Quantum universes, universes existing simultaneously, each one spun into being by a choice, a happenstance in one or another. Quantum scientists contend that such universes exist, but can't find a way to get to them. A writer has the ability to spin a story into a million, well infinite, directions with the stroke of a pen and William Sleator is a master. In his novel, The Last Universe, Sleator plays with quantum mechanics, quantum universes and a very strangely behaving quantum garden.
Susan has to take of Gary, whether she wants to or not. How can she deny her dying brother's (not to mention her parents demands) to go into the garden created by their great-uncle. But strange things have begun to happen in the garden, plants that shouldn't grow in cold climate have sprung up overnight, lotus have filled the pond and the paths have begun to decide for themselves where they should lead. Guiding her brother's wheelchair into the maze, Susan is equally fascinated and frightened by the outcomes. Gary is excited by the possiblity that in one of the universes he will not be plagued by disease.
Toying with the universes and the theories of quantum mechanics, William Sleator has created a wonderfully suspenseful novel that you can't put down. "The twist at the end is entirely logical (if anything about quantum can be) and entirely shocking. Well-drawn characters and a believable story will catch and hold Sleator's fans and make new ones. Another solid entry from a deservedly popular author," says Elaine Fort Weischedel, Milton Public Library, MA in School Library Journal.
Just imagine how your universe might be affected by the decision to pick up and read this book or not. You never know where the path might lead.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Deadline by Chris Crutcher
This isn't a book about miracles, at least not the kind where the hero is saved from death so if you look only for "happy endings" skip Deadline by Chris Crutcher.
Being diagnosed with a rare and fatal blood disease, Ben Wolf decides that he doesn't want to live dependent on medicines and last ditch efforts to save him. He also decides that he doesn't want to put his family through the pain and decides to keep his illness a secret. He has decided to live life with gusto. He joins his high school football team, frustrates his government teacher and starts dating the girl most out of his league. Everything he does, he does with a Juggernaut-like determination. He is practically unstoppable on the football field, partly because he takes hits like no one else and partly because he goes as fast as he can.
But living with a secret of this magnitude definitely has an impact on his life and as he grows sicker, it takes it toll as well. His relationships suffer through his secretiveness and readers (as well as the characters themselves) are left to wonder how the story might have gone had Ben chosen to tell his family and closest friends the truth from the beginning.
"Emotionally spare but deeply touching, the relationship between Ben and his brother will resonate with many readers, while others may find the several strong father figures comforting. Secondary characters add humor and balance, though the government teacher's voice occasionally veers too far toward that of a right-wing pundit." said Chris Shoemaker of the New York Public Library in School Library Journal.
This is a book that I waited for with bated breath, not so much for the content as for the author. I love Christ Crutcher. He is the reason that I am willing to read books about sports and athletes. He writes with such ease that I understand exactly is going on athetically as well as how it affects the characters. I recommend him to anyone and every one. (By the way, I met him in person and he is as cool in person as he is on his myspace page.)
Being diagnosed with a rare and fatal blood disease, Ben Wolf decides that he doesn't want to live dependent on medicines and last ditch efforts to save him. He also decides that he doesn't want to put his family through the pain and decides to keep his illness a secret. He has decided to live life with gusto. He joins his high school football team, frustrates his government teacher and starts dating the girl most out of his league. Everything he does, he does with a Juggernaut-like determination. He is practically unstoppable on the football field, partly because he takes hits like no one else and partly because he goes as fast as he can.
But living with a secret of this magnitude definitely has an impact on his life and as he grows sicker, it takes it toll as well. His relationships suffer through his secretiveness and readers (as well as the characters themselves) are left to wonder how the story might have gone had Ben chosen to tell his family and closest friends the truth from the beginning.
"Emotionally spare but deeply touching, the relationship between Ben and his brother will resonate with many readers, while others may find the several strong father figures comforting. Secondary characters add humor and balance, though the government teacher's voice occasionally veers too far toward that of a right-wing pundit." said Chris Shoemaker of the New York Public Library in School Library Journal.
This is a book that I waited for with bated breath, not so much for the content as for the author. I love Christ Crutcher. He is the reason that I am willing to read books about sports and athletes. He writes with such ease that I understand exactly is going on athetically as well as how it affects the characters. I recommend him to anyone and every one. (By the way, I met him in person and he is as cool in person as he is on his myspace page.)
Long May She Reign by Ellen Emerson White
How would you feel if your mother was the most powerful person in the free world and she couldn't even save you from kidnappers? Meghan Powers was kidnapped and handcuffed in a mine shaft in the middle of nowhere and her mother, the President of the United States, refused to negotiate with the kidnappers. Meg, already with her knee smashed by the man she calls "the guy," was left to smash the bones in her hand to pull it free and escape. But this book isn't just about what happened in the thirteen days that she was missing, it's about her recovery, discovering herself and starting over again.
"...Meg embarks on her first year of college with the courage, wit, and strength of character seldom seen in so young a heroine. The novel is most effective in dealing with her chilling recollections of what happened and her fear that it will happen again....The dynamics of a family coping with crisis are also well defined....Meg shows readers that despite any problem they may encounter, life is still worth fighting for. All is all, this is an intense, suspenseful, and stirring read."--School Library Journal
Though the book is a massive 706 pages, you'll read every one feeling the intense urge for Meg to pull it all together and just generally for all of the first family and Meg's friends as they deal with life with a political celebrity. This isn't a truly political piece, but you do get a shot of life in the fishbowl at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I finished this in four days, but take your time, enjoy the snapshots of college life and root for the toughest, politically-savviest heroine you'll ever meet in a teen novel. Go, Meg!
"...Meg embarks on her first year of college with the courage, wit, and strength of character seldom seen in so young a heroine. The novel is most effective in dealing with her chilling recollections of what happened and her fear that it will happen again....The dynamics of a family coping with crisis are also well defined....Meg shows readers that despite any problem they may encounter, life is still worth fighting for. All is all, this is an intense, suspenseful, and stirring read."--School Library Journal
Though the book is a massive 706 pages, you'll read every one feeling the intense urge for Meg to pull it all together and just generally for all of the first family and Meg's friends as they deal with life with a political celebrity. This isn't a truly political piece, but you do get a shot of life in the fishbowl at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I finished this in four days, but take your time, enjoy the snapshots of college life and root for the toughest, politically-savviest heroine you'll ever meet in a teen novel. Go, Meg!
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Spy Goddess by Michael Spradlin
As teenager, life is never simple to start with and Rachel Buchanan is finding it out the hard way. Her absentee parents are seldom seen and her "friends" abandoned her to be arrested for joyriding in a stolen car. Facing the judge across the courtroom, sans parents, Rachel is outspoken and full of teen attitude, which nets her a choice: either go to a private school in Pennsyvania or go to juvenile hall.
The mysterious Blakthorn Academy is run by an enigmatic puzzle called Mr. Kim, who understands Rachel better than she does herself. It is populated by geniuses, harcases and those with no place else to go. The classes are different from any curriculum Rachel has ever seen and they make her "do gym" in the form of Tae Kwon Do.
When she overhears Mr. Kim talking to an FBI agent urgently about "the Book of Seraphim," Rachel knows something is up. When the headmaster disappears and the book is stolen, Rachel roars into action. Armed with only her wits and those of three classmates, Rachel sets out to rescue Mr. Kim.
"Although the characters are not terribly complex and the plot is fairly far-fetched, the book is an entertaining page-turner. Spradlin captures the perfect teenage voice in his protagonist; she is more than just a spoiled, fashion-conscious teen from Beverly Hills–she is the Spy Goddess–witty and smart with an edge. Overall, this is an intelligent, exciting mystery that will have broad appeal," said Leigh Ann Morlock, formerly of the Veronica School District in Oregon.1
Accessed from http://www.amazon.com/Spy-Goddess-Book-One-Live/dp/0060594098/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/105-9290560-1134821?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188508517&sr=8-3 on August 30,2008.
The mysterious Blakthorn Academy is run by an enigmatic puzzle called Mr. Kim, who understands Rachel better than she does herself. It is populated by geniuses, harcases and those with no place else to go. The classes are different from any curriculum Rachel has ever seen and they make her "do gym" in the form of Tae Kwon Do.
When she overhears Mr. Kim talking to an FBI agent urgently about "the Book of Seraphim," Rachel knows something is up. When the headmaster disappears and the book is stolen, Rachel roars into action. Armed with only her wits and those of three classmates, Rachel sets out to rescue Mr. Kim.
"Although the characters are not terribly complex and the plot is fairly far-fetched, the book is an entertaining page-turner. Spradlin captures the perfect teenage voice in his protagonist; she is more than just a spoiled, fashion-conscious teen from Beverly Hills–she is the Spy Goddess–witty and smart with an edge. Overall, this is an intelligent, exciting mystery that will have broad appeal," said Leigh Ann Morlock, formerly of the Veronica School District in Oregon.1
Accessed from http://www.amazon.com/Spy-Goddess-Book-One-Live/dp/0060594098/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/105-9290560-1134821?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188508517&sr=8-3 on August 30,2008.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Traces (Series) By Malcolm Rose
"Rose, a chemistry professor, makes the forensic science a gripping part of this entry in the new Traces series, set in a near-future world where Authorities raise kids in boarding school and everything is controlled by computer technology."1 The science aspect is definitely the driving force behind this series, more so than in the television based "CSI" series written by Max Allen Collins. That is not to say that the characters are not vibrant or compelling. Luke Harding is a recently graduated forensic investigator with a free-floating robot assistant named Malc, whom Luke considers to be his best friend, though the robot has no sense of humor and records and transmits information about their cases to the Authorities. Sometimes assisting him also is his cladestine musician girlfriend, Jade, whose "senior project" on spotlight sound helped Luke nab a budding serial killer.
Though the series is written for young adults, Rose doesn't mince on the science. The clues are there, but until you, like Luke, put it together, the mystery is winding. Sometimes it seems as though Rose is making a subtle commentary about govenrment control and how people have been willing to give up personal freedoms for what seems like safety. In this society, the Authorities take children from their parents, who then usually disappear from their children's lives, raise them in schools, where their academic learning and talent determines not only their future professions butalso ultimately determines who they will be "paired" with at the age of eighteen. Luke and Jade are themselves a pair that would not put together because Luke is a scientist and Jade a musician. Age is also a dtermining factor for the "Pairing Committee" who determine who gets paired.
This is a good series and fun to read. It is quick paced and anyone is fair game, even Luke and Malc don't always escape the wrath of the villain unscathed. The puzzles are as interesting as they are challenging and that makes book worth the reading. (Also at the bottom of the page is a flip motion image that travels across the page. Every time it's a little something related to the story.) Titles in this series include: Framed!, Lost Bullet, Roll Call, Double Check, and Final Lap (in that order). The next book in the series will be titled Blood Brother and be released in January 2008.
1 Hazel Rochman. http://www.amazon.com/Framed-Traces-Malcolm-Rose/dp/075345971X/ref=pd_sim_b_1_img/105-7838602-1362028. Accessed 21 July 2007.
Though the series is written for young adults, Rose doesn't mince on the science. The clues are there, but until you, like Luke, put it together, the mystery is winding. Sometimes it seems as though Rose is making a subtle commentary about govenrment control and how people have been willing to give up personal freedoms for what seems like safety. In this society, the Authorities take children from their parents, who then usually disappear from their children's lives, raise them in schools, where their academic learning and talent determines not only their future professions butalso ultimately determines who they will be "paired" with at the age of eighteen. Luke and Jade are themselves a pair that would not put together because Luke is a scientist and Jade a musician. Age is also a dtermining factor for the "Pairing Committee" who determine who gets paired.
This is a good series and fun to read. It is quick paced and anyone is fair game, even Luke and Malc don't always escape the wrath of the villain unscathed. The puzzles are as interesting as they are challenging and that makes book worth the reading. (Also at the bottom of the page is a flip motion image that travels across the page. Every time it's a little something related to the story.) Titles in this series include: Framed!, Lost Bullet, Roll Call, Double Check, and Final Lap (in that order). The next book in the series will be titled Blood Brother and be released in January 2008.
1 Hazel Rochman. http://www.amazon.com/Framed-Traces-Malcolm-Rose/dp/075345971X/ref=pd_sim_b_1_img/105-7838602-1362028. Accessed 21 July 2007.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Vintage by Steve Berman
Holly Black, author of Tithe and the New York Times bestselling Spiderwick Chronicles
"A witty, shuddersome, and extraordinary book that haunts as it charms."
This is a creepy book. From its goth main character to the creepier ghost who haunts him, Berman has created a terrifically complicated book with characters who are almost living they are so complex and so simple.
