was spinning his/her ideas off the other’s comments. Looking at the two stories side by side, developing higher order, open ended questions allowed for a good analysis of the stories. This also stimulated ideas for discussion for other activities that could be done in the classroom. It was, for me, an activity that I wanted to take more time to complete because I felt that there was a coherent bringing in of the previously taught information in a meaningful and helpful resource for next year’s classes.

I liked The Hunger Games best—I found the narrator most believable, and the story most compelling. [It] was an exciting, novel approach to a coming of age/hero’s journey novel complete with a fairly well-formed new world. I found many literary and social collective allusions in the novel, and could think of many different novels that it could be taught in repertory with Ten Mile River and Black & White.

Book Whispering

2010-06-26T14:49:00.000-07:00

From Donalyn Miller's book, The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child:

We have worked so hard to develop systems to teach reading, yet I claim that we had no justification for systematizing an act like reading in the first place. The only groups served by current trends to produce endless programs for teaching reading are the publishing and testing companies who make billions of dollars from their programs and tests. It is horrifying that the people who have the corner on getting children to read--children's book authors, parents, and teachers--get the least credit monetarily or otherwise.

I believe that this corporate machinery of scripted programs, comprehension worksheets (reproducibles, handouts, printables, whatever you want to call them), computer-based incentive packages, and test-practice curricula facilitate a solid bottom line for the companies that sell them. These programs may deceive schools into believing that they are using every available resource to teach reading, but ultimately, they are doomed to fail because they overlook what is most important. When you take a forklift and shovel off the programs, underneath it all is a child reading a book.

Keeping the Reader Alive

2010-06-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

I'm doing some reading on struggling readers in preparation for one of the summer classes I start teaching on July 8th, so I'm finally getting around to reading Anne Reeve's wonderful book, Adolesents Talk About Reading: Exploring Resistance to and Engagement with Text. I love what she says about Sting, one of the adolescents profiled in the book, (and inherently, Sting's English teachers):

Some people's commitment to reading is robust enough to withstand years of boredom with institutionally required texts, but others, such as Sting, who seem to derive almost no nourishment whatsoever from English class, need access to what they can absorb....The school risks suppressing Sting's reading and writing energies completely when it tries to redirect them toward academic goals that make no sense to him. (p. 68)

We need to understand that for a student such as Sting, one of our goals should be to keep the reader in him alive through adolescence, even when that goal requires compromising our commitment to teaching school texts. The contribution we can make to Sting's future lies not in the particular texts we admire and promote but in protecting the reader within him. (p. 69)

I love this idea of "keeping the reader alive" and "protecting the reader within" the adolescents we teach. This is where young adult literature is so important, as well as paying attention to what adolescents' out-of-school reading interests are. It means letting go of the Shakespeare if you have to (although there are lots of good YA spins on Shakespeare [check out Alan Gratz's Something Wicked and Something Rotten, Caroline B. Cooney's Enter Three Witches, Sharon Draper's Romiette and Julio] and even grapic novel versions of Shakespeare's plays [I love Gareth Hind's gorgeous versions of Beowulf and King Lear], so you may not have to let him go entirely if you can engage resistant readers through different kinds/levels/choices of texts).

As English teachers, we must always remember there are readers inside of the kids we teach (I like how Donalyn Miller, author of The Book Whisperer calls resistant readers "dormant" or "underground" readers). We're doing a pretty good job of killing off those readers--or the idea that reading can be pleasurable--through standardized testing and test remediation for students who score low on these tests. Kelly Gallagher calls it "readicide," the systematic killing of the love of reading. It's happening, right now, in every public school in this country. As English and language arts teachers, we've got to do our part to show adolescents there are other, more personal, more meaningful reasons/purposes/values for reading than to pass a test, go to college, or be considered "literate" at the next cocktail party. We need to bring--with apologies to Justin Timberlake--"sexy back" to reading. And by that I mean bring back the idea in schools that reading can be pleasurable, leisurely, and fun.

