Masters of Disaster

New on our shelves at the library this week is Gary Paulson's Masters of Disaster.  This quick, 100-page novel was published in 2010, and features three 12-year-old boys trying to escape the banality of suburban Cleveland life.  The group leader, Henry, comes up with the plans.  Riley, the group's secretary documents everything the group does while Reed, the unfortunate comic-relief character, has to perform all the stunts and ends up smelling like something horrible after each plan.  

I picked up this book because Paulson is quite popular for one of his books, Hatchet, which I remember reading when I was in 5th grade more than fifteen years ago.  This is not in the same vein as Paulson's survival stories, however, there are plenty of adventurous elements throughout the novel. 

One of the most insteresting aspects about this novel is the way Paulson demonstrates his influence over literature for tween readers.  In the beginning of the story, Henry reveals that he is motivated by the stories they have been reading in English class, one of them about a boy whose plane crashes and he is left to survive in the wilderness with only a Hatchet.  This of course is referring back to Hatchet and its companions which, as I mentioned earlier, children encounter sometime around fifth grade.  To have been around for so long producing literature that you can then write another book about how children have been influenced by a previous work is quite the accomplisment. 

I would recommend this to boys ages 10 and up.  Some of the stunts that the students pull off may need to be contextualized for some readers as the boys are extremely lucky they aren't hurt more, and there ought to be a "Please don't try any of these stunts at home" message on the front.  All in all though, Masters of Disaster is a fun read for a lazy Saturday afternoon.

Banned Book Week Ends

Banned book week comes to a close today.  It looks like we fell short of our goal, but not to worry, we had a great time exploring different titles that have been challeneged or banned in schools and libraries around the country. 

After taking stock in the number of books that have been banned, it would seem that they should expand the banned book week to a month long so that we might have more time to cover the many, many books that become censored or face censoship each year. 

I personally do not agree with censorship of most types.  I make a few exceptions regarding materials that aren't just unsuitable to a particular age, but that are simply unsuitable for people.  By and far, most of the books that face censorship are at the mercy of concerned parents who would rather their children remain ignorant of the realities of the world than read about some general truths from a safe distance.  One of the largest topics that came up in the lists of books that have been challenged include explorations of religion, sexuality, the use of adult-oriented language and abuse.  The books I explored this week all shared a common theme of people who felt like outsiders trying to fit into a world where everyone else seems normal.  This is a popular theme in many contemporary novels, movies and television shows because it captures a very unique quality that most of us share: we all feel like we are somehow different and that everyone else is someone the same.  The characters are oddballs, but typically so.  This is interesting to think about when pitted against the fact that these books are challenged not because they are so disconnected from reality, but because they capture an aspect of reality that many adults struggle with or are uneasy about. 

So when you read a book that is surrounded in controversy, keep questions in your mind about what it is about the novel that you read that makes people so upset.  Often times you will find it is the truth in fiction that scares people, and to that extent drives adults to protect their child from that truth that the world is not such a safe comfortable place afterall. 

Banned Books #3: Catcher in the Rye

Published in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye is notorious for having a strange effect on its readers.  It's controversy lies with the main character, Holden Caufield's, outlook on life.  He is an emotional pre-teen who criticizes virtually every person he meets for being phony.  Additionally, everything he sees depresses him and makes him wish he was dead.  It is easy to see why this novel would be popular with emo teens because of it's excessive self-indulgence.  This book perhaps does not deserve to be banned mainly because it does not deserve to be taken seriously.  For all the hype, this novel is one of the most overrated novels I have encountered.  Teens should read it, but then should revisit it when they are in their late twenties so that they can see how puerile Holden's attitude is.

For more information, see the links below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catcher_in_the_Rye#Controversy

http://www.ila.org/BannedBooks/BBW_Short_List_2010_Single_R5.pdf

http://www.banned-books.com/bblista-i.html

http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/challengedclassics/index.cfm

Banned Book #2: Weetzie Bat

 Weetzie Bat was written in 1989 by Francesca Lia Bloc.  The novel takes place in L.A. and follows Weetzie and her friend Dirk as they try and make their dreams come true.

There are elements of Magical Realism, including a genie in a lamp that grants wishes. 

