School shootings

Shooter by Walter Dean Myers is one of the first extremely successful multigenre novels that I’ve ever read. The novel tells the story of a high school shooting through police interviews, psychologist interviews, newspaper articles, diary entries, and medical reports. You get a sense that you’re a reporter or detective simply looking through the files, trying to figure out objectively what happened on that particular day. The three main first-person perspectives, from the 3 interviews and collection diary entries, are all those of self-proclaimed “outsiders,” students who feel alienated and isolated from their peers. This is the perspective of a lot of teen novels, as teens tend to worry so much about being included and part of a group, but Shooter gives this scenario a weight that made it powerful for me.

This book would be useful in a classroom talking about genre, while still dealing with very relevant teen issues. I love writers that experiment with genre, but not to make it easier for the reader. I really enjoyed Shooter because the multiple perspectives required a lot of work on the reader’s part. The violent nature of the book makes me wary of giving it to students much younger than 16, and the diary section takes on a lot of metaphor that would be appropriate to older students.Walter Dean Myers is definitely a force in the YA lit world, and from what I've seen, this book would be near the top of my list of his work to be read by teens.

Suggested grade level: 11^th grade

Appropriateness: strong violence, mention of sex

Experiencing death as a teenager....

Looking for Alaska by John Green tells the story of teenage Miles at a new boarding school he has chosen for himself in his search for "the Great Perhaps," as Rabelais put it. In his search for this mysterious grand future, he connects with roommate Chip, aka "the Colonel," and Alaska, a dangerous beauty that never wants to quite reveal her whole hand. This trio, along with their friends Takumi and Lara, form a sort of misfit band, smoking, drinking, and causing trouble where they can. At the climax of the story, Alaska leaves in the middle of the night after drinking heavily, crying and yelling about how sorry she is.
**Spoiler alert!**
Each chapter of the book is labeled "___ days before" or "___ days after," clearly marking the event that changed the development of every character in the story: Alaska's tragic and mysterious death that night. The rest of the novel honestly portrays the teenage attempts at grappling with death.

This book was beautifully written, and deals with a massive subject is a very creative way. When teens lose a peer, it is an entirely different experience and creates a new sense of community; they need to communicate with each other to realize that everyone else is just as confused and hopeless as they are, and that's okay. There were a lot of beautiful themes to this book, but I think my favorite was ambiguity and the acceptance thereof. From the very beginning, Miles leaves home looking for "the Great Perhaps." Considering the large amount of Buddhist philosophy later in the book, there was an obvious choice being made by choosing such an open-ended term to describe the future. This word choice sets up the entire central theme of ambiguity in a way that makes this novel undeniably YA--Miles must leave the safety of his childhood home to search out for himself the possibility of possibility, and find comfort in the ambiguity of adulthood. In one of their first conversations, Alaska poses to Miles a question about Simon Bolivar's last words--"How will I get out of this labyrinth?" Miles ponders the meaning of the labyrinth for the remainder of the novel, finally learning to accept that the labyrinth is living and dying and suffering and surviving, and we escape it with faith in the Great Perhaps. As John Green himself put it, "I was born into Bolivar’s labyrinth, and so I must believe in the hope of Rabelais’ Great Perhaps."
I would undoubtedly recommend this book to anyone with the time to read it thoroughly, and willing to spend the money on a copy to keep. There are passages in this book that I'm sure I will keep for years.

Recommended grade level: 10-12
Appropriateness: sexual content, drug use, language; has been challenged in schools, most likely making it more appropriate for an extracurricular read

Another play in the midst of madness

I'm going nuts trying to get a whole bunch of work done at once, along with two meetings tonight, so here goes nothing...

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds is a play by Paul Lindel with only three main characters, all of them female and at very different life stages. The play focuses on the growth of Tillie despite the dangerous influences of her old sister, Ruth, and unbalanced mother Beatrice. Only occasionally do Nanny-an elderly boarder in their home-, Janice-Tillie's rival at the science fair-, and Mr. Goodman-Tillie's science teacher- enter the scene. Beatrice ruminates almost constantly on her own failure in life, and makes it clear that she will force the same on bright, promising Tillie. The plot itself centers around Tillie's science fair project, exposing marigold seeds to radioactivity to see how the dangerous energy will effect their growth--and therein lies the central metaphor! Tillie has prerecorded voice-overs about the significance of every atom from the Big Bang as the source of all life.

As a piece of literature, this may not be a great fit for students that aren't otherwise theatrically oriented. The stage directions alone are dripping in symbolic language, and the theatrical element of the voice-overs combined with the very every day plot action of the play makes for a pretty heavy show. The extremely specific set layout makes me think that this is a show that would make more sense being performed and seen by an audience than read on the page. Overall, it was a play I really enjoyed as a theatre minor, and think is a great read for anyone involved in theatre, but it doesn't really fit the bill of a Young Adult novel--too focused on metaphor than perspective. It's a great story of development of a young adult, but as I have learned, that does not make a YA novel!