YA Hatin'

2010-06-24T17:30:00.000-07:00

I recently stumbled upon Patrick Ness's brilliant YA sci-fi (cyberpunk? )novel, "The Knife of Never Letting Go," (thanks to New Yorker article on dystopian YA fiction). It's the first book in the Chaos Walking trilogy. Sadly, I just finished book 2, and found out the 3rd isn't due out until fall (September 28, 2010, to be exact). There really is an actual physical sadness I'm experiencing, knowing I can't get back into Todd and Viola's world any time soon (unless I go back and re-read book 1, which I might just very well do).

Because I've been so enamored with the books, I've been curious to see what other reviewers are saying. And that's how I found this bit of YA hatin', from Frank Boyce for The Guardian:

If I have one quibble, it is that I think it should be sitting proudly on the shelf next to these books [Huck Finn, The Handmaid's Tale], rather than being hidden away in the "young adult" ghetto. There's been a lot of fury among authors recently about the proposal to "age-band" children's books, but in a way they're too late. The real disaster has already happened. It's called "young adult" fiction. It used to be the case that you moved on from children's fiction to adult fiction, from The Owl Service, maybe, to Catcher in the Rye. There were, of course, some adult authors who were more fashionable with teenage readers than others - Salinger, Vonnegut, Maya Angelou. But these were chosen by teenagers themselves from the vast world of books. Some time ago, someone saw that trend and turned it into a demographic. Fortunes were made but something crucial was lost. We have already ghettoised teenagers' tastes in music, in clothes and - God forgive us - in food. Can't we at least let them share our reading? Is there anything more depressing than the sight of a "young adult" bookshelf in the corner of the shop. It's the literary equivalent of the "kids' menu" - something that says "please don't bother the grown-ups". If To Kill a Mockingbird were published today, that's where it would be placed, among the chicken nuggets.

What?!? No he din't!

Yes he did. I think one of his points is that once a book gets tagged as YA, then only YAs will read it, and he really thinks "Knife" is such a great book, everyone--teens and adults alike--should read it. It's that good.

Because he agrees with me about the book, I can almost forgive him his nasty rant against YA lit. Almost.

He doesn't get that those of us who have been advocating for YA lit for a long time have been fighting just as long for that "young adult bookshelf" in the corner of the bookstore. We have wanted the separate bookshelf to highlight the amazing literature written just for teens, not adults--literature that does not just simply, as Boyce contends, "[reflect] the superficial concerns of that demographic." (What is superficial about racism? questions about identity? questions about war, revolution, good guys and bad guys? Is hope useful? Redemption possible? These are concerns that Ness takes up in "Knife," where two teen protagonists must figure this stuff out with little help from adults. In fact, true to YA form, it's the adults in the book who screw everything up in the first place).

I think books like Ness's make the point that YA lit isn't about dis-respecting teens, or telling them to "please don't bother the grown ups." Instead, I think it's very respectful of the adolescent, and the adolescent reader--people who, no longer kids and not yet adults, spend a lot of time thinking about out who they are, what the world is like, and what their place in the world will be. More importantly, these young people have the energy and ability to change the world--especially when, like Todd and Viola--they learn it's full of liars and NOISE.

More Thinking about the Series YA Novel

2010-06-24T16:21:00.000-07:00

So, Nicholas Carr has a new book out on what the Internet does to our brains ("The Shallows"), and in it he says screen reading and its inherent skimming, linking, and multitasking is undermining our ability to focus and immerse in what Carr calls "deep reading": A large part of what it means to be human, Carr writes, is our capacity for "deep reading," an ability bestowed on us by Gutenberg's printing press, which fostered an "intellectual tradition of solitary, single-minded concentration." Deep reading, which requires "sustained, unbroken attention to a single, static object," has for ages allowed people to make "their own associations, draw their own inferences and analogies, fostered their own ideas." The Internet works against this, Carr writes, and as a result we're becoming numb, less human, shallow, knowledge jugglers (from NPR review). (I'm thinking "The Shallows" would make a great non-fiction pairing with Patrick Ness's "The Knife of Never Letting Go" or M.T. Anderson's "Feed").