This book was banned in Texas because of sexual content.  Specifically, it is the homosexual themes that run through the novel that people at Ehrhart Charter School took issue with.  

Stylistically, the novel is not the best written novel I've ever read, and contains several idioms and slang that add unique textures to the story.  While the novel was published in 1989, it did not become popular until much later, earning Bloc a Phoenix award.

The themes of homosexuality are nonchalantly woven into the novel.  It is understandable that parents might take issue with an author writing homosexuality as commonplace, but banning a book like this reflects a deep-seeded fear in conservative traditions of heterosexuality that homosexuality may just be a natural phenomena.  

This book is recommended for high school students from suburban backgrounds.  It will jive more closely to hipster sympathies than anything else.  That is one of the defining aspects of this book, it is pre-hipster with its post-punk attitude, but ultimately paves the way for the hip in the way that Kerouac's On the Road brought attention to beatitude "beat" lifestyle.   

Banned Book #1: Are You There God?

Judy Blume published Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret in 1970.  It is an interesting representative of a particular period in time in which the suburban culture was emerging that was distinctly different from urban culture or rural culture.  

The novel begins with Margaret and her family moving out of the city of New York and into the suburban community in New Jersey.  As soon as she arrives, she encounters a neighbor girl whose attitude makes Margaret self conscious about her own development.  Nancy, the neighbor girl, represents an attitude of girls on the cusp of puberty who dream of growing into sex objects.  

This book has made the ALA's Top 100 most challenged book for over 20 years.  Some may question this decision, especially in light of many recent publications that really do make this book seem tame, but there are aspects about this book that would have been a major departure from topics covered by other novels published around the same time.  The topic of explicit awareness of female development might cause a few parents to raise an eyebrow.  It also might interest some prepubescent boys who may not be mature enough to handle the content. 

There is also a religious component to the novel, a conflict in Margaret stemming from her religious duality.  Her mother is a Christian, though non-practicing.  Her father is Jewish.  Throughout the novel, Margaret discusses how she feels the need to have a regular dialogue with God and so does so secretly.  This is interrupted by a confrontation between her parents and maternal grandparents.  Margaret blames God for the fight and stops talking to him until the end of the novel when....well, I won't ruin it for you.  

I would recommend reading this if you have a pre-teen daughter or you are a pre-teen yourself.  If you are a boy, read The Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume which explores adolescence from the male point of view. 

Happy Banned Book Week!

It is banned book week this week, and to celebrate we will be reviewing a select few of the books that have been challenged or banned in our schools and libraries all over the country.  The first review which will be come up on Monday is a classic book by Judy Bloom, Are You There God?  It's Me, Margaret.  We are also going to review a title that has been challenged more recently.  We are trying to review a classic and something more contemporary each day until Friday.  So stay tuned and see you Monday!!

In the meantime, check out this link:
http://flavorwire.com/213093/mark-twains-saucy-1906-story-formally-unbanned-from-library

Little Blue Envelopes

13 Little Blue Envelopes and The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson tell the story of Ginny and the trip she’s sent on by her crazy, runaway aunt, Peg, who has suddenly died. 13 Little Blue Envelopes begins the story with Ginny receiving a letter from her aunt giving her the rules for this adventure she’ll be taking. If she accepts these rules, she is to go to New York to pick up a package filled with clues for her journey. Ginny’s hesitant, she doesn’t normally take random journeys and especially not by herself, but goes along with it. She is whisked away to England where she meets her aunt’s friend, Richard. In following the instructions of the second letter, Ginny meets Keith, a struggling writer/actor who helps her in some of the legs of her journey. Keith goes with Ginny to Edinburgh to find an artist friend of her aunt’s and meets up with her again in Paris. Following this, the letters send Ginny to Amsterdam and Copenhagen, and her trip finishes in Corfu. Along the way Ginny meets more of her aunt’s friends, sneaks into a cemetery in Paris, gets taken in by a very touristy American family, sees the midnight sun, and joins some Australians for the final leg of her trip. In Greece, Ginny’s belongings are stolen and she doesn’t get to find out what is in the last letter. Being stranded in Greece, Ginny calls Richard to help her return to England and then home. Back in England, Ginny discovers secret paintings of her aunt’s which are then put in an auction where they sell extremely well. Ginny’s trip teaches her a lot about her aunt and herself and, despite the disappointing end in Greece, she feels the trip was a success.