Recommended grade level: 10-11, theatre classes
Appropriateness: doesn't fit the YA bill, but effective for a theatre study in high schools

Perks quotes

Since I feel like I'm on a roll with this blogging business, I wanted to give a little teaser of some of my favorite The Perks of Being A Wallflower quotes, from Stephen Chbosky:

"I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn't try to sleep with people even if they could have. I need to know that these people exist.
I think you of all people would understand that because I think you of all people are alive and appreciated what that means. At least I hope you do because other people look to you for strength and friendship and it's that simple."

"So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."

"I have finished To Kill A Mockingbird. It is now my favorite book of all time, but then again, I always think that until I read another book."

"'Do you always think this much, Charlie?'
'Is that bad?' I just wanted someone to tell me the truth.
'Not necessarily. It's just that sometimes people use thought to not participate in life.'
'Is that bad?'
'Yes.'"

"'Charlie, we accept the love we think we deserve.'"

"I wasn't raised very religiously because my parents wen to Catholic school, but I do believe in God very much. I just never gave God a name, if you know what I mean. I hope I haven't let Him down regardless."

"There is a feeling that I had Friday night after the homecoming game that I don't know if I will ever be able to describe except to say that it is warm. Sam and Patrick drove me to the party that night, and I sat in the middle of Sam's pickup truck. Sam loves her pickup truck because I think it reminds her of her dad. The feeling I had happened when Sam told Patrick to find a station on the radio. And he kept getting commercials. And commercials. And a really bad song about love that had the word 'baby' in it. And then more commercials. And finally he found this really amazing song about this boy, and we all got quiet.
Sam tapped her hand on the steering wheel. Patrick held his hand outside the car and made air waves. And I just sat between them. After the song finished, I said something.
'I feel infinite.'
And Sam and Patrick looked at me like I said the greatest thing they ever heard. Because the song was that great and because we all really paid attention to it. Five minutes of a lifetime were truly spent, and we felt young in a good way. I have since bought the record, and I would tell you what it was, but truthfully, it's not the same unless you're driving to your first real party, and you're sitting in the middle seat of a pickup with two nice people when it starts to rain."

More to be added when I'm not so exhausted!

Here it goes!

Alright, to cool down from post-VMA Kanye-bashing, I'm here with my very first book review! I want to start with Dog Sees God by Bert V. Royal. I'm not a huge fan of the "typical" Young Adult novels, as I just tend to get bored around 20 pages in. So to attempt to remedy this, I'm experimenting with different genres, focusing right now on dramatic literature.

Dog Sees God is a play dealing with an ensemble of adolescent characters in the throes of teenage turmoil: drug/alcohol use, sex, homosexuality, bullying, and just growing up. What goes unstated, however, is the fact that this cast is the teen versions of Charles Schultz's Charlie Brown characters. In past productions, this show has had an all-star cast, including John Gallagher Jr, Michelle Trachtenberg, Anna Paquin, and America Ferrara, Eliza Dushku. There are subtle references along the way to the characters' identity, including CB writing to his old pen pal, an old dog dying of rabies having eaten his best friend-a little yellow bird-, and lighting fire to the red hair of a certain little girl. The references are hard to catch sometimes, but I imagine the visuals of a production would help clue in the audience.
This is a tear-jerker of a play, featuring characters that generations have grown up with in extreme emotional pain. They face very massive choices in a very believable way, and it will definitely hit home to any reader who remembers these characters. There is a shocker of an ending that brought tears to my eyes quicker than several scenes along the way, as well as being very theatrically interesting in its creative staging. This play is a great read, too, because it spells out many of the choices that other plays leave to actors, directors, producers, etc., that would necessitate actually seeing the play performed.

Recommended grade level: 10-12
Appropriateness: mature themes not appropriate for inside the classroom, but recommend for outside reading

Thank you for checking out my first installment of YA book reviews! Coming up on my "to-review" list will be Looking for Alaska as an assigned class read, as well as another play, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, and a special review of one of my all-time favorite books, The Perks of Being A Wallflower.

Upcoming Reviews!

Dog Sees God
Looking for Alaska
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds

Beginning a blog!

I'm here to start a little blog for my Adolescent in American Literature class, reviewing a book or two each week as I get through them! We're already two weeks into the class, so I have some catching up to do, but I'll try to address some basic plot points and the possible place each book could have in a high school classroom (I'm a secondary education/English major).

There are a lot of blogs out there for YA lit, as long as you're looking. There are an awful lot to sift through when looking for a particular genre or theme in a critical blog. I'm here to provide more of a random assortment of books as I work through them, working through many different genres and levels of YA lit. I want to experiment with different points of view and levels of experience for teenagers, not knowing what grade level I'll one day be teaching.