BUT what to make of this in light of supposed Internet-addicted teens' love of series novels? (see more on teens' love of series YA fiction here). Series novels require commitment and focus, immersion, longitudinal reading--isn't this "deep reading?" I mean, hello, remember those books about Harry Potter?? I don't remember seeing copies of those on the discount table at B&N. And look at how those Internet-addicted teens have actually appropriated the Internet to continue and sustain their interaction with Rowling's fiction: There's MuggleNet, there's a Harry Potter wiki, and there used to be an online newspaper called "The Daily Prophet," but not sure what its status is now (looks like it's been re-appropriated by Warner Brothers??).

I kinda wish screen reading/Internet culture critics would quit dichotomizing reading processes into screen reading vs. print-based or traditional reading. Why always pit the two against each other? They're not the same thing: we read books and e-books differently and for different reasons than we read websites on the Internet--all reading, just different. When will we get to a point where we talk about and celebrate the multiple and varied ways we read rather than try to pigeon-hole reading in increasingly narrow, limiting ways? Why be all doom and gloom about the new ways of reading that new Internet technologies require? It's kind of ironic: Internet reading critics and nay-sayers would have us be illiterate to save literacy. Ha! I crack myself up.

Printz Award Winner and Honor Books

2010-06-23T11:37:00.000-07:00

From year to year, the set of titles that make it to the top of the Printz award are interesting. Some years, I completely agree (like when John Green won for Looking for Alaska), while in other years I am surprised and left wondering (I won't name years for this).

In my YA lit class this summer, we read four of the five the final titles (I left Punkzilla off the reading list--no room).

The first book we read was Madman Underground. From there, we read The Monstrumologist, then Going Bovine. We finished the list with Charles and Emma this week.

Here are thoughts from some of my YA students:

And I thought And Then There Were None was an awesome horror novel! The Monstrumologist is incredible, though I was definitely scared out of my mind for half of the book! As far as teaching this novel goes, I think it would be fascinating to have it read aloud. There is so much action and suspense from beginning to end, and I think a class would fly through this book. If I was in high school and reading this book, I would LOVE my teacher for letting us read something so unique and engaging.
*****
As for the books, the winner in my mind is definitely Tales of the Madman Underground. Don’t get me wrong, I thought The Rock and the River was excellent. However I enjoyed “Madman” more because the characters are just so complex. Karl is so incredibly witty and I loved the jokes, the language, everything that kid thought or said worked for me. At the same time, he lives this difficult life and can be so dark and cold, but it all weaves in and out perfectly. The same thing goes for his mom, Beth. You have these scenes of her just being the worst mom and doing terrible things to Karl that had me hating her. Then you get these glimpses of her being “normal” and caring and really protecting her son. I don’t know about anyone else but as much as I wanted to hate her fully, I had moments where I just felt sorry for her and you kind of realize she’s just mixed up, too. Repeat everything I just wrote about Beth for Coach Gratz. We are painted a picture of this guy just being a real jerk, (I won’t call him what Karl does), but again there are moments where you see he is in fact human after all.
*****
I think my absolute favorite book so far (and possibly going on my list of favorite books in general) is Tales of the Madman Underground. The main character is so different, and so endearing. It reminds me a lot of Keesha’s House in that it is relaying the stories of all these different kids with troubled lives, who carry on as normal as they can. I know that this story is told extremely well because of the fact that I am a reader who cannot relate at all with the situations of these kids and yet I empathize with them and desire to know more of their stories. I feel like I know them the way any reader should know their characters.
****
I chose Barnes’ Tales of the Madman Underground, and I was glad I did. I am a pretty slow reader, but I read the book in about two or three sittings. I really liked it for a lot of reasons. The narrator was clever, and he was very personable. While reading, I really felt like this kid was opening up to me. It was like I was listening to a recording he made of each day.
While I was reading, I thought about how this book applied to so many different people: misfits, athletes, ‘socials’ as Barnes’ named them, parents, and teachers. It was interesting to see how many types of kids were in the Madman Underground. It gave several accounts of how people from seemingly different backgrounds had more in common than anyone would think. The story showed how students could be brought together through their individual struggles. One student may have problems with anything from just being sad and another may have a family member with boundary issues, but they all recognized how hard like could be for each other, and took care of one another. It was really kind of a cool way to show a bond between an eclectic group of friends.
****
The books we covered this week were Going Bovine (my new favorite), and Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith. I cannot lie, I have not finished Charles and Emma yet, but it is promising and I am interested to see how the story unfolds. Going Bovine is, by far, one of my new favorite books of all time. I never stopped laughing from beginning to end. I was sitting in the library reading it and on more than one occasion, I laughed out loud to point of having to be “shushed” by my peers. I could not get enough of every part of this book. The characters were brilliant, for lack of a better word, and the development of the story was enthralling; I never wanted it to end. I instantly fell in love with Cameron. No seriously, I had a crush on him throughout the book! The thick sarcasm was perfect and accurately depicted the mind of a sixteen year old boy as I would imagine it. The author, Libba Bray, could not have written that story in a better way. It was creative and enticing, leaving the readers with a sense of self-fulfillment through Cameron’s journey of life and death. I think the intended audience ranges to every person with the ability to pick up a book and read the words on the page; this book is limitless and also an inspiration. Though the surface of the book is awesome, there is a deeper element present that made me realize how important it is to not let life pass you by until it is almost over. Cameron taught us that life is too precious for us to simply wait around until it happens. I believe that readers of all kinds and preferences, no matter their qualms with reading, would enjoy this book to the full. I will definitely keep a copy with me at all times and recommend it to everyone I meet.