The Last Little Blue Envelope picks up shortly after the end of 13 Little Blue Envelopes. Ginny is attempting to write her college application essay and struggling when she gets an email from Oliver in England who found her backpack when he was in Greece, and has her letters. She packs up her things and heads to England over Christmas break to get her letters and to follow the tasks in the thirteenth letter. Oliver tags along with Ginny, and Keith and his girlfriend Ellis come along as well. This time Ginny has to find pieces for her aunt’s last work of art, finding a piece in each Paris, Amsterdam, and Dublin. Along the way Ginny struggles with her old feelings for Keith, as well as any new ones she might have for Oliver.

Both books are quick, fun reads that allow you to take a bit of a European vacation yourself. Johnson’s style is very easy to read and her descriptions of places and events make you feel like you’re there right alongside Ginny and the people she meets. While the books aren’t very deep, they show how important self-assurance can be and how one journey can change everything. These books would be good for anyone in high school, leaning more for girls but fun for anyone.

Lauren Oliver’s Delirium is set in an unidentified American future in which the "disease" of love has been cured. Lena is set to have her cure in a few months, and the book follows her from her evaluation – to determine her future partner and schooling – through the summer to right before her cure. In this time Lena finds out that a number of things she has been taught over her life are lies, and that there are more important things than being cured and being "happy."

We are also introduced to Lena’s family, her friend Hana, and Alex, a worker at the center that cures everyone, who has his own secrets.

There are a number of beautiful moments in the book, the descriptions of the scenery around Portland, Maine, is especially well described. There are also a number of dark scenes surrounding the officials who keep everyone in line until they are cured, and the security the government goes to to keep everyone happy and to keep rebels out of the system.

The book is reminiscent in many ways of 1984 by Orwell and the Uglies books by Westerfeld, but has enough of its own unique story to keep it fresh and new. Oliver’s writing style is different and keeps the pace of the story moving right until the end. Delirium is the first of a series and the ending definitely keeps you wanting more. It would be a good read for anyone high school aged or older.

The Hate List

 

A school shooting novel set from the point of view of the girlfriend of the shooter.  The Hate List is another in an increasingly popular subgenre of young adult novels about school shootings.  Each on explores a different aspect, probes for meaning in different ways, and provides a multitude of vantage points for understanding the incomprehensible.  For teenagers.

The Chocolate War

Over the last few days I have been reading The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier.  This book has been on my radar for a long time, and I had been putting off reading it until I could sit down and thoroughly enjoy it.  It was very much worth the wait.  It wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be be (although what do you expect with a title like The Chocolate War?), but it was a very engulfing read that was over before I knew it. 

The story has a main character, but the novel does not revolve around him entirely.  It has a shifting point of view, going behind the thoughts of many of the characters.  The two characters that readers follow the most are Jerry, the "hero," and Archie, the "villain."  There are other minor characters that give multiple vantage points, and so the novel has a realistic texture that captures the mind of the young adult male even though the story is fictitious.

Premise
The setting is Trinity school for boys, a private school run by priests.  Father Leon is the acting Head Master, and it is clear from his introduction that he is sadistic.  He thrives on the humiliation of his students, manipulating and punishing them to his own personal gain.

The main narrative of the story picks up with the beginning of the annual chocolate sale.  Out of all the students, only Jerry refuses to sell the chocolates.  This jams a stick in Father Leon's spokes.  Leon can't understand why anyone who refuse to help out the school.  It comes out that Jerry is acting on behalf of an assignment by the school secret society.  However, once the assignment ends and Jerry continues to refuse to sell chocolates, the world is inverted on its axis.

Comments
There are quite a few themes that can be discussed, it is impossible to fit them into one blurb.  One of the most important aspects, however, to keep in mind when reading this novel is the power roles:  Who has the power?  Who wants the power?  Who is the powerless?  How does this change by the end of the novel?

Another aspect that is very interesting and needs to be addressed is the part when Jerry is confronted by Emile, a bully, and is called a homosexual.  There is a line where Jerry expresses that there is nothing worse in the world than being accused of being gay.  The reason this is such an important line is because it sheds light on a juvenile male anxiety of sexuality.  It is perhaps a truism that teenage males, regardless of their sexual orientation are afraid of being humiliated for their emerging sexuality.  This axiom is clearly expressed by many of the characters throughout the novel.