A lonely gay teen, kicked out by his parents and afraid to tell his aunt why lest she reject him too, finds himself alone on a deserted stretch of road, well, not totally alone. He finds himself in the company of a teenager in vintage fifties garb and is attracted to this stranger. But he soon realizes that all is not well, because this good-looking stranger is actually the legendary ghost of a high school jock killed in the fifties. When the ghost follows him home, the teen and his friends find themselves under siege by spirits. When he falls for Second Mike, who was named after First Mike (his own brother), the teen realizes that he has to get the ghost to leave him alone.
This is a good book to read if you like realistic problems, because it is messy, but manages to instill a little hope in a situation that isn't always the easiest (i.e. coming out to a loved one). While the medium aspect is a little beyond the norm, the book is good.
Read the amazon.com blurb and book description. The author has arranged that 1/5 of the royalties from Vintage will be donated to charities helping gay teens:10% will be donated to the GSA Network, which assists Gay-Straight Student Alliances in high schools; another 10% donated to the Trevor Project, which works to prevent suicide among gay youth.
"A witty, shuddersome, and extraordinary book that haunts as it charms."
This is a creepy book. From its goth main character to the creepier ghost who haunts him, Berman has created a terrifically complicated book with characters who are almost living they are so complex and so simple.
A lonely gay teen, kicked out by his parents and afraid to tell his aunt why lest she reject him too, finds himself alone on a deserted stretch of road, well, not totally alone. He finds himself in the company of a teenager in vintage fifties garb and is attracted to this stranger. But he soon realizes that all is not well, because this good-looking stranger is actually the legendary ghost of a high school jock killed in the fifties. When the ghost follows him home, the teen and his friends find themselves under siege by spirits. When he falls for Second Mike, who was named after First Mike (his own brother), the teen realizes that he has to get the ghost to leave him alone.
This is a good book to read if you like realistic problems, because it is messy, but manages to instill a little hope in a situation that isn't always the easiest (i.e. coming out to a loved one). While the medium aspect is a little beyond the norm, the book is good.
Read the amazon.com blurb and book description. The author has arranged that 1/5 of the royalties from Vintage will be donated to charities helping gay teens:10% will be donated to the GSA Network, which assists Gay-Straight Student Alliances in high schools; another 10% donated to the Trevor Project, which works to prevent suicide among gay youth.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
The Secret Life of Samantha McGregor: #1 Bad Connection by Melody Carlson
"With more and more interest in the supernatural (such as TV shows like Medium and Ghost Whisperer), The Secret Life of Samantha McGregor series looks at supernatural gifts from a strong Christian perspective."1
Carlson's "Bad Connection" is an example of a good connection, the connection between an interesting topical issue and well-written characters that both comes off the page and pulls the reader into the page. Sam is a character who has a lot of issues to overcome a drug using older brother, a hard-working mother struggling to make ends meet and a policeman father who was killed in the line of duty.
When a former friend goes missing and rumors abound, Sam McGregor begins having disturbing visions of girls in trouble. A strong Christian, Sam worries that her visions, which she has had since childhood might be getting her into more trouble than she can handle. Sam contacts her father's former partner, now a detective working the missing girl's case and is pleasantly surprised when she is taken seriously, though it is kept a secret. As Sam's visions grow more and more disturbing her relationship with her mother and her friends change and grow stronger.
This is a good book and the first in a series from an accomplished and experienced Christian author. I have already read the second in the series "Beyond Reach" and can't wait for the third, which is due out later this year.
1 http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=526929&event=ECF
Carlson's "Bad Connection" is an example of a good connection, the connection between an interesting topical issue and well-written characters that both comes off the page and pulls the reader into the page. Sam is a character who has a lot of issues to overcome a drug using older brother, a hard-working mother struggling to make ends meet and a policeman father who was killed in the line of duty.
When a former friend goes missing and rumors abound, Sam McGregor begins having disturbing visions of girls in trouble. A strong Christian, Sam worries that her visions, which she has had since childhood might be getting her into more trouble than she can handle. Sam contacts her father's former partner, now a detective working the missing girl's case and is pleasantly surprised when she is taken seriously, though it is kept a secret. As Sam's visions grow more and more disturbing her relationship with her mother and her friends change and grow stronger.
This is a good book and the first in a series from an accomplished and experienced Christian author. I have already read the second in the series "Beyond Reach" and can't wait for the third, which is due out later this year.
1 http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=526929&event=ECF
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Wizard Heir by Cinda Williams Chima
A sixteen year old orphan wizard without a teacher finds himself at a school for troubled teens (and teen wizards). Sounds a touch familiar doesn't it? Harry Potter-ish perhaps? Well, the premise is sort of the same. Seph McCauley has no one to train him, the only parent he ever knew (his foster mother) has died and strange things keep happening around him. His magical abilities are growing out of control from the first. When one of his teenage friends dies after a discharge of magic, Seph's guardians, a law firm places him at the Havens, a school for wayward boys, some of whom are "weir" and some "anaweir." Weir means magical and anaweir means muggle, oops, non-magical.
Like Harry Potter, Seph faces more challenges while he is at school, but unlike Harry, Seph has landed in a nest of vipers. Tortured from the onset of school, Seph makes his plans to escape, makes a new friend and loses an ally. But the story really begins when he is rescued from the school by his legal guardian, who just happens to be an enchanter. The bad guys don't give up the chase, however, and soon Seph is hiding in plain sight in Trinity, Ohio, with a cool cast of weir friends.
While the premise is very familiar, the language of the book is written more for teens than for children. Though some characters in the book are killed, it is not always as simple as it seems. "Chima is a talented storyteller. She keeps her large cast of sorcerers, seers, enchanters, warriors and wizards from becoming fuzzy, and executes no cheap magical moves - although a certain "unnoticeable charm" smacks of another child wizard's invisibility cloak." 1
1 Welch, Rollie. "Author's good vs. evil sequel is a sterling heir to the original" The Plain Dealer. Sunday, May 13, 2007. Last accessed on May 15, 2007 at http://www.cleveland.com/bookreviews/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/entertainment/117895877437400.xml&coll=2.
Like Harry Potter, Seph faces more challenges while he is at school, but unlike Harry, Seph has landed in a nest of vipers. Tortured from the onset of school, Seph makes his plans to escape, makes a new friend and loses an ally. But the story really begins when he is rescued from the school by his legal guardian, who just happens to be an enchanter. The bad guys don't give up the chase, however, and soon Seph is hiding in plain sight in Trinity, Ohio, with a cool cast of weir friends.
While the premise is very familiar, the language of the book is written more for teens than for children. Though some characters in the book are killed, it is not always as simple as it seems. "Chima is a talented storyteller. She keeps her large cast of sorcerers, seers, enchanters, warriors and wizards from becoming fuzzy, and executes no cheap magical moves - although a certain "unnoticeable charm" smacks of another child wizard's invisibility cloak." 1
1 Welch, Rollie. "Author's good vs. evil sequel is a sterling heir to the original" The Plain Dealer. Sunday, May 13, 2007. Last accessed on May 15, 2007 at http://www.cleveland.com/bookreviews/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/entertainment/117895877437400.xml&coll=2.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Topic 6: Class Dismissed!: High School Poems by Mel Glenn
Glenn, Mel. 1982. Class Dismissed!: High School Poems. New York: Clarion Books. ISBN: 0899190758.
Mel Glenn’s first book, CLASS DISMISSED!: HIGH SCHOOL POEMS, which was published in 1982, is a book of poems that are sometimes interconnected, though not always. The poems are written in free verse. Each poem represents the voice and experience of one student, which allowed Glenn to provide a multicultural cross-section of a typical high school. Glenn, a now retired high school English teacher, explores topics like poverty, college fears, fights with parents, teen sex, cheating, and violence with a students’ voice. Many poems were accompanied by a black and white still photo taken by a vice principal of real high school students at a Brooklyn high school. The photographs help the reader put a face on the speaker of the poem, though because this book was published in the 80s, the styles, both clothes and hair, prove somewhat amusing.
The way that Glenn interconnects the poems is interesting, with characters inflicting damage on each other by accident or on purpose. The effect is very similar to real life where students struggle to define themselves and create a place for them in the whole. For example, in “Allen Greshner,” Allen calls a girl named Tracy, to ask her to the prom. For some reason he can not understand, she refuses. He all the while is trying to figure out what is wrong with him. In the very next poem, “Maria Preosi,” Maria, Tracy’s sister, “accepted calmly, meekly, / My position in her shadow / And did not even whisper a syllable of revenge.” (Glenn, 35.) In “Jeanette Jaffe,” the speaker is a young woman who has a crush on her French teacher, who happens to be married. “Last week I put a letter in his mailbox, / Saying on paper what I was afraid to say in person.” (Glenn, 45.)
Glenn writes both humorous and very tragic poems, which demonstrate his ability to express clever turns of phrase with ease. In “Bernard Pearlman,” (Glenn, 88.) the young man uses mathematical and statistics terms to create a very funny diversion to precede the next poem, a sad commentary on life in the U.S. from the perspective of a Vietnamese immigrant. “I have see children with bloated bellies cry, / with no strength left to make sounds….In this new country my body grows. / But at school I look into the faces around me, / Wide-eyed, well-fed, unblinking. / How could they know? / How could they not know? / America, Land of the Free, Home of the Ignorant.”(Glenn, 89.) Glenn moved on with his poetry. “From this collection design it was a natural progression to develop a story with each character giving a viewpoint of the conflict. Characters expanded to include school personnel, such as guidance counselors and teachers. Glenn managed to take diverse viewpoints written in free verse and create a cohesive and suspenseful story.”(Chance, 34.) This book is easy to read because Glenn uses language exactly as the high school student would and this enables each character to speak directly to the reader in a natural flowing rhythm.
Reference List:
Glenn, Mel. 1982. “Maria Preosi,” In Class Dismissed! High School Poems. New York: Clarion Books,35.
Glenn, Mel. 1982. “Jeanette Jaffe,” In Class Dismissed! High School Poems. New York: Clarion Books, 45.
Glenn, Mel. 1982. “Bernard Pearlman,” In Class Dismissed! High School Poems. New York: Clarion Books, 88.
Glenn, Mel. 1982. “Song Vu Chin,” In Class Dismissed! High School Poems. New York: Clarion Books, 89.
Chance, Rosemary. 2004. “Novels in Verse for Teens: A Poetry Phenomenon.” Mississippi Libraries Vol. 68 No. 2 (Summer) 34.
Mel Glenn’s first book, CLASS DISMISSED!: HIGH SCHOOL POEMS, which was published in 1982, is a book of poems that are sometimes interconnected, though not always. The poems are written in free verse. Each poem represents the voice and experience of one student, which allowed Glenn to provide a multicultural cross-section of a typical high school. Glenn, a now retired high school English teacher, explores topics like poverty, college fears, fights with parents, teen sex, cheating, and violence with a students’ voice. Many poems were accompanied by a black and white still photo taken by a vice principal of real high school students at a Brooklyn high school. The photographs help the reader put a face on the speaker of the poem, though because this book was published in the 80s, the styles, both clothes and hair, prove somewhat amusing.
The way that Glenn interconnects the poems is interesting, with characters inflicting damage on each other by accident or on purpose. The effect is very similar to real life where students struggle to define themselves and create a place for them in the whole. For example, in “Allen Greshner,” Allen calls a girl named Tracy, to ask her to the prom. For some reason he can not understand, she refuses. He all the while is trying to figure out what is wrong with him. In the very next poem, “Maria Preosi,” Maria, Tracy’s sister, “accepted calmly, meekly, / My position in her shadow / And did not even whisper a syllable of revenge.” (Glenn, 35.) In “Jeanette Jaffe,” the speaker is a young woman who has a crush on her French teacher, who happens to be married. “Last week I put a letter in his mailbox, / Saying on paper what I was afraid to say in person.” (Glenn, 45.)
Glenn writes both humorous and very tragic poems, which demonstrate his ability to express clever turns of phrase with ease. In “Bernard Pearlman,” (Glenn, 88.) the young man uses mathematical and statistics terms to create a very funny diversion to precede the next poem, a sad commentary on life in the U.S. from the perspective of a Vietnamese immigrant. “I have see children with bloated bellies cry, / with no strength left to make sounds….In this new country my body grows. / But at school I look into the faces around me, / Wide-eyed, well-fed, unblinking. / How could they know? / How could they not know? / America, Land of the Free, Home of the Ignorant.”(Glenn, 89.) Glenn moved on with his poetry. “From this collection design it was a natural progression to develop a story with each character giving a viewpoint of the conflict. Characters expanded to include school personnel, such as guidance counselors and teachers. Glenn managed to take diverse viewpoints written in free verse and create a cohesive and suspenseful story.”(Chance, 34.) This book is easy to read because Glenn uses language exactly as the high school student would and this enables each character to speak directly to the reader in a natural flowing rhythm.
Reference List:
Glenn, Mel. 1982. “Maria Preosi,” In Class Dismissed! High School Poems. New York: Clarion Books,35.