How I (and my students and their students) Am Spending My Summer Vacation

2010-06-17T17:23:00.001-07:00

A recent USA Today news story opened with the quote "Can a $50 stack of paperback books do as much for a child's academic fortunes as a $3,000 stint in summer school?"

I don't know about a $50 stack of books, but what about one book (@$7.99) and four weeks working closely with preservice English teachers?

***********

We are two weeks in to a four week free summer reading program for rising 9th and 10th grade students in our town. I got the idea when I came to Alabama in 2005 after reading about the success of programs in the Baltimore area.

The summer is critical for all students, but especially poor students and students of color. Consider the following statistics from www.summerlearning.org/:

--All young people experience learning losses when they do not engage in educational activities during the summer. Research shows that students typically score lower on standardized tests at the end of summer vacation than they do on the same tests at the beginning of summer vacation (Cooper, 1996).

--Low-income children and youth experience greater summer learning losses than their higher income peers. On average, middle-income students experience slight gains in reading performance over the summer months. Low-income students experience an average summer learning loss in reading achievement of over two months (Cooper, 1996).

--Summer learning loss contributes to the achievement gap in reading performance between lower and higher income children and youth. Research demonstrates that while student achievement for both middle- and lower-income students improves at similar rates during the school year, low-income students experience cumulative summer learning losses over the elementary school grades (Alexander & Entwisle, 1996).

--Large numbers of students who qualify for federally subsidized meals do not have the same level of access to nutritious meals during the summer as they do during the school year. Only one in five (21.1 per 100) of the 15.3 million children who receive free or reduced-price school lunches on a typical day during the regular school year participate in federal nutrition programs during the summer (Food Research and Action Center, 2002).

--Studies show that out-of-school time is a dangerous time for unsupervised children and teens. They are more likely to use alcohol, drugs, and tobacco; engage in criminal and other high-risk behaviors; receive poor grades; and drop out of school than those who have the opportunity to benefit from constructive activities supervised by responsible adults (Carnegie Council, 1994).

***********

I am working closely with a local high school's English department who identified the required summer reading novels--in this case YA novels (historical fiction for ninth graders and realistic fiction for tenth graders)--and then students enrolled in my YA literature class "teach" the novels over the month of June. **I added a common title (Keesha's House) to bring the two grades together.

It is amazing to watch. The fifteen students in my class range from juniors with little to no education courses under their belts to master's students getting ready to graduate with their second English education degree. They collaborate, teach, reflect, collaborate, teach, reflect--a looping process that occurs every day of the week. Many of them had not had much experience with YA novels until now (except for the Harry Potter fans). To see them see the power of YA lit and the limitless instructional possibilities gives me hope for the future.