The theme of authority is interestingly presented in this novel.  The teachers of the novel seem to pose and direct opposition to the students, while the parents are all absent.  Jerry's father is in the novel, but only as a means of showing how disconnected Jerry is with his nuclear family as the result of his mother's death.  This is a recurring theme in fiction for young adults.  The idea of the nuclear family is dissolved in one way or another.  Additionally, the parental figures are shown in positions in which they have become powerless, or at least have little power over the actions of the young adult character.

So, I recommend this to everyone, but especially to teen-aged boys 13-17.

Paul Zindel, changing times, and Young Adult Drama

Paul Zindel lived during the later half of the 20th century.  This was a period of change in America.  With the end of the second world war, American culure reorganized itself in many ways to become both fully modernized and primarily consumer based.  One aspect that became increasingly popular with the end of the second world war was the effect of radiation on various things.  Before it was discovered that radioactivity was poisonous, Radium and other radioactive elements were used in consumer products (one example is a story I heard in Chemistry of wristwatches that had radium paint on the dials so would glow in the dark.  The workers who painted these watches ended up with severe problems as a result, including some with forked tongues from where they would lick the point of the paint brush to make the brush pointy).  Today Americium is commonly used in smoke detectors, but apparently hasn't any serious risks of radiation poisoning. 

The premise of The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds follows a mother and her two daughters as the go about their daily lives.  The mother, however, does not think the girls should be going to school.  She believes that they should be attending to their domestic duties.  One daughter, Tillie (short for Matilda) is an intelligent student who is enthusiastic about science.  The other daughter, Tillie has been kept home for so long that the school is calling on account of her truency.  The mother, Beatrice, displays typical anti-intellectual attitudes, especially towards the daughters' schooling.

This play occurs during a period of time when America was shifting into post-modernity.  To that extent, there is a disconnect between the parent, who belongs to an era before mass education and the children who are living in a time of intellectual freedom as well as an approaching civil equality between the sexes.  Zindel has done an affective job at characterizing the post-nuclear family: the father is absent, dead since the beginning of the story, the daughters each come to represent a different attitude of their generation, and the mother is clinging to conventional ideas about the sexes and what women should and should not be doing.  This is a theme to watch out for in YA literature. 

Younger readers should sympathize to some degree with the daughters and the conflicting authority figures between home and school.  The genre of young adult literature arose out of the desire to portray those young people who are both caught between the margin of child and adult, but also for those who might still be children if not for adult circumstances forcing them into maturity.  This is one of the touchstones of YA literature, showing young people, too old to be children or too mature to be thought of as children, caught in a difficult situation that they must learn to handle like adults.  The situations are not realistic in all cases, but they present a kind of life that may be true for some, but all will empathize with.  In the case with The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds perhaps creates a caricature of anachronistic attitudes post-WWII, but it vividly expresses some of the dangers of those attitudes when they are allowed to play out.

Monster and the Justice System

Yesterday I had the pleasure of reading a book that has been sitting on my to-read list for over a year now.  Had I known it was only a 2 hour read, I probably would have gotten to it much sooner.  At any rate, I read Walter Dean Myers's Monster which is split between a first person prison journal and a screen play for the teenaged prisoner the story revolves around.

Steve Harmon was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  He was fingered by a neighborhood acquaintance as a look-out man for a stickup heist that ended with the death of a drugstore owner.  The screenplay is based on the trial that followed after one of the two people involved in the stickup implicated Steve in order to spread the blame around and lessen his own sentence. 

*SPOILER ALERT*

The books is transparent as to Steve's innocence.  Whether or not he will be acquitted is up in the air until the end of the novel.  The novel's suspense exists in this aspect; the judgment of the jury and the rhetoric of the prosecuting attorney left me as the reader anxious.  Would the DA be able to convince the jury that Steve was in fact innocent?  Would the Prosecutor's closing argument smear the lucidity of the defenses argument?  You'll have to read it yourself to find out.

For more information, check out Barnes & Noble and Amazon for reviews, awards, and ordering.