Glenn, Mel. 1982. “Jeanette Jaffe,” In Class Dismissed! High School Poems. New York: Clarion Books, 45.
Glenn, Mel. 1982. “Bernard Pearlman,” In Class Dismissed! High School Poems. New York: Clarion Books, 88.
Glenn, Mel. 1982. “Song Vu Chin,” In Class Dismissed! High School Poems. New York: Clarion Books, 89.
Chance, Rosemary. 2004. “Novels in Verse for Teens: A Poetry Phenomenon.” Mississippi Libraries Vol. 68 No. 2 (Summer) 34.
Topic 6: Preposterous: Poems of Youth, selected by Paul Janezcko
Janeczko, Paul B. 1991. Preposterous: Poems of Youth. New York: Orchard Books. ISBN: 0531059014.
The poems in PREPOSTEROUS: POEMS OF YOUTH were selected by Paul Janeczko and include poems by people some young adults might know, such as Langston Hughes, Gary Soto or Robert Penn Warren, but the majority are not as well known. The poems are arranged more or less thematically, though sections are not labeled as being on one topic or another. The poems, though written by adults, express emotions and views held by many teens as they grow up. Most of the poems are written without rhyme, in a free verse style that reads as most people speak. “More than half of the over one hundred poems reflect a male point of view, perhaps indicating special appeal to older boys who often feel that poetry has little to offer them.” (Fader.)
Janeszko chose to title the book PREPOSTEROUS from one of the poems, written by Jim Hall about a boy dreaming that a girl with a “the Best….” list would list him under something besides, “Wittiest.”(Hall, 21.) Perhaps his thought was that someone, particularly an adult would find the poems and experiences they express to be preposterous. One poem, “Sister” by H. R. Coursen, attempts to capture the author’s experience being the only girl in a house of brothers, “Younger than they, / and not the same. / Girl growing amid/ a grove of brothers. / They took my dolls/ one day into their/ forbidden circle/ in the woods, / drove sticks/ into the cleared dirt, / and burned them/ at the stake.” (Coursen, 36.)For at least one reviewer, this calls to mind a certain younger brother.
The poems fit together as teenagers do in a school, some clashing and colliding as they try to find their own space, while others hang alone and separate on the page. Janezcko selected poems that require the reader to think about their own experiences and how they relate to the experiences of the poets, which is something that a good poem will do. The poems evoke the runaway emotions of young adulthood and the issues, like death, sex, love and despair, teenagers experience as they strive to adulthood. The result is a book that truly does seem preposterous in its attempt to capture a multitude of voices expressing their experiences as young adults and yet it pulls off the capture in a magnificent way.
Reference Lst:
Fader, Ellen. 1991. Review of Preposterous: Poems of Youth selected by Paul Janezcko. Horn Book Magazine, Vol. 67 Issue 4 (Jul/Aug), 471.
Hall, Jim. 1986. “Preposterous.” In Preposterous: Poems of Youth, selected by Paul Janezcko. New York: Orchard Books, 21.
Coursen, H. R. 1986. “Sister.” In Preposterous: Poems of Youth, selected by Paul Janezcko. New York: Orchard Books. 36.
The poems in PREPOSTEROUS: POEMS OF YOUTH were selected by Paul Janeczko and include poems by people some young adults might know, such as Langston Hughes, Gary Soto or Robert Penn Warren, but the majority are not as well known. The poems are arranged more or less thematically, though sections are not labeled as being on one topic or another. The poems, though written by adults, express emotions and views held by many teens as they grow up. Most of the poems are written without rhyme, in a free verse style that reads as most people speak. “More than half of the over one hundred poems reflect a male point of view, perhaps indicating special appeal to older boys who often feel that poetry has little to offer them.” (Fader.)
Janeszko chose to title the book PREPOSTEROUS from one of the poems, written by Jim Hall about a boy dreaming that a girl with a “the Best….” list would list him under something besides, “Wittiest.”(Hall, 21.) Perhaps his thought was that someone, particularly an adult would find the poems and experiences they express to be preposterous. One poem, “Sister” by H. R. Coursen, attempts to capture the author’s experience being the only girl in a house of brothers, “Younger than they, / and not the same. / Girl growing amid/ a grove of brothers. / They took my dolls/ one day into their/ forbidden circle/ in the woods, / drove sticks/ into the cleared dirt, / and burned them/ at the stake.” (Coursen, 36.)For at least one reviewer, this calls to mind a certain younger brother.
The poems fit together as teenagers do in a school, some clashing and colliding as they try to find their own space, while others hang alone and separate on the page. Janezcko selected poems that require the reader to think about their own experiences and how they relate to the experiences of the poets, which is something that a good poem will do. The poems evoke the runaway emotions of young adulthood and the issues, like death, sex, love and despair, teenagers experience as they strive to adulthood. The result is a book that truly does seem preposterous in its attempt to capture a multitude of voices expressing their experiences as young adults and yet it pulls off the capture in a magnificent way.
Reference Lst:
Fader, Ellen. 1991. Review of Preposterous: Poems of Youth selected by Paul Janezcko. Horn Book Magazine, Vol. 67 Issue 4 (Jul/Aug), 471.
Hall, Jim. 1986. “Preposterous.” In Preposterous: Poems of Youth, selected by Paul Janezcko. New York: Orchard Books, 21.
Coursen, H. R. 1986. “Sister.” In Preposterous: Poems of Youth, selected by Paul Janezcko. New York: Orchard Books. 36.
Topic 6: Tomorrowland: 10 Stories About the Future, ed. Michael Cart
Cart, Michael, ed. 1999. Tomorrowland: Ten Stories about the Future. New York: Scholastic Press. ISBN: 0590376780.
What does the future hold? Mankind has always wondered about this and men have tried everything possible to figure it out. With the Y2K close at hand, Michael Cart invited nine other authors to write a short story to express their theory, hope or vision of the future. The variety that he received spanned millennia, from Jon Scieszka’s story set in 33,001 B.C. to Gloria Skurzynski’s story set on Mars. The authors provide bleak visions where dogs and books are almost extinct, to hopeful visions where baseball will always be played. The stories all tackle one issue or another, issues often created by society. “Such different stories. Such different futures. Yet all of them contain the same implicit invitation to think about how the seeds of possibility we planted in the past and continue to sow in the present might blossom into the future.” (Cart, ix.)
Lois Lowry’s “Rage” is a story about who young man saw his grandfather become bitter after selling part of his land to government for a wildlife preserve. The government “had planned for Pop’s acreage to the west was for a kind of nature that had begun to evolve in our state and every other.” (Lowry, 97.) The betrayal leads to serious consequences for all involved. “Rage” is contrasted with the specter of hope that one monk shares with a novice monk at the turn of the first millennium. In “Night of the Plague” by James Cross Giblin, the bubonic plague ravages Europe, where one young monk wonders if the world is ending. As he faces a disease that is killing old and young alike, he realizes his own mortality and like one of the victims he is treating fears the disease means it is the end of the world. Asking an older monk what he thinks life will be like a thousand years from then, he ponders the older monk’s response. “’I have no idea,’ said Brother Paul. ‘But you can be certain of one thing; it will be very different.’”(Giblin, 167.) Taking hope from this the young monk goes back to his duties tending the ill in the infirmary, ready to give hope to the sick.
Science fiction is a genre that is stretched by the short stories included in this anthology. The stories are connected through a common theme, "visions of times to come."(Publisher’s Weekly.) One critic has mentioned the distinctive cover art for the story, “The attractive (well, to teens) cover art of a spaceship shoulder tattoo will reel readers in, and the stories will net them, hook, line, and sinker.” (Farber.) A detail that the reviewer didn’t mention was that the person, pictured looking out into space seems to be wearing a suit of armor that seems to be riveted, which ties the medieval story into the rockets in outer space stories. The stories run the gamut of human emotion, cautions the reader about societal dangers often taken for granted, and offers snatches of hope for the future.
Reference List:
Cart, Michael, ed. 1999. Tomorrowland: Ten Stories About the Future. New York: Scholastic Press.
Farber, Susan. 1999. Review of Tomorrowland: 10 Stories About the Future, ed. Michael Cart. School Library Journal. Available at: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=ba6kWDUAgn&isbn=0590376780&itm=1. Last Accessed 7 December 2004.
Giblin, James Cross. 1999. Night of the Plague. In Tomorrowland: 10 Stories About the Future, ed. Michael Cart. New York: Scholastic Press. 167.
Lowry, Lois. 1999. Rage. In Tomorrowland: 10 Stories About the Future, ed. Michael Cart. New York: Scholastic Press. 97.
___________. 1999. Review of Tomorrowland: 10 Stories About the Future, ed. Michael Cart. Publisher’s Weekly. (Oct.). Available at: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=ba6kWDUAgn&isbn=0590376780&itm=1. Last Accessed 7 December 2004.
What does the future hold? Mankind has always wondered about this and men have tried everything possible to figure it out. With the Y2K close at hand, Michael Cart invited nine other authors to write a short story to express their theory, hope or vision of the future. The variety that he received spanned millennia, from Jon Scieszka’s story set in 33,001 B.C. to Gloria Skurzynski’s story set on Mars. The authors provide bleak visions where dogs and books are almost extinct, to hopeful visions where baseball will always be played. The stories all tackle one issue or another, issues often created by society. “Such different stories. Such different futures. Yet all of them contain the same implicit invitation to think about how the seeds of possibility we planted in the past and continue to sow in the present might blossom into the future.” (Cart, ix.)
Lois Lowry’s “Rage” is a story about who young man saw his grandfather become bitter after selling part of his land to government for a wildlife preserve. The government “had planned for Pop’s acreage to the west was for a kind of nature that had begun to evolve in our state and every other.” (Lowry, 97.) The betrayal leads to serious consequences for all involved. “Rage” is contrasted with the specter of hope that one monk shares with a novice monk at the turn of the first millennium. In “Night of the Plague” by James Cross Giblin, the bubonic plague ravages Europe, where one young monk wonders if the world is ending. As he faces a disease that is killing old and young alike, he realizes his own mortality and like one of the victims he is treating fears the disease means it is the end of the world. Asking an older monk what he thinks life will be like a thousand years from then, he ponders the older monk’s response. “’I have no idea,’ said Brother Paul. ‘But you can be certain of one thing; it will be very different.’”(Giblin, 167.) Taking hope from this the young monk goes back to his duties tending the ill in the infirmary, ready to give hope to the sick.
Science fiction is a genre that is stretched by the short stories included in this anthology. The stories are connected through a common theme, "visions of times to come."(Publisher’s Weekly.) One critic has mentioned the distinctive cover art for the story, “The attractive (well, to teens) cover art of a spaceship shoulder tattoo will reel readers in, and the stories will net them, hook, line, and sinker.” (Farber.) A detail that the reviewer didn’t mention was that the person, pictured looking out into space seems to be wearing a suit of armor that seems to be riveted, which ties the medieval story into the rockets in outer space stories. The stories run the gamut of human emotion, cautions the reader about societal dangers often taken for granted, and offers snatches of hope for the future.
Reference List:
Cart, Michael, ed. 1999. Tomorrowland: Ten Stories About the Future. New York: Scholastic Press.
Farber, Susan. 1999. Review of Tomorrowland: 10 Stories About the Future, ed. Michael Cart. School Library Journal. Available at: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=ba6kWDUAgn&isbn=0590376780&itm=1. Last Accessed 7 December 2004.
Giblin, James Cross. 1999. Night of the Plague. In Tomorrowland: 10 Stories About the Future, ed. Michael Cart. New York: Scholastic Press. 167.
Lowry, Lois. 1999. Rage. In Tomorrowland: 10 Stories About the Future, ed. Michael Cart. New York: Scholastic Press. 97.
___________. 1999. Review of Tomorrowland: 10 Stories About the Future, ed. Michael Cart. Publisher’s Weekly. (Oct.). Available at: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=ba6kWDUAgn&isbn=0590376780&itm=1. Last Accessed 7 December 2004.
Sunday, November 28, 2004
Topic 5: Mary, Bloody Mary by Carolyn Meyer
Meyer, Carolyn. 1999. Mary, Bloody Mary. New York: Harcourt. ISBN: 0152019065.
In MARY, BLOODY MARY, Carolyn Meyer takes the reader back in time to meet one of history’s most unpopular queens. But the author takes the reader farther than the reign of Mary, instead going back to the point where King Henry VIII has decided to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. Mary struggles to deal with the fact that her father has separated her from her mother, declared her a bastard and has been “bewitched” by Anne Boleyn. The first person account gives new insight into the character of Mary, who was forced to renounce her Catholic faith, take care of the infant Elizabeth, and who lost almost all the people she had counted on in her young life. Uncertain of where she will live, what will be expected of her, and sometimes, even if she will live, Mary keeps track of the ever changing political climate by listening very carefully to what is being said around her. A historical note follows the story and explains what happens to Mary in the years following the one covered by the book.