It is also amazing to see the students transform. I'll be honest, many are there because their parents are forcing them to (or because if they don't attend, they'll be stuck babysitting younger siblings all summer). Hey, we'll take them! By the end of the second day, they are hooked!

Today was the fourth day that we had them for reading and on the way in off the bus one young 9th grade male asked me if I had another book like Keesha's House. I asked whether he meant the topic or the format. He said the format because he can't "read when the words go all across and down the page."

So, during a break, I went to my office and got a copy of Sold for him. On the way out to leave, he asked if I had any more that were like the stories in Keesha's House!! I have also been doing raffles each day, and the one day I forgot, boy, did they let me know (which is a GREAT sign that they are enjoying the reading).

As soon as I can, I will post some pictures and video clips from our time together. I will also be posting excerpts of the students' (mine and the high schoolers) work.

******

Free summer reading programs-ones that are more than remediation--are hard to find for students. With increased budget cuts, I fear that there will be nothing for many students in the summer other than "summer school" which more and more is being reduced to little more than worksheets and babysitting.

The Series YA Novel

2010-06-17T16:59:00.000-07:00

Some local teachers and I recently polled middle school students in a private and public school setting to see what kinds of young adult literature they choose to read on their own (as in, not for school or in school). Our findings will be published in the 2010 summer issue of SIGNAL Journal http://www.kennesaw.edu/english/education/signal/Home.htm, but we thought we'd tell you a little about them here, too.

Across the board, middle school students are choosing to read series YA novels--novels like The Seeing Stone Trilogy, The Spiderwick Chronicles, P.C. Casts' House of Night series, the Vampire Academy series, the Redwall series. Books like that. Books I'm not that familiar with. Books I haven't been reading or paying much attention to. Until now. These series fall predominantly in the genres of fantasy/supernatural (think King Arthur, Tolkien, and vampire romance), and we do have research that tells us these are teens' preferred genres.

But what is it about the series novel that draws teen readers? (or adult readers for that matter? I just finished Stieg Larsson's "Girl" trilogy and can attest to the pull of the series novel. I think, for me, the draw is knowing the story continues and I don't have to say goodbye to a character I have come to know and love [and invested in] when the first book's over. There's something luxurious about the longitudinal reading experience, the longer stretch of time that a series allows. There's depth there, too--a chance to wade in, let the water hit high before heading back to shore. Of course, maybe this is also about my own hoarding tendencies?).

I love what Victor Watson writes in Reading Series Fiction: Watson likens series reading to "going into a room full of friends." This might help explain why reluctant or less confident readers might like series--it's scary to go into a room full of people (a book) you don't know. So much to learn, so much to pay attention to. So much nicer to recognize the friendly face, get the nod, and pick up where you last left off. Watson says series reading is the most important continuous reading young people can do on their own. He says it's central to young readers discovering that "fiction can provide a complex variety of profoundly private pleasures, and that these pleasures are repeatable and entirely within the reader's control." Ah. Repeatable Pleasure. Reader Control. We already know that other "C" word so important to teen reading: "Choice." Maybe we need to pay more attention to this idea of control, too. I imagine teens don't feel like much, if any, of the school reading they do is in their control. Like Teri Lesesne says in her new book Reading Ladders, a lot of school reading is vertical reading, where we "move ever upward" from stuff we like to read straight to difficult classics, with teens having very little say in the matter.

These ideas about reading pleasure and control are interesting to me because there's a (small) part of my English teacher identity (or non-conformist identity? or anti-consumerist identity?) that wants to pooh-pooh the series novel. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I've never read the Harry Potter series, probably because it's a series and everyone else was doing it. Or Twilight for that matter. Yes, I did read the first one, and saw the first movie, but after that I just couldn't stick with it. I think part of the problem for me is all the marketing and consumerism tied up with the books (and maybe lack of more visible critique outside academia?). The gobs of money changing hands. And can we please turn on the TV or open a newspaper without seeing Kristen Stewart or Robert Pattinson? (I want the Lifetime movie Kristen Stewart back!) :) And I resisted the Stieg Larsson trilogy for as long as I could, but then read a NYTimes reviewer whom I trust, who said he was sad to see the trilogy end. I thought, well, maybe I should give this a try. And I'm glad I did. But I swear, if I see a Lisbeth Salander action-figure (oh wait. that could be kinda cool). :) I digress.