Coming up... Paul Zindel's The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds and Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion. 

The End is Near

Today I read a young adult novel that came up in class, but that I had really wanted to re-read.  It's called Armageddon Summer by Jane Yolen and Bruce Coville. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever encountered any kind of fundamentalist religion.  The book revolves around two characters, male and female, who have a parent who has become swept up in a sect of Christianity that emphasizes the end of days coming with the Millennium.

Reverend Beelson, a charismatic and convincing minister, and his Believers are convinced that the end of the world will occur on July 27, 2000.  Two teenagers get caught up in the middle, and they are forced to evaluate and re-evaluate what they believe as the End Day approaches.  Coville and Yolen portray authentic teenagers in fictional, yet realistic situations.

I like YA novels that can serve dually as a good story and a cautionary tale.  (Here is where it gets slightly political--quit reading now if that's not your thing.)  Armageddon Summer is a fictitious account of one exegesis* to Christianity, or any faith that preaches an "End of the World."  One of the things I find that this book expresses is how people take their interpretations of materials like the Bible, and reify** metaphors and figurative speech.  It doesn't matter if God is orchestrating existence if people are acting on their own convictions, causing real consequences via misunderstanding or reducing what is meant to be complicated.  People may desire simplicity, but it is nothing more than a desire.  Simplicity for the sake of making things simple can remove one by varying degrees of what is true.  These are the dangers that seem to be put forward by Armageddon Summer, which is why I recommend it so highly.  And for the record, I don't believe we are living anywhere near the "End of Days."  I think things will continue to get worse and worse regardless of what people do on behalf of their belief.

 
For more information, check out the amazon page

*exegesis is a fancy word for "how it plays out"
** reify is another fancy word, it basically means "to treat as real," or to make what is abstract concrete.

Coming Soon in 2011: The Undertaken - Book 1

I'm really excited about this new book coming out this fall: The Undertaken: Death Watch.  The first chapter and select scenes were read by the author, Ari Berk, at the Imagining the Fantastic conference at CMU this past April.  This is not your typical ghost story: it's a Ghost Story.  The story follows Silas Umber, a teenager drawn into a journey to find his missing father, Amos.  Readers follow Silas on this adventure into a realm of mystery as he learns the truth about his father's profession, his family and the town of Lichtport.


Coming out in November.  Published by Simon & Schuster. 

For more information on this title, visit the authors web site: www.ariberk.com
 or http://www.ariberk.com/theundertaken.html
or check out the amazon site for reviews and information: The Undertaken Trilogy: Death Watch

Don't miss this release on Hardcover 15 November 2011!!!!

Next: Armageddon Summer

Book by Local Author Spotted in new THOR movie!

For those of you who are comic fans and fans of faerie and the fantastic, it was confirmed last night that THE SECRET HISTORIES OF GIANTS by the very talented Professor Ari Berk was shown in the new marvel movie THOR.  In the scene where Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) is in the library using the public internet, there is a close-up shot of a book shelf full of books on mythology.  In the middle is the GIANTS book, written by Ari Berk, clear as day.  How exciting for the local professor of mythology and folklore.  To celebrate, the book has been placed on the features display at the Cutler Memorial Library in St. Louis, MI so people have a chance to read this excellent book of lore. 

 

For more information on the works of Ari Berk, including samples and ordering info, see www.ariberk.com.

 

English Matters (or does it?)

Welcome to a new blog that features book reviews on new and upcoming releases.   We are librarians excited about reading, and we enjoy getting people excited about reading by making available helpful reading ideas for the wayward readers.  Since things are still being set up, the recommendation is a little older, but was released within the last 10 years, Feed by M.T. Anderson.

Released in 2002, and winner of the 2003 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction  and 2003 Golden Duck Awards' Hal Clement Award for Young Adults, Feed is an eerie tale of science fiction that could serve as a cautionary tale of a future in which humanity is entirely dependent on interface technology (i.e. smart phones, facebook, etc) except instead of having hand-held devices or tablets, the hardware in installed directly into a persons brain.  Fans of dystopian science fiction and young adult fiction will find this novel a quick and exciting read.

Next on the list to review: Death Watch: Book 1 in The Undertaken Trilogy

Stay tuned, and keep reading!!