“Meyer gives Mary, Henry, and Anne strong, distinct personalities and motives, enlivens historical events with closely observed details of dress and ceremony, and drives it all forward with engrossing emotional intensity” (Kirkus.) The emotional clashes between these three people is part of the draw of this novel. Almost anyone can tell you what happened to Anne Boleyn and that Mary would be queen, but Meyer’s portrayals give a human element to these real people that is missing from history texts. History texts studied by young adults often times do not mention that Mary was expected to care for Elizabeth or gloss over the hardships that the royals of this period faced. Meyer provides the emotional suspense of the political back and forth, including numerous arranged engagements, that swirled around Mary before the split of her parents and the plotting that followed the break. “The book captures the glamour and glitter of court life during the 1500s, as well as the sinister conspiracy that resulted when Mary's mother, Catherine of Aragon, bore no male heir.” (Johnson, 106.)
The novel is engrossing even though the outcome is generally obvious. Mary will survive her youth, but the effects that this turbulent portion of her life will cause her to slide to the extreme. “Some of it is repetitious, as undoubtedly court life was, but one comes away with a feeling for what it must have been like not only to live then, but to live as a person of royal blood squashed under the thumb of necessity and Anne Boleyn.” (Kirkus.) Meyer also foreshadows some of the coming events as she handles how Mary was responsible for caring for Elizabeth and the swirling emotions she had for the redheaded infant who loved her, but who represented all that she had been through. Readers are pulled into the story by the strong emotions and the human touch that each character is given.
Reference List:
Johnson, Nancy J. 2000. “Children’s Books: Discussing Compelling Characters.” Reading Teacher. Vol. 54 issue 1 (Sept.), 106-109.
2000. Review of Mary, Bloody Mary by Carolyn Meyer. Kirkus Reviews. Available at:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=Ft1eP5UAaj&isbn=0152164561&itm=1. Last Accessed 27 November 2004.
In MARY, BLOODY MARY, Carolyn Meyer takes the reader back in time to meet one of history’s most unpopular queens. But the author takes the reader farther than the reign of Mary, instead going back to the point where King Henry VIII has decided to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. Mary struggles to deal with the fact that her father has separated her from her mother, declared her a bastard and has been “bewitched” by Anne Boleyn. The first person account gives new insight into the character of Mary, who was forced to renounce her Catholic faith, take care of the infant Elizabeth, and who lost almost all the people she had counted on in her young life. Uncertain of where she will live, what will be expected of her, and sometimes, even if she will live, Mary keeps track of the ever changing political climate by listening very carefully to what is being said around her. A historical note follows the story and explains what happens to Mary in the years following the one covered by the book.
“Meyer gives Mary, Henry, and Anne strong, distinct personalities and motives, enlivens historical events with closely observed details of dress and ceremony, and drives it all forward with engrossing emotional intensity” (Kirkus.) The emotional clashes between these three people is part of the draw of this novel. Almost anyone can tell you what happened to Anne Boleyn and that Mary would be queen, but Meyer’s portrayals give a human element to these real people that is missing from history texts. History texts studied by young adults often times do not mention that Mary was expected to care for Elizabeth or gloss over the hardships that the royals of this period faced. Meyer provides the emotional suspense of the political back and forth, including numerous arranged engagements, that swirled around Mary before the split of her parents and the plotting that followed the break. “The book captures the glamour and glitter of court life during the 1500s, as well as the sinister conspiracy that resulted when Mary's mother, Catherine of Aragon, bore no male heir.” (Johnson, 106.)
The novel is engrossing even though the outcome is generally obvious. Mary will survive her youth, but the effects that this turbulent portion of her life will cause her to slide to the extreme. “Some of it is repetitious, as undoubtedly court life was, but one comes away with a feeling for what it must have been like not only to live then, but to live as a person of royal blood squashed under the thumb of necessity and Anne Boleyn.” (Kirkus.) Meyer also foreshadows some of the coming events as she handles how Mary was responsible for caring for Elizabeth and the swirling emotions she had for the redheaded infant who loved her, but who represented all that she had been through. Readers are pulled into the story by the strong emotions and the human touch that each character is given.
Reference List:
Johnson, Nancy J. 2000. “Children’s Books: Discussing Compelling Characters.” Reading Teacher. Vol. 54 issue 1 (Sept.), 106-109.
2000. Review of Mary, Bloody Mary by Carolyn Meyer. Kirkus Reviews. Available at:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=Ft1eP5UAaj&isbn=0152164561&itm=1. Last Accessed 27 November 2004.
Topic 5: The Printing Press by Milton Meltzer
Meltzer, Milton. 2003. Printing Press. New York: Benchmark Books.
ISBN: 076141536X.
Milton Meltzer takes young adult reader back to the 15th century for an examination in the development and evolution of the printing process in his nonfiction book, THE PRINTING PRESS. Meltzer has written text that is simple and easy to understand yet does not patronize or condescend by using language too easy for students. He also provides information in asides that define terms or provides information about important people. But Meltzer does not focus solely on the printing press as it was invented. He also explores the resulting evolution of information and societal changes stemming from the invention. “Meltzer emphasizes the more positive outcomes of the printing press. Science, religion, democracy, and exploration all benefited enormously from the widespread dissemination of information and knowledge that followed the advent of movable type.” (Kopple.)
THE PRINTING PRESS looks also at how people in history have used the invention of the printing press to bring about some form of social change. For example, “Bibles printed in vernacular languages rather than in Latin. Now people could read scriptures for themselves, said the Lutherans.”(Meltzer, 45.) Throughout history, reading was limited to the wealthy and to the clergy. With the advent of the printing press more and more people were able to learn to read. Meltzer also notes that even in England, English was not always understood from part of the country to the next, but that printers in their commercial interests had to make the language understandable if they wanted the book to sell. “In this work readers… will then see how in a variety of situations the printed word has influenced human behavior. Examples such as Tom Paine's Common Sense or William Lloyd Garrison's newspaper The Liberator are but two ways in which ideas were spread via publication. Meltzer touches upon a variety of such exemplars of the ways printing presses have been used to shift public opinion and shape history.” (Romaneck.)
Meltzer included a couple of websites that are related to the printing press as well as a bibliography. These important additions will aid students should they be working on a project, or simply interested in history and how it was shaped by the invention of the printing press. The evolution of print is touched on and its future role in society as well. Melzter’s easy handling of the subject material is enlightening and the information about famous people is interesting and relevant. It is interesting to note the famous people who began their careers as printers, Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman and Samuel Clemens and people who as printers made a difference in the way our country evolved, such as William Lloyd Garrison, founder of The Liberator, an anti-slavery publication, and the man who published “Frederick Douglass’s slave narrative and rise to leadership in the abolition movement.” (Meltzer, 100.) Meltzer also included images that have been printed on the press, images of ancient forms of writing and paintings of people important to the subject. These images break up the text and allow the reader to “rest” their eyes before moving on to the next section of text. This book would be natural selection for a history class as it contains information about a major instrument of change and also some information about forms of writing throughout history.
Reference List:
Meltzer, Milton. 2003. The Printing Press. New York: Benchmark Books.
Kopple, Jody. 2003. Review of The Printing Press by Milton Meltzer. Library Journal. Available at: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=Ft1eP5UAaj&isbn=076141536X&itm=1. Last accessed 27 November 2004.
Romaneck, Greg M. 2003. Review of The Printing Press by Milton Meltzer. Children’s Literature. Available at: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=Ft1eP5UAaj&isbn=076141536X&itm=1. Last accessed 27 November 2004.
ISBN: 076141536X.
Milton Meltzer takes young adult reader back to the 15th century for an examination in the development and evolution of the printing process in his nonfiction book, THE PRINTING PRESS. Meltzer has written text that is simple and easy to understand yet does not patronize or condescend by using language too easy for students. He also provides information in asides that define terms or provides information about important people. But Meltzer does not focus solely on the printing press as it was invented. He also explores the resulting evolution of information and societal changes stemming from the invention. “Meltzer emphasizes the more positive outcomes of the printing press. Science, religion, democracy, and exploration all benefited enormously from the widespread dissemination of information and knowledge that followed the advent of movable type.” (Kopple.)
THE PRINTING PRESS looks also at how people in history have used the invention of the printing press to bring about some form of social change. For example, “Bibles printed in vernacular languages rather than in Latin. Now people could read scriptures for themselves, said the Lutherans.”(Meltzer, 45.) Throughout history, reading was limited to the wealthy and to the clergy. With the advent of the printing press more and more people were able to learn to read. Meltzer also notes that even in England, English was not always understood from part of the country to the next, but that printers in their commercial interests had to make the language understandable if they wanted the book to sell. “In this work readers… will then see how in a variety of situations the printed word has influenced human behavior. Examples such as Tom Paine's Common Sense or William Lloyd Garrison's newspaper The Liberator are but two ways in which ideas were spread via publication. Meltzer touches upon a variety of such exemplars of the ways printing presses have been used to shift public opinion and shape history.” (Romaneck.)
Meltzer included a couple of websites that are related to the printing press as well as a bibliography. These important additions will aid students should they be working on a project, or simply interested in history and how it was shaped by the invention of the printing press. The evolution of print is touched on and its future role in society as well. Melzter’s easy handling of the subject material is enlightening and the information about famous people is interesting and relevant. It is interesting to note the famous people who began their careers as printers, Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman and Samuel Clemens and people who as printers made a difference in the way our country evolved, such as William Lloyd Garrison, founder of The Liberator, an anti-slavery publication, and the man who published “Frederick Douglass’s slave narrative and rise to leadership in the abolition movement.” (Meltzer, 100.) Meltzer also included images that have been printed on the press, images of ancient forms of writing and paintings of people important to the subject. These images break up the text and allow the reader to “rest” their eyes before moving on to the next section of text. This book would be natural selection for a history class as it contains information about a major instrument of change and also some information about forms of writing throughout history.
Reference List:
Meltzer, Milton. 2003. The Printing Press. New York: Benchmark Books.
Kopple, Jody. 2003. Review of The Printing Press by Milton Meltzer. Library Journal. Available at: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=Ft1eP5UAaj&isbn=076141536X&itm=1. Last accessed 27 November 2004.
Romaneck, Greg M. 2003. Review of The Printing Press by Milton Meltzer. Children’s Literature. Available at: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=Ft1eP5UAaj&isbn=076141536X&itm=1. Last accessed 27 November 2004.
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Topic 5: Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos
Gantos, Jack. 2002. Hole in My Life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN: 0374399883.
Jack Gantos’ novels for children are often funny and touching, so it is somewhat of a shock to read the author’s super-serious autobiography, HOLE IN MY LIFE. Covering only a small span of years, Gantos chronicles his life away from his parents to his stint in prison for dealing marijuana. Most of the tale deals with the trip from Puerto Rico to New York, smuggling hashish. Gantos describes how he was arrested for dealing the marijuana and the court process that sent him to prison. The story the authors relates pulls no punches and deals honestly with the harsh realities he faced in prison, including both physical and sexual violence, and the aftereffects that sometimes still haunt him. One critic has said, “It is as much a cautionary tale for adults as for kids. The lesson that Gantos wants adults to get is that we should not give up on kids who are in trouble. With the right help, and a lot of luck, they may survive and go on to become adults who make the world a better place.” (Nilsen, 82.)
Gantos’ narrative is touched by moments of poignancy that demonstrate how naïve a young man he was. “Like most kids I was aware that the world was filled with dangerous people, yet I wasn’t certain I could always spot them coming. My dad, however, was a deadeye when it came to spotting the outlaw class.” (Gantos, 5.) But the tale points out with a vivid brush how all that can change. “Dad’s keen eye for spotting criminals of all stripes was impressive. But it wasn’t perfect. He never pegged me for being one of them.” (Gantos, 7.) Both during the journey and throughout his time in prison, Gantos kept a journal. The first was used as evidence in court and the second was written between the lines of a prison copy of The Brothers Karamazov. He received the first back after writing for the court records, but the second he lost because the guard would not let him leave with prison property. “It was a joy to have new thoughts. And then I had a funny revelation that I really didn’t lose my journal entirely. That between the lines of new, free thoughts were compressed the secret memories of my days in prison.” (Gantos, 196.)
Gantos was always writer at heart, and the act of writing is a pivot point of the story. Whether he was journaling or creating fiction, writing was an activity that brought comfort and peace to Gantos. At first, after his release, he tried writing stories about the experiences and men he met there, "tired of all the blood and guts and hard lives and hard hearts." (Gantos, 198.) It is the journal that Gantos hopes lasts in that prison he left. “Now I wonder if that volume is still on the shelf. I hope so. That thought sustains me. I imagine some prisoner checking it out and reading my book within that book. And maybe he will add his thoughts, and maybe others will, too. Maybe the library will become filled with books with the trapped world of prisoner’s thoughts concealed between the lines.” (Gantos, 200.) The thought is the mark of the true writer. Gantos’ story is moving and sad and hard hitting. It is not for younger readers because of that very fact, but it is a book that teens and adults should read and discuss.
