Hollywood Hot Shots- Book Killers?

After hearing that The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier was made into a movie in the late eighties, I immediately sought out this film. When I finally found it (it's available on Netflix instant play if any of you want to watch for yourselves, see the preview here), I sat for the entire one hour and forty-five minute duration of the film- enjoying it for the most part up until the last fifteen-or-so minutes. For those of you who've read it, you know that it has a dark, intense ending. The movie version, however, ends with (go figure) Jerry beating Archie to a pulp. I was furious. The central question of the entire novel, "Do I dare disturb the universe?" was completely left out of the movie! Not only did they completely warp the book's central themes, but it also lost a lot of the great points of view the reader gains in reading the book from the teenager's perspectives.

Now, one of my favorite books of all time, Ned Vizzini's It's Kind of a Funny Story, has been made into a movie that comes out October 8th. Now, I've read Ned's positive blog entry about the film, but I'm still petrified it will not live up to my expectations.

BUT THE HUNGER GAMES?! I recently read that The Hunger Games has been optioned by Lionsgate Films and is slated to be released in 2012-2013. Frankly, I am anything but ok with this thought. I adore The Hunger Games series, and am relieved that Suzanne Collins is writing the script, but I am tired of Hollywood killing my favorite books. I know that these movies are often the best way to get the book to a large audience, but I hate having my imagination's renderings of the novels destroyed.


So what do you all think of this? Is Hollywood where our favorite books go to die, or do these movies provide new life to them? I think it's obvious I am not a fan, but are you?

-Shannon Hunt

Ad in the New York Times in defense of SPEAK

Ad placed in today's New York Times by Penguin Books, the publisher of Speak, in response to a recent censorship case in our own Missouri.  Find out more about the movement that led to this ad here.

Jennifer Buehler

Sorta Like a Rock Star a Perfect Vacation Read

I read Sorta Like a Rock Star this summer when I was on vacation. I had already received my books from Barnes & Noble and thought I might get ahead on my reading due to my course load this year. I looked for something that looked intriguing and light-hearted (I was going to New York City to visit a friend and then to beach and didn’t want to have to think too hard about what I was reading). I settled on Matthew Quick’s Sorta Like a Rock Star and got something, yes, light-hearted and interesting but also something I didn’t expect. I was surprised that this book touched on such deep and meaningful issues as in-group versus out-group dynamics, shattered soldiers, religion, addiction, poverty, as well as the path we choose to lead in our lives as being a “hope spreader” like Amber Appleton, a recluse like the Private, or a pessimistic cynic who walks around with a chip on their shoulder like Amber does for a brief period of time in the novel.

I liked this book and found it thought provoking but not in a way that would over stimulate my vacation-mode mind. It was the perfect time and the perfect setting for me to read this book because I was allowed the time and freedom from other homework to give the issues brought to light in this book some serious thought. As I wrote in my reflection paper, this book inspired me to have a better, more positive attitude and perspective on my life and having one bad day and be more like Amber Appleton, to be a hope spreader. I for too long in the last couple years was the pessimistic cynic with a chip on my shoulder and a horrible disposition (I didn’t even want to be around me) and I realized that being happy, having a positive outlook on my life, and putting a smile on my face when crawling in a dark corner and curling up for the next few years sounded great is so much better than carrying that chip along with me everywhere I went. People like to be around others who aren’t doom and gloom all the time and can have fun with. Having such a personality draws people to us as if we were magnets when we smile, when we laugh, when we lend an ear or a positive spin to a truly crappy situation and that’s what I think Sorta Like a Rock Star is all about. It’s about taking those truly crappy situations we find ourselves in and looking beyond that and ourselves to something better and helping someone else whose truly crappy situation is even crappier than ours.


Kaylin

Nikki Bland's Take on Sorta Like a Rock Star

I just finished reading Matthew Quick’s Sorta Like a Rock Star in 12 hours (7 of which were spent sleeping or in class), which is a pretty huge feat for me, considering I am the queen of procrastination. Upon reading the first chapter, I felt a huge connection with the protagonist, Amber Appleton, based on her unfaltering optimism and her love for animals. I ended up staying awake until nearly 4am reading, and I only put the book down because I had to be in class in four hours. This book impacted me pretty greatly. As a future teacher, it has made me realize the importance of investigating student’s home lives. One can only wonder what would have happened differently had Amber’s teachers inquired about where she was living or why she did not own a winter coat. As future teachers, do you think