Henry Jenkins talks about "commodity culture," where marketers promote a sense of fan affiliation with fictional worlds and then exploit this affiliation through the marketing of consumable goods. Jenkins says such gooods offer empty promises of deeper levels of involvement with the story's content and other media users. Where's the control there? the pleasure? Who controls the pleasure? (who pleasures the controller? stop me!!). I think it's this "empty promise" stuff that worries/bothers me...maybe it shouldn't. I did have my fan crushes as a teen, and I knew no matter how many posters I put on my walls or how many objects I bought, it was all a fantasy of sorts. It was fun, it was silly. It was cliche--all my other girl friends were doing the same things, buying the same crap. Hmmm. Is that control? Consumer control? I need to think more about this and how it all relates to reading.

I do think we as English and reading teachers (and we are all reading teachers) need to start paying more attention to the series novel. Reading researcher Anne McGill-Franzen explains it’s the formulaic patterns of series books that can benefit a wide range of readers. McGill-Franzen explains that because series novels are “highly patterned,” readers notice reading conventions they might ordinarily miss or not understand in other kinds of texts (e.g., titles of chapters, dialogue or dialect, italics signifying change in point of view, etc.). Noticing such reading conventions can motivate readers to try on more complex literature. McGill-Franzen reports that as readers mature in both interest and reading skill, they will move from series books to more complex works. But Watson says we never outgrow the series novel; instead, we "grow into them." Hmmmm. I think he means we add the series genre to our textual repertoires?? It becomes one way of reading we recognize, appreciate, seek out at times, reject at others??

And Watson again: "Series-reading is always conscious and deliberate. You cannot read a series of twelve novels by chance. Deciding to read the next book in a series implies a commitment...[and] involves a special relationship between reader and writer which the reader has made a conscious decision to sustain."

Commitment, friendship, and textual conventions? Sounds like there's a lot to take seriously about the series novel.

What YA series novel are you currently reading? Tell us about it, and feel free to weigh in on why you think the series novel appeals to teen readers!

Picking Up Where Our Book Ends

2010-06-16T10:46:00.000-07:00

So. My good friend and colleague Lisa over at U of A and I are getting a book about young adult literature published by NCTE this fall (we're so excited!). The book was originally titled Not Just for Independent Reading Anymore: Teaching Young Adult Literature to the Whole Class through Differentiated Instruction. But our lovely editor said a wise marketing decision would be to shorten the title to Teaching YA Lit through Differentiated Instruction. Definitely shorter, but I'm not thrilled with it. The whole impetus for our book is to encourage English/language arts teachers to pull young adult literature (and adolescents' out-of-school lives) from the margins of classroom activity. Traditionally, young adult literature has been used for silent, independent reading or in small-group literature circle activities. Rarely--despite the sophistication of YA lit, and appeal to teen readers--is the young adult novel used in whole-class instruction. The YA novel is just not taken seriously by many English teachers, but we think it should be. We think it deserves careful literary study in the classroom. Not every YA novel, granted, but there are definitely a lot of great YA novels being published right now that deserve teachers' attention.

The book (coming out this fall from NCTE, in case you didn't catch that) will give teachers our pick of the best YA literature published since 2000. We provide a rationale to use for judging "quality" YA lit, and we provide differentiated reading strategies for teachers to consider when using the YA novels in whole-class instruction. It's a jam-packed book. We're excited about it (in case you didn't catch that, either).

This blog will pick up where the book leaves off. We get to keep our title, while you get to hear about more great YA novels! We (and other contributors) will continue to provide our top picks of good, contemporary YA lit for classroom instruction, and strategy ideas. We'll also wax poetic now and then about trends we see occurring in the genre. We hope to be a resource for teachers, as we continue to advocate for the use of YA lit in the classroom. Happy reading!