Reference list:
Gantos, Jack. 2002. Hole in My Life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Nilsen, Alleen Pace. 2002. Review of Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Vol. 46, Issue 1 (Sept.), 82.
Jack Gantos’ novels for children are often funny and touching, so it is somewhat of a shock to read the author’s super-serious autobiography, HOLE IN MY LIFE. Covering only a small span of years, Gantos chronicles his life away from his parents to his stint in prison for dealing marijuana. Most of the tale deals with the trip from Puerto Rico to New York, smuggling hashish. Gantos describes how he was arrested for dealing the marijuana and the court process that sent him to prison. The story the authors relates pulls no punches and deals honestly with the harsh realities he faced in prison, including both physical and sexual violence, and the aftereffects that sometimes still haunt him. One critic has said, “It is as much a cautionary tale for adults as for kids. The lesson that Gantos wants adults to get is that we should not give up on kids who are in trouble. With the right help, and a lot of luck, they may survive and go on to become adults who make the world a better place.” (Nilsen, 82.)
Gantos’ narrative is touched by moments of poignancy that demonstrate how naïve a young man he was. “Like most kids I was aware that the world was filled with dangerous people, yet I wasn’t certain I could always spot them coming. My dad, however, was a deadeye when it came to spotting the outlaw class.” (Gantos, 5.) But the tale points out with a vivid brush how all that can change. “Dad’s keen eye for spotting criminals of all stripes was impressive. But it wasn’t perfect. He never pegged me for being one of them.” (Gantos, 7.) Both during the journey and throughout his time in prison, Gantos kept a journal. The first was used as evidence in court and the second was written between the lines of a prison copy of The Brothers Karamazov. He received the first back after writing for the court records, but the second he lost because the guard would not let him leave with prison property. “It was a joy to have new thoughts. And then I had a funny revelation that I really didn’t lose my journal entirely. That between the lines of new, free thoughts were compressed the secret memories of my days in prison.” (Gantos, 196.)
Gantos was always writer at heart, and the act of writing is a pivot point of the story. Whether he was journaling or creating fiction, writing was an activity that brought comfort and peace to Gantos. At first, after his release, he tried writing stories about the experiences and men he met there, "tired of all the blood and guts and hard lives and hard hearts." (Gantos, 198.) It is the journal that Gantos hopes lasts in that prison he left. “Now I wonder if that volume is still on the shelf. I hope so. That thought sustains me. I imagine some prisoner checking it out and reading my book within that book. And maybe he will add his thoughts, and maybe others will, too. Maybe the library will become filled with books with the trapped world of prisoner’s thoughts concealed between the lines.” (Gantos, 200.) The thought is the mark of the true writer. Gantos’ story is moving and sad and hard hitting. It is not for younger readers because of that very fact, but it is a book that teens and adults should read and discuss.
Reference list:
Gantos, Jack. 2002. Hole in My Life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Nilsen, Alleen Pace. 2002. Review of Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Vol. 46, Issue 1 (Sept.), 82.
Topic 5: Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan *one page number illegible on copy, will be updated on Monday.
Ryan, Pam Munoz. 2000. Esperanza Rising. New York: Scholastic Press. ISBN: 0439120411.
ESPERANZA RISING by Pam Munoz Ryan is a novel following a young woman as she leavers her life at her family’s ranch, El Rancho de las Rosas, to travel to the Mexican farm worker camps in California. The book opens in 1924, but most of the story takes place in 1930, during the height of the Great Depression. Following a tragic reversal of fortune, Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their home and Abuelita, her grandmother, and travel with three of their former servants to California where they are promised work on a farm. Esperanza, who had previously been brought in a life of wealth and privilege, must learn how to cook, take care of babies and even how to sweep. As the story moves on through the year, Esperanza’s mother falls ill, protestors strike in the fields, and Esperanza learns what it means to be poor.
Ryan writes compelling story full of images beautiful and poignant. One of the scenes repeated through the novel has Esperanza laying on the ground, quiet and still, trying to hear the heartbeat of the earth. “She stared at Papa, not wanting to say a word. Not wanting to lose the sound. Not wanting to forget the feel of the heart of the valley.” (Ryan, 3.) She also uses two types of dolls in her story to illuminate the difference between the campesina (farm workers) and the lady of the rancho. The last gift that Esperanza’s Papa purchased for her birthday was a fine doll. She opened this present after her father was killed. “Finally, she opened the box she knew was the doll…the last thing Papa would ever give her. …She hugged the doll to her chest and walked out of the room, leaving all the other gifts behind.” (Ryan, 28.) Ryan also includes a doll made of yarn, which was available to the immigrant workers. Esperanza measures time differently to relate her story to Abuelita. “When Esperanza told Abuelita their story, about all that had happened to them, she didn’t measure time by the usual seasons. Instead, she told it as field-worker, in spans of fruits and vegetables and by what needed to be done to the land.” (Ryan, 246.)
“Set against the multi-ethnic labor-organizing era of the Depression, the story of Esperanza remaking herself is satisfyingly complete, including a dire illness and a difficult romance.” (Goldsmith, 171.) The imagery and easy language of Ryan’s storytelling adds a realistic edge to the dilemma that faced both the Mexican immigrants and the victims of the Depression. The social issue of the Mexican Repatriation and the Deportation Act of 1929 is approached realistically and humanly enough to show the effects of the racial prejudice that occurred at the time. Ryan explained in the author’s note how people that she talked to held no grudges as a result of that prejudice. “When I asked about prejudice I was told, ‘Sure there was prejudice, horrible prejudice, but that’s how things were then.” (Ryan, 261.) “Ryan fluidly juxtaposes world events… with one family’s will to survive—while introducing readers to Spanish words and Mexican customs.” (Publisher’s Weekly, XX.) This story was selected to be a Texas Bluebonnet book in 2002.
Reference List:
Ryan, Pam Munoz. 2000. Esperanza Rising. New York: Scholastic Press.
Goldsmith, Francesca. 2000. Review of Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan. School Library Journal Vol. 46 number 10 (October), 171.
2000. Review of Review of Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan. Publisher’s Weekly. Vol. 247 number 41 (9 October), XX.
ESPERANZA RISING by Pam Munoz Ryan is a novel following a young woman as she leavers her life at her family’s ranch, El Rancho de las Rosas, to travel to the Mexican farm worker camps in California. The book opens in 1924, but most of the story takes place in 1930, during the height of the Great Depression. Following a tragic reversal of fortune, Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their home and Abuelita, her grandmother, and travel with three of their former servants to California where they are promised work on a farm. Esperanza, who had previously been brought in a life of wealth and privilege, must learn how to cook, take care of babies and even how to sweep. As the story moves on through the year, Esperanza’s mother falls ill, protestors strike in the fields, and Esperanza learns what it means to be poor.
Ryan writes compelling story full of images beautiful and poignant. One of the scenes repeated through the novel has Esperanza laying on the ground, quiet and still, trying to hear the heartbeat of the earth. “She stared at Papa, not wanting to say a word. Not wanting to lose the sound. Not wanting to forget the feel of the heart of the valley.” (Ryan, 3.) She also uses two types of dolls in her story to illuminate the difference between the campesina (farm workers) and the lady of the rancho. The last gift that Esperanza’s Papa purchased for her birthday was a fine doll. She opened this present after her father was killed. “Finally, she opened the box she knew was the doll…the last thing Papa would ever give her. …She hugged the doll to her chest and walked out of the room, leaving all the other gifts behind.” (Ryan, 28.) Ryan also includes a doll made of yarn, which was available to the immigrant workers. Esperanza measures time differently to relate her story to Abuelita. “When Esperanza told Abuelita their story, about all that had happened to them, she didn’t measure time by the usual seasons. Instead, she told it as field-worker, in spans of fruits and vegetables and by what needed to be done to the land.” (Ryan, 246.)
“Set against the multi-ethnic labor-organizing era of the Depression, the story of Esperanza remaking herself is satisfyingly complete, including a dire illness and a difficult romance.” (Goldsmith, 171.) The imagery and easy language of Ryan’s storytelling adds a realistic edge to the dilemma that faced both the Mexican immigrants and the victims of the Depression. The social issue of the Mexican Repatriation and the Deportation Act of 1929 is approached realistically and humanly enough to show the effects of the racial prejudice that occurred at the time. Ryan explained in the author’s note how people that she talked to held no grudges as a result of that prejudice. “When I asked about prejudice I was told, ‘Sure there was prejudice, horrible prejudice, but that’s how things were then.” (Ryan, 261.) “Ryan fluidly juxtaposes world events… with one family’s will to survive—while introducing readers to Spanish words and Mexican customs.” (Publisher’s Weekly, XX.) This story was selected to be a Texas Bluebonnet book in 2002.
Reference List:
Ryan, Pam Munoz. 2000. Esperanza Rising. New York: Scholastic Press.
Goldsmith, Francesca. 2000. Review of Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan. School Library Journal Vol. 46 number 10 (October), 171.
2000. Review of Review of Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan. Publisher’s Weekly. Vol. 247 number 41 (9 October), XX.
Monday, November 22, 2004
Topic 4: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Card, Orson Scott. 1985. Ender’s Game. Rev. ed. 1991. New York: Tor Book. ISBN: 0312932081.
ENDER’S GAME by Orson Scott Card
In Orson Scott Card’s novel ENDER’S GAME, all of Earth is in grave peril of an invasion by an alien force known as the Buggers. In a world where families are limited to two children apiece and these children are fitted with a monitor that allows unseen military personnel to watch, see, hear and feel what the children feel, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin is unusual. He is most unusual in that he is a third child, has had his monitor in place for far longer than his brother or his sister, and at six years old, he is a certified genius. Ender is recruited by the military to take part in Battle School, a military-type school where cadets are trained to fight the Buggers. The novel chronicles the journey that makes, breaks and molds Ender into an unwilling and unwitting weapon in the interstellar war.
ENDER’S GAME is a tale “smoothly written, but morally disquieting.” (Pringle, 107.) The last battle has a predictable outcome, but Card’s ending gentles the cynical edge by allowing Ender to reunite with his sister, though it is a strained relationship, and by allowing Ender to take the last larva of the Bugger race with him as he travels from planet to planet as “Speaker for the Dead.” Card poses questions in a subtle manner that allows the reader to come to their own conclusion about how they want the future to turn out. Ender becomes a weapon for the adults of the novel, an experiment that had to be because only a child would unknowingly affect the downfall of an entire race.
The paradoxes of the novel spin around Ender. Ender fights to win, not to kill, and yet he does just that. He fought to defend himself on earth and in space to the point that he not only broke bones of his attackers, but also killed two attackers. The military never tells Ender directly what happened to the boys, so the effect is that Ender is still naïve and yet cynical because in his heart he knows. Called “a perfect juvenile power-fantasy for the age of computer games” (Pringle, 289.) ENDER’S GAME is a novel that starts out slow and builds with an intensity that draws the reluctant science fiction reader, like me, in. As for the “cynical composition” of the story, Pringles says that “Card tried to make amends in the expanded version and its sequels, making the hero into a genetic experiment who suffers terrible guilt after his genocidal act.”(Pringle, 289.)
Reference List:
Pringle, David. 1990. The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction. New York: Pharos Books. 107.
Pringle, David. 1996. The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: The Definitive Illustrated Guide. North Dighton, MA: JG Press. 289.
ENDER’S GAME by Orson Scott Card
In Orson Scott Card’s novel ENDER’S GAME, all of Earth is in grave peril of an invasion by an alien force known as the Buggers. In a world where families are limited to two children apiece and these children are fitted with a monitor that allows unseen military personnel to watch, see, hear and feel what the children feel, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin is unusual. He is most unusual in that he is a third child, has had his monitor in place for far longer than his brother or his sister, and at six years old, he is a certified genius. Ender is recruited by the military to take part in Battle School, a military-type school where cadets are trained to fight the Buggers. The novel chronicles the journey that makes, breaks and molds Ender into an unwilling and unwitting weapon in the interstellar war.
ENDER’S GAME is a tale “smoothly written, but morally disquieting.” (Pringle, 107.) The last battle has a predictable outcome, but Card’s ending gentles the cynical edge by allowing Ender to reunite with his sister, though it is a strained relationship, and by allowing Ender to take the last larva of the Bugger race with him as he travels from planet to planet as “Speaker for the Dead.” Card poses questions in a subtle manner that allows the reader to come to their own conclusion about how they want the future to turn out. Ender becomes a weapon for the adults of the novel, an experiment that had to be because only a child would unknowingly affect the downfall of an entire race.
The paradoxes of the novel spin around Ender. Ender fights to win, not to kill, and yet he does just that. He fought to defend himself on earth and in space to the point that he not only broke bones of his attackers, but also killed two attackers. The military never tells Ender directly what happened to the boys, so the effect is that Ender is still naïve and yet cynical because in his heart he knows. Called “a perfect juvenile power-fantasy for the age of computer games” (Pringle, 289.) ENDER’S GAME is a novel that starts out slow and builds with an intensity that draws the reluctant science fiction reader, like me, in. As for the “cynical composition” of the story, Pringles says that “Card tried to make amends in the expanded version and its sequels, making the hero into a genetic experiment who suffers terrible guilt after his genocidal act.”(Pringle, 289.)
Reference List:
Pringle, David. 1990. The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction. New York: Pharos Books. 107.
Pringle, David. 1996. The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: The Definitive Illustrated Guide. North Dighton, MA: JG Press. 289.
Thursday, November 04, 2004
Margaret Mahy--New Zealand Writer
Margaret Mahy-- New Zealand Writer
Born: Whakatane, New Zealand, March 21, 1936
Lives: Governor’s Bay, New Zealand with husband, Robinson
Children: two daughters
Pets: Three cats, Orsino, Socks and Sabbath; and standard poodle named Baxter
Hobbies: Reading, swimming, taking walks, “fussing” with her pets
First book published: A Lion in the Meadow, 1969
Occupation: Retired from Canterbury Public Library, left to write full-time
Favorites:
Movie: 2001: A Space Odyssey
Book: The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban, The Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling and Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Food: Salad Sandwiches
Writer: Diana Wynne Jones, one of them; Always looks forward to reading books by New Zealand authors
Links:
The Maragret Mahy Pages
Available at: http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Childrens/MargaretMahy/
K6 Biographies—Maragaret Mahy
Available at: http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/k6/mahy.html
Margaret Mahy (from New Zealand Books,Ltd.)
Available at: http://www.nzbooks.com/nzbooks/author.asp?author_id=margaretmahy
Mahy, Margaret
Available at: http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/mahym.html
Books For Young Adults:
Underrunners— A, E (I included this book because it has won two awards in its home country of New Zealand.)
Mahy, Margaret. 1993. Underruners. New York: Chivers. ISBN: 074511671X.
The Door in the Air— (I included this book because it is an anthology of short stories.)
Mahy, Margaret. 1991. The Door in the Air. New York: Dell Publishing Company, Incorporated. ISBN: 0385302525.
Alchemy— N (I chose to include this book because it is her newest book and has already won an award in New Zealand.)
Mahy, Margaret. 2004. Alchemy. New York: Simon & Schuster’s Children’s. ISBN: 0689850549.
The Catalogue of the Universe.— (Though this book has not won any awards, I chose to include it. I did so because Mahy says that, of all her characters, she thinks she identifies most strongly with Tycho.)
Mahy, Margaret. 2002. The Catalogue of the Universe. New York: Simon & Schuster Children’s. ISBN: 068985353X.
The Haunting— C, E (This book has won an award in both New Zealand and the United Kingdom.)
Mahy, Margaret. 1991. The Haunting. New York: Random House Children’s Books. ISBN: 0440404088.
The Tricksters— (This book was chosen because the premise intrigued me: three brothers(the Tricksters of the title) “invade” lives of the vacationers of Carnival’s Hide.)
Mahy, Maragaret. 1999. The Tricksters. New York: Simon & Schuster Children’s. ISBN: 0689829108.
Memory— (This book was chosen for inclusion because it deals with personal responsibilities, cultural and ethnic roles.)
Mahy, Margaret. 1989. Memory. New York: Sagebrush Education Resources. Original edition, New York: Penguin, 1989. ISBN: 0613228936.
24 Hours— E, N (This book was included because it won two New Zealand awards.)
Mahy, Margaret. 2000. 24 Hours. New York: McElderberry, Margaret K. Books. ISBN: 0689838840.
The Changeover— C, E ( I chose this book not only because it has won two awards, one in the United Kingdom, and the other in New Zealand, but because it was the first book by this author that I ever read and I never forgot it.)
Mahy, Margaret. 1984. The Changover: A Supernatural Romance. 1st Am. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster Children's. ISBN: 068503032.
A= AIM Children's Book Awards- Established 1990. Awards are presented to New Zealand books in five categories, plus a "Book of the Year". Sponsored by AIM Toothpaste.)
C= Carnegie Medal- Presented annually to an outstanding book published in the United Kingdom.
E= Esther Glen Award- Given for the most distinguished contribution to New Zealand literature for children and young adults.
N= New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards 2003- Prior to 1997 the awards were known as the AIM Children's Book Awards.
Book Analyses:
Memory and The Other Side of Silence
In Margaret Mahy’s novel, Memory, a young man struggles with his memory of his sister’s death even as an elderly woman battles with Alzheimer’s disease’s effect on her own memory. Johnny Dart is the young man who decides to straighten out his memory by contacting the only other witness, Bonnie. Bonnie was his sister’s friend and the last time he saw her was at the funeral. After a drunken brawl that lands him in court and a fight with his father, Johnny manages, in his still drunken state, to find the home of Bonnie’s parents. They tell him to come back when he is sober and get a friend to take him to catch a cab. He does not catch the cab, but instead passes out in the cab stand. When he comes to he notices a woman, who is terribly confused and who mistakes him for someone she knows. Johnny follows her home with the idea that he is going to make sure that she is in safely for the night, but when he does follow her in, he finds it extremely hard to tear himself away from the woman. As Johnny discovers little slips of paper around her house, he realizes that Sophie has been paying “rent” to someone named Spike everyday, sometimes more than once a day, but made sure she “got a receipt.” Her memory essentially useless, Sophie has become a hazard to herself. In one filthy room, Johnny finds an iron that had burned through what ever she had been ironing, thankfully not igniting a fire that could have killed her.
Sophie’s acceptance of Johnny seems a little too easy and a tad quirky until Johnny realizes that he, for some reason reminds her of a cousin that she once loved. This memory gives Sophie a measure of safety when it comes to letting Johnny help her. The episodes that Mahy uses to demonstrate Sophie’s decline into Alzheimer’s are both funny and incredibly sad at the same time. For example, Sophie lets Johnny spend the night at her house, but she tells him that she is going to lock her door. It is also through these episodes that Mahy ties Johnny’s memories to his present. From meeting and eventually conquering the bully who tormented him as a child, to the surreptitious appearance of Bonnie, the person he has been looking to find, right next door to Sophie, Johnny’s memories are “reoriented” as one critic put it. It was the memory of the past that drove Johnny to this point. He is afraid that he pushed his sister off the cliff. He can almost remember doing just that, but he is not sure if that vague memory is something his mind has come up with to explain why he went along with Bonnie when she lied about where he was when Janine fell. Mahy uses snippets of “memories” to tie her character to his past and demonstrate how memories can both offer comfort and torment.
In helping Sophie, Johnny finds that she is helping him, by giving him a purpose which he has been lacking. He also learns a little more about the sister he lost and about himself. Dancing was always part of him, his feet even tapping a rhythm as he walked.
Mahy explores several issues including the Anglo/Maori culture clash, Alzheimer’s Disease and the poor treatment of the elderly. The images in Mahy’s stories are magnificent, and the memories of Bonnie that Johnny has kept in his mind are vivid and colorful. “Both are trapped to some extent by their memories; both are outcasts living within a kaleidoscopic vision of both past and present.”(Hutcheson, 214.) Past and present mix and intertwine. Bonnie’s own sister has chosen to embrace her Maori heritage despite her upbringing in an Anglo home.
As young adult novel, the 19-year-old Johnny finds himself in a situation where he decides to take responsibility and action without the aid of a competent adult. That is to say, that he chooses to take care of this woman who obviously is too ill to take care of herself. Adults in the book are secondary characters who sometimes offer advice but who are generally unable to assist him. Sophie seems to float between a teenaged version of herself and the part of her that remembers being married to Errol, a plumber and a gentleman of nature. The characterization of the people in this story is marvelous. “Even the minor characters echo the hold of memory, and the setting is dominated by a giant fake faucet that hangs on a sign overlooking the old lady’s house.”(Hutcheson, 214.)
The Other Side of Silence is a novel that explores the fine lines of identity, reality and fiction. At the onset of the book, the twelve-year-old heroine makes a distinction between “Real Life (what everyone agrees about) and True Life (what you know inside yourself).”(Decker, 37.) Hero, the main character of the book, is a girl living in a house full of geniuses gifted verbally. Ironically, Hero, always the shy, quiet child of the family, has chosen to remain silent for almost seven years. Her boisterous family includes her mother and father, an older brother and younger sister. Hero also has another older sister, who has left New Zealand to make her way in Australia. When Hero’s sister returns to the family, she has a secret and an abandoned boy named Sammy in tow. Hero loves to climb in the trees that border the old Credence place. “The day she falls from a tree and lands at the woman's feet begins a perilous journey for the young protagonist.” (Vasilakis, 210.) Miss Credence, the last of her family, a strange woman who weaves tales around Hero that mixes reality and folk tales hires the young girl to clean first the garden and then house. When Hero begins to clean the house, she discovers a secret that Miss Credence has kept for years. In the tower, where the windows have been painted white, Miss Credence has chained her daughter, Jorinda, who has been neglected and has developmental challenges.
Mahy is a storyteller who works to make her stories more “heard” than “seen” and as with Memory, the characters in this novel are drawn loosely with the idea that their voices and traits make them more complete. The reader, along with Hero, learns how Miss Credence’s life was affected by her strained relationship with her father and how she came to lock her daughter in the tower of the mansion and hide her existence from others and from herself. Mahy sought to show how the mind can blur the lines between reality and fantasy and can twist a person’s mind. Mahy uses Hero’s silence to heighten the tension, when Hero is imprisoned in the tower room with Jorinda. Hero also considers throughout how and why she chose to be silent.
This novel is a story that belongs in young adult fiction, because it involves a young girl who has to solve her problem with limited help from the adults in her life. Although her parents come to ask Miss Credence about Hero’s disappearance, it falls to Sammy, the boy Hero’s sister brought home with her, to rescue Hero. The novel addresses issues about identity that young adults face every day. Mahy’s ending is optimistic, but not totally unrealistic. Though Jorinda is freed from the tower, she is not “miraculously cured” but still faces problems that stem from the neglect she suffered there. Hero writes her tale on paper, but, never intending for anyone to read it, she burns the pages after her family reads it.
Memory and The Other Side of Silence both deal with how teenagers see themselves and how the mind plays an important part of determining who they become. Mahy’s straightforward language, with a minimum of figurative expressions, writes a story that engages the reader and still manages to make a point without becoming preachy or overbearing. Mahy believes that young adults in New Zealand should be able to read books that deal with issues that face them. So, it is not surprising that in these two books threads of intolerance and prejudice are woven into the book. The result of this are books that encourage the readers to think about complex and difficult issues, such as treatment of the elderly, mentally ill, disabled, as well as, cultural stands.
Reference List:
Hutcheson, Barbara. 1988. Review of Memory by Margaret Mahy. School Library Journal. (Jan/Feb.).
Vasilakis, Nancy. 1996. “Booklist for Older Readers.” (Review of The Other Side of Silence by Margaret Mahy.) Horn Book Magazine. Vol. 72 Issue 2. (Mar/Apr).
Decker, Charlotte. 1996. Reviews:Fiction (Review of The Other Side of Silence by Margaret Mahy.) Book Report. Vol. 14, Issue 5. (Mar/Apr).
Born: Whakatane, New Zealand, March 21, 1936
Lives: Governor’s Bay, New Zealand with husband, Robinson
Children: two daughters
Pets: Three cats, Orsino, Socks and Sabbath; and standard poodle named Baxter
Hobbies: Reading, swimming, taking walks, “fussing” with her pets
First book published: A Lion in the Meadow, 1969
Occupation: Retired from Canterbury Public Library, left to write full-time
Favorites:
Movie: 2001: A Space Odyssey
Book: The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban, The Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling and Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Food: Salad Sandwiches
Writer: Diana Wynne Jones, one of them; Always looks forward to reading books by New Zealand authors
Links:
The Maragret Mahy Pages
Available at: http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Childrens/MargaretMahy/
K6 Biographies—Maragaret Mahy
Available at: http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/k6/mahy.html
Margaret Mahy (from New Zealand Books,Ltd.)
Available at: http://www.nzbooks.com/nzbooks/author.asp?author_id=margaretmahy
Mahy, Margaret
Available at: http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/mahym.html
Books For Young Adults:
Underrunners— A, E (I included this book because it has won two awards in its home country of New Zealand.)
Mahy, Margaret. 1993. Underruners. New York: Chivers. ISBN: 074511671X.
The Door in the Air— (I included this book because it is an anthology of short stories.)
Mahy, Margaret. 1991. The Door in the Air. New York: Dell Publishing Company, Incorporated. ISBN: 0385302525.
Alchemy— N (I chose to include this book because it is her newest book and has already won an award in New Zealand.)
Mahy, Margaret. 2004. Alchemy. New York: Simon & Schuster’s Children’s. ISBN: 0689850549.
The Catalogue of the Universe.— (Though this book has not won any awards, I chose to include it. I did so because Mahy says that, of all her characters, she thinks she identifies most strongly with Tycho.)
Mahy, Margaret. 2002. The Catalogue of the Universe. New York: Simon & Schuster Children’s. ISBN: 068985353X.
The Haunting— C, E (This book has won an award in both New Zealand and the United Kingdom.)
Mahy, Margaret. 1991. The Haunting. New York: Random House Children’s Books. ISBN: 0440404088.
The Tricksters— (This book was chosen because the premise intrigued me: three brothers(the Tricksters of the title) “invade” lives of the vacationers of Carnival’s Hide.)
Mahy, Maragaret. 1999. The Tricksters. New York: Simon & Schuster Children’s. ISBN: 0689829108.
Memory— (This book was chosen for inclusion because it deals with personal responsibilities, cultural and ethnic roles.)
Mahy, Margaret. 1989. Memory. New York: Sagebrush Education Resources. Original edition, New York: Penguin, 1989. ISBN: 0613228936.
24 Hours— E, N (This book was included because it won two New Zealand awards.)
Mahy, Margaret. 2000. 24 Hours. New York: McElderberry, Margaret K. Books. ISBN: 0689838840.
The Changeover— C, E ( I chose this book not only because it has won two awards, one in the United Kingdom, and the other in New Zealand, but because it was the first book by this author that I ever read and I never forgot it.)
Mahy, Margaret. 1984. The Changover: A Supernatural Romance. 1st Am. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster Children's. ISBN: 068503032.
A= AIM Children's Book Awards- Established 1990. Awards are presented to New Zealand books in five categories, plus a "Book of the Year". Sponsored by AIM Toothpaste.)
C= Carnegie Medal- Presented annually to an outstanding book published in the United Kingdom.
E= Esther Glen Award- Given for the most distinguished contribution to New Zealand literature for children and young adults.
N= New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards 2003- Prior to 1997 the awards were known as the AIM Children's Book Awards.
Book Analyses:
Memory and The Other Side of Silence
In Margaret Mahy’s novel, Memory, a young man struggles with his memory of his sister’s death even as an elderly woman battles with Alzheimer’s disease’s effect on her own memory. Johnny Dart is the young man who decides to straighten out his memory by contacting the only other witness, Bonnie. Bonnie was his sister’s friend and the last time he saw her was at the funeral. After a drunken brawl that lands him in court and a fight with his father, Johnny manages, in his still drunken state, to find the home of Bonnie’s parents. They tell him to come back when he is sober and get a friend to take him to catch a cab. He does not catch the cab, but instead passes out in the cab stand. When he comes to he notices a woman, who is terribly confused and who mistakes him for someone she knows. Johnny follows her home with the idea that he is going to make sure that she is in safely for the night, but when he does follow her in, he finds it extremely hard to tear himself away from the woman. As Johnny discovers little slips of paper around her house, he realizes that Sophie has been paying “rent” to someone named Spike everyday, sometimes more than once a day, but made sure she “got a receipt.” Her memory essentially useless, Sophie has become a hazard to herself. In one filthy room, Johnny finds an iron that had burned through what ever she had been ironing, thankfully not igniting a fire that could have killed her.
Sophie’s acceptance of Johnny seems a little too easy and a tad quirky until Johnny realizes that he, for some reason reminds her of a cousin that she once loved. This memory gives Sophie a measure of safety when it comes to letting Johnny help her. The episodes that Mahy uses to demonstrate Sophie’s decline into Alzheimer’s are both funny and incredibly sad at the same time. For example, Sophie lets Johnny spend the night at her house, but she tells him that she is going to lock her door. It is also through these episodes that Mahy ties Johnny’s memories to his present. From meeting and eventually conquering the bully who tormented him as a child, to the surreptitious appearance of Bonnie, the person he has been looking to find, right next door to Sophie, Johnny’s memories are “reoriented” as one critic put it. It was the memory of the past that drove Johnny to this point. He is afraid that he pushed his sister off the cliff. He can almost remember doing just that, but he is not sure if that vague memory is something his mind has come up with to explain why he went along with Bonnie when she lied about where he was when Janine fell. Mahy uses snippets of “memories” to tie her character to his past and demonstrate how memories can both offer comfort and torment.
In helping Sophie, Johnny finds that she is helping him, by giving him a purpose which he has been lacking. He also learns a little more about the sister he lost and about himself. Dancing was always part of him, his feet even tapping a rhythm as he walked.
Mahy explores several issues including the Anglo/Maori culture clash, Alzheimer’s Disease and the poor treatment of the elderly. The images in Mahy’s stories are magnificent, and the memories of Bonnie that Johnny has kept in his mind are vivid and colorful. “Both are trapped to some extent by their memories; both are outcasts living within a kaleidoscopic vision of both past and present.”(Hutcheson, 214.) Past and present mix and intertwine. Bonnie’s own sister has chosen to embrace her Maori heritage despite her upbringing in an Anglo home.
As young adult novel, the 19-year-old Johnny finds himself in a situation where he decides to take responsibility and action without the aid of a competent adult. That is to say, that he chooses to take care of this woman who obviously is too ill to take care of herself. Adults in the book are secondary characters who sometimes offer advice but who are generally unable to assist him. Sophie seems to float between a teenaged version of herself and the part of her that remembers being married to Errol, a plumber and a gentleman of nature. The characterization of the people in this story is marvelous. “Even the minor characters echo the hold of memory, and the setting is dominated by a giant fake faucet that hangs on a sign overlooking the old lady’s house.”(Hutcheson, 214.)
The Other Side of Silence is a novel that explores the fine lines of identity, reality and fiction. At the onset of the book, the twelve-year-old heroine makes a distinction between “Real Life (what everyone agrees about) and True Life (what you know inside yourself).”(Decker, 37.) Hero, the main character of the book, is a girl living in a house full of geniuses gifted verbally. Ironically, Hero, always the shy, quiet child of the family, has chosen to remain silent for almost seven years. Her boisterous family includes her mother and father, an older brother and younger sister. Hero also has another older sister, who has left New Zealand to make her way in Australia. When Hero’s sister returns to the family, she has a secret and an abandoned boy named Sammy in tow. Hero loves to climb in the trees that border the old Credence place. “The day she falls from a tree and lands at the woman's feet begins a perilous journey for the young protagonist.” (Vasilakis, 210.) Miss Credence, the last of her family, a strange woman who weaves tales around Hero that mixes reality and folk tales hires the young girl to clean first the garden and then house. When Hero begins to clean the house, she discovers a secret that Miss Credence has kept for years. In the tower, where the windows have been painted white, Miss Credence has chained her daughter, Jorinda, who has been neglected and has developmental challenges.
Mahy is a storyteller who works to make her stories more “heard” than “seen” and as with Memory, the characters in this novel are drawn loosely with the idea that their voices and traits make them more complete. The reader, along with Hero, learns how Miss Credence’s life was affected by her strained relationship with her father and how she came to lock her daughter in the tower of the mansion and hide her existence from others and from herself. Mahy sought to show how the mind can blur the lines between reality and fantasy and can twist a person’s mind. Mahy uses Hero’s silence to heighten the tension, when Hero is imprisoned in the tower room with Jorinda. Hero also considers throughout how and why she chose to be silent.
This novel is a story that belongs in young adult fiction, because it involves a young girl who has to solve her problem with limited help from the adults in her life. Although her parents come to ask Miss Credence about Hero’s disappearance, it falls to Sammy, the boy Hero’s sister brought home with her, to rescue Hero. The novel addresses issues about identity that young adults face every day. Mahy’s ending is optimistic, but not totally unrealistic. Though Jorinda is freed from the tower, she is not “miraculously cured” but still faces problems that stem from the neglect she suffered there. Hero writes her tale on paper, but, never intending for anyone to read it, she burns the pages after her family reads it.
Memory and The Other Side of Silence both deal with how teenagers see themselves and how the mind plays an important part of determining who they become. Mahy’s straightforward language, with a minimum of figurative expressions, writes a story that engages the reader and still manages to make a point without becoming preachy or overbearing. Mahy believes that young adults in New Zealand should be able to read books that deal with issues that face them. So, it is not surprising that in these two books threads of intolerance and prejudice are woven into the book. The result of this are books that encourage the readers to think about complex and difficult issues, such as treatment of the elderly, mentally ill, disabled, as well as, cultural stands.
Reference List:
Hutcheson, Barbara. 1988. Review of Memory by Margaret Mahy. School Library Journal. (Jan/Feb.).
Vasilakis, Nancy. 1996. “Booklist for Older Readers.” (Review of The Other Side of Silence by Margaret Mahy.) Horn Book Magazine. Vol. 72 Issue 2. (Mar/Apr).
Decker, Charlotte. 1996. Reviews:Fiction (Review of The Other Side of Silence by Margaret Mahy.) Book Report. Vol. 14, Issue 5. (Mar/Apr).
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Topic 4: Double Helix by Nancy Werlin
Werlin, Nancy. 2004. Double Helix. New York: Dial Books. ISBN: 080372606.
The science fiction and mystery genres are melded into a new medical mystery subgenre in Nancy Werlin’s novel, DOUBLE HELIX. Genetic experimentation, in vitro fertilization and the complexities of bioethics form the science related core of the book. When Eli Samuels, a smart, athletic, not to mention tall, senior in high school is offered a job at Wyatt Transgenics, his father is not pleased and asks Eli to turn the job down. Partly because his father will not explain his request, Eli continues to work at the lab. On another front, Eli’s girlfriend would like to meet his parents, but Eli is reluctant to introduce her to them. Eli’s mother has Huntington ’s disease, a degenerative and terminal disease caused by too many repeats of sequences of DNA. While Eli tries to determine his father’s objection to his job, he meets Kayla, who seems very familiar to him. Eli also discovers that a connection does exist between them and that it involves his parents, Quincy Wyatt and experimental gene therapy. “Male and female features seemed to transmute, to meld into each other. My mother—Kayla—me.” (Werlin, 163-164.) Eli realizes that he is Kayla’s brother, but this knowledge also stirs a feeling of responsibility and curiosity within in him.
The novel is extremely readable and this is because the science in Werlin’s novel is not overbearing or confusing. “Werlin distills the scientific element to a manageable level.”(Publisher’s Weekly, 174.) Another focus of the book becomes the bioethics behind Eli’s and Kayla’s births. Sometimes these ethics seem absent but they are always complex. Eli says “I’m your brother.”(Werlin, 231.) From this realization, Werlin is able to show a strong sense of responsible that runs through Eli. “My responsibility. Because I am my father’s son. Because I choose, like he did, not to walk away. Because you are more than your genes. Because you are human. Because you are worth it.” (Werlin, 231-232.) In the end, Wyatt escapes justice, but Eli and Kayla are able to find more siblings who were born to different families. Eli goes off to college and meets the professor recommended to him by a coworker. “There’s a difference between using gene therapy for the treatment of existing medical conditions and using our growing, but far from perfect, knowledge of genes—or of humanity—to declare that we absolutely know who has--and who hasn’t—the right to live.” (Werlin, 245.)
One critic pointed that the “characterizations feel somewhat incomplete.”(Publisher’s Weekly, 174.) The main focus of the novel is on Eli and Kayla, the teenagers, so in my opinion, it is really the adults, Mr. Samuels and Wyatt, who are a little flat. “The plot moves at a tantalizing clip, with secrets revealed in tiny increments, an hints and clues neatly planted.” (Publisher’s Weekly, 174.) The plot is tight and suspenseful and horrifying when it is revealed that more children, some who have Huntington’s and a couple who do not, have been born as a result of Wyatt’s experiment. “The story’s climax appeals to reason and love for humanity without resorting to easy answers.” (Publisher’s Weekly, 174.) The book’s end will make readers stop and think about their beliefs about medicine and the imperfections that make us human.
Reference List:
2004. Review of Double Helix by Nancy Werlin. Publisher’s Weekly Vol. 251 Issue
7, (15 February), 173-174.
Werlin, Nancy. 2004. Double Helix. New York: Dial Books.
The science fiction and mystery genres are melded into a new medical mystery subgenre in Nancy Werlin’s novel, DOUBLE HELIX. Genetic experimentation, in vitro fertilization and the complexities of bioethics form the science related core of the book. When Eli Samuels, a smart, athletic, not to mention tall, senior in high school is offered a job at Wyatt Transgenics, his father is not pleased and asks Eli to turn the job down. Partly because his father will not explain his request, Eli continues to work at the lab. On another front, Eli’s girlfriend would like to meet his parents, but Eli is reluctant to introduce her to them. Eli’s mother has Huntington ’s disease, a degenerative and terminal disease caused by too many repeats of sequences of DNA. While Eli tries to determine his father’s objection to his job, he meets Kayla, who seems very familiar to him. Eli also discovers that a connection does exist between them and that it involves his parents, Quincy Wyatt and experimental gene therapy. “Male and female features seemed to transmute, to meld into each other. My mother—Kayla—me.” (Werlin, 163-164.) Eli realizes that he is Kayla’s brother, but this knowledge also stirs a feeling of responsibility and curiosity within in him.
The novel is extremely readable and this is because the science in Werlin’s novel is not overbearing or confusing. “Werlin distills the scientific element to a manageable level.”(Publisher’s Weekly, 174.) Another focus of the book becomes the bioethics behind Eli’s and Kayla’s births. Sometimes these ethics seem absent but they are always complex. Eli says “I’m your brother.”(Werlin, 231.) From this realization, Werlin is able to show a strong sense of responsible that runs through Eli. “My responsibility. Because I am my father’s son. Because I choose, like he did, not to walk away. Because you are more than your genes. Because you are human. Because you are worth it.” (Werlin, 231-232.) In the end, Wyatt escapes justice, but Eli and Kayla are able to find more siblings who were born to different families. Eli goes off to college and meets the professor recommended to him by a coworker. “There’s a difference between using gene therapy for the treatment of existing medical conditions and using our growing, but far from perfect, knowledge of genes—or of humanity—to declare that we absolutely know who has--and who hasn’t—the right to live.” (Werlin, 245.)
One critic pointed that the “characterizations feel somewhat incomplete.”(Publisher’s Weekly, 174.) The main focus of the novel is on Eli and Kayla, the teenagers, so in my opinion, it is really the adults, Mr. Samuels and Wyatt, who are a little flat. “The plot moves at a tantalizing clip, with secrets revealed in tiny increments, an hints and clues neatly planted.” (Publisher’s Weekly, 174.) The plot is tight and suspenseful and horrifying when it is revealed that more children, some who have Huntington’s and a couple who do not, have been born as a result of Wyatt’s experiment. “The story’s climax appeals to reason and love for humanity without resorting to easy answers.” (Publisher’s Weekly, 174.) The book’s end will make readers stop and think about their beliefs about medicine and the imperfections that make us human.
Reference List:
2004. Review of Double Helix by Nancy Werlin. Publisher’s Weekly Vol. 251 Issue
7, (15 February), 173-174.
Werlin, Nancy. 2004. Double Helix. New York: Dial Books.
topic 4: Others See Us by William Sleator
Sleator, William. 1993. Others See Us. New York: Dutton Children’s Book. ISBN: 0525451048.
In William Sleator’s novel, OTHERS SEE US, Jared is anxiously waiting for the day when we will get to see his beautiful cousin, Annelise again. After a fall into a polluted swamp nearby, however, Jared begins to notice strange voices and thoughts inside his head. At first he thinks he might be going crazy, but then he realizes that he is actually hearing what the people around him are thinking. When the journal where Jared recorded his deepest feelings disappears from its secret hiding place, he realizes that someone else can read thoughts as well. Jared begins to “learns that Annelise is not the innocent, sweet girl her relatives believe her to be, but an evil, plotting young woman.” (Knoth, 75.) He also discovers that everyone has secrets that they do not want exposed and pressures that they must contend with when they return to their lives are the family reunion. Jared must figure out which of his family members he can trust, when it becomes obvious that Annelise is up to something.
Sleator uses the ability of telepathy to cut through a character’s appearance to the core that person’s nature. “I was aware now of her cunning, clicking away underneath her outward panic like a movie projector displaying a horror film,” thinks Jared as Annelise searches for her own missing journal.(Sleator, 44.) The knowledge of her true nature led Jared to another cousin, Lindie, who had a secret that if exposed could harm her reputation and future. Knowing that Annelise would not hesitate to use this secret against her, Jared and Lindie must figure out how to stop her. With their grandmother, Jared and Lindie try to protect their family and the people in the town from Annelise. They also realize that there are things that their grandmother will not tell them and probably can not explain to them anyway.
The quick pace and easy readability of OTHERS SEE US make the book a fun read for younger teens. It touches on the relationships between family members and how they change and develop over time. It also handles very deftly the idea of poetic justice. Some of the characters actions seem to be a little over the top, like Grandma’s theft and extortion of her neighbors, but Sleator ties them to the end to make that poetic justice. “Sleator ties up his story but leaves unanswered, unsettling questions about the nature of seductive power.” (Knoth, 75.) One of my favorite images from the novel, is an interesting twist on the old cliché, “what webs we weave ….” “The old knitting machines, shiny again, clashed in intricate patterns below us, producing yards and yards of delicate silvery weblike fabric.”(Sleator, 153.) The patterns are explained toward the end of the book that explains why the actions seem so inexplicable and yet tie so neatly at the end.
Reference List:
Knoth, Maeve Visser. 1994. Booklist: For Older Readers. Horn Book Magazine. Vol. 70, Issue 1 (Jan/Feb): .
Sleator, William. 1993. Others See Us. New York: Dutton Children’s Book.
In William Sleator’s novel, OTHERS SEE US, Jared is anxiously waiting for the day when we will get to see his beautiful cousin, Annelise again. After a fall into a polluted swamp nearby, however, Jared begins to notice strange voices and thoughts inside his head. At first he thinks he might be going crazy, but then he realizes that he is actually hearing what the people around him are thinking. When the journal where Jared recorded his deepest feelings disappears from its secret hiding place, he realizes that someone else can read thoughts as well. Jared begins to “learns that Annelise is not the innocent, sweet girl her relatives believe her to be, but an evil, plotting young woman.” (Knoth, 75.) He also discovers that everyone has secrets that they do not want exposed and pressures that they must contend with when they return to their lives are the family reunion. Jared must figure out which of his family members he can trust, when it becomes obvious that Annelise is up to something.
Sleator uses the ability of telepathy to cut through a character’s appearance to the core that person’s nature. “I was aware now of her cunning, clicking away underneath her outward panic like a movie projector displaying a horror film,” thinks Jared as Annelise searches for her own missing journal.(Sleator, 44.) The knowledge of her true nature led Jared to another cousin, Lindie, who had a secret that if exposed could harm her reputation and future. Knowing that Annelise would not hesitate to use this secret against her, Jared and Lindie must figure out how to stop her. With their grandmother, Jared and Lindie try to protect their family and the people in the town from Annelise. They also realize that there are things that their grandmother will not tell them and probably can not explain to them anyway.
The quick pace and easy readability of OTHERS SEE US make the book a fun read for younger teens. It touches on the relationships between family members and how they change and develop over time. It also handles very deftly the idea of poetic justice. Some of the characters actions seem to be a little over the top, like Grandma’s theft and extortion of her neighbors, but Sleator ties them to the end to make that poetic justice. “Sleator ties up his story but leaves unanswered, unsettling questions about the nature of seductive power.” (Knoth, 75.) One of my favorite images from the novel, is an interesting twist on the old cliché, “what webs we weave ….” “The old knitting machines, shiny again, clashed in intricate patterns below us, producing yards and yards of delicate silvery weblike fabric.”(Sleator, 153.) The patterns are explained toward the end of the book that explains why the actions seem so inexplicable and yet tie so neatly at the end.
Reference List:
Knoth, Maeve Visser. 1994. Booklist: For Older Readers. Horn Book Magazine. Vol. 70, Issue 1 (Jan/Feb): .
Sleator, William. 1993. Others See Us. New York: Dutton Children’s Book.
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Topic 3: The Maze by Will Hobbs
Hobbs, Will. 1998. The Maze. New York: Avon Books, Inc. ISBN: 038072913x.
Will Hobbs’ novel THE MAZE takes a young man into an isolated area of the desert to discover “who he is.” When fourteen year old Rick Walker escapes from Blue Canyon Youth Detention Center, he hides in the back of a pick up truck that takes him deep into the Utah desert. In a remote area of canyon known as “THE MAZE,” Rick finds Lon Peregrino, a mysterious scientist studying California Condors. In the bird biologist, Rick finds a kindred spirit, but trouble soon finds both. When two strangers wander through Lon’s camp, it becomes evident that both the birds and the scientist are in danger. Between studying the condors and learning to fly Lon’s hang glider, Rick has to find a way to stay hidden from anyone looking for him and to keep the endangered condors safe.
Will Hobbs uses impressive settings, detailed research and fast paced sentence structure to heighten the emotion and drama of his novel, THE MAZE. The “labyrinthine series of canyons and spores in Utah’s Canyonlands U.S. National Park calls to mind the maze that imprisoned the mythical Daedalus and his son Icarus—characters that Rick has read about while at Blue Canyon.” (Taxel, 82.) In the book, Lon offers the idea that Daedalus actually built “two devices, very much like modern hang gliders.” (Hobbs, 139.) Lon’s theory is that Icarus actually fell out of the sky after flying into and up a thermal. The reason that this detail sticks with the reader is that the condors use the thermals to carry them far from their canyon home. “Hobbs also effectively develops parallels between Rick’s Efforts to master the intricacies of hang-gliding and the struggles of the young condors to fly.” (Taxel, 82.) The chapters are relatively short and easy to read, which helps keep the pace of the story quick and invigorating.
Hobbs also uses names to advance the characterization of the main characters. For example, condors are usually called by numbers, but one of the condors seems to stick out more than just a little. M4 is a male condor who from the time he hatched was just a little of a “maverick.” Deemed unpredictable, Rick suggested that he be called “Maverick” (Hobbs, 64.) Lon stays that to give birds human names is to assign human traits to a wild animal. It is interesting that Rick is a bit of a maverick as well. Lon Peregrino is another example of a name that holds a clue to the characterization of an important person in the story. When Rick finds a picture of Lon as a young man, but the young man’s name is not what he was given. Lon, it turns out, chose his own name after becoming a bird biologist. He chose to name himself after a peregrine falcon. Peregrine means “traveler.”(Hobbs, 146.) Lon is a hang glider who travels over the land using the same thermals that his feathered subjects do, which can carry him for miles over the landscape.
Reference List:
Hobbs, Will. 1998. The Maze. New York: Avon Books, Inc.
Taxel, Joel. 2002. Review of The Maze. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. Vol. 46, issue 1 (Sept): 82.
Will Hobbs’ novel THE MAZE takes a young man into an isolated area of the desert to discover “who he is.” When fourteen year old Rick Walker escapes from Blue Canyon Youth Detention Center, he hides in the back of a pick up truck that takes him deep into the Utah desert. In a remote area of canyon known as “THE MAZE,” Rick finds Lon Peregrino, a mysterious scientist studying California Condors. In the bird biologist, Rick finds a kindred spirit, but trouble soon finds both. When two strangers wander through Lon’s camp, it becomes evident that both the birds and the scientist are in danger. Between studying the condors and learning to fly Lon’s hang glider, Rick has to find a way to stay hidden from anyone looking for him and to keep the endangered condors safe.
Will Hobbs uses impressive settings, detailed research and fast paced sentence structure to heighten the emotion and drama of his novel, THE MAZE. The “labyrinthine series of canyons and spores in Utah’s Canyonlands U.S. National Park calls to mind the maze that imprisoned the mythical Daedalus and his son Icarus—characters that Rick has read about while at Blue Canyon.” (Taxel, 82.) In the book, Lon offers the idea that Daedalus actually built “two devices, very much like modern hang gliders.” (Hobbs, 139.) Lon’s theory is that Icarus actually fell out of the sky after flying into and up a thermal. The reason that this detail sticks with the reader is that the condors use the thermals to carry them far from their canyon home. “Hobbs also effectively develops parallels between Rick’s Efforts to master the intricacies of hang-gliding and the struggles of the young condors to fly.” (Taxel, 82.) The chapters are relatively short and easy to read, which helps keep the pace of the story quick and invigorating.
Hobbs also uses names to advance the characterization of the main characters. For example, condors are usually called by numbers, but one of the condors seems to stick out more than just a little. M4 is a male condor who from the time he hatched was just a little of a “maverick.” Deemed unpredictable, Rick suggested that he be called “Maverick” (Hobbs, 64.) Lon stays that to give birds human names is to assign human traits to a wild animal. It is interesting that Rick is a bit of a maverick as well. Lon Peregrino is another example of a name that holds a clue to the characterization of an important person in the story. When Rick finds a picture of Lon as a young man, but the young man’s name is not what he was given. Lon, it turns out, chose his own name after becoming a bird biologist. He chose to name himself after a peregrine falcon. Peregrine means “traveler.”(Hobbs, 146.) Lon is a hang glider who travels over the land using the same thermals that his feathered subjects do, which can carry him for miles over the landscape.
Reference List:
Hobbs, Will. 1998. The Maze. New York: Avon Books, Inc.
Taxel, Joel. 2002. Review of The Maze. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. Vol. 46, issue 1 (Sept): 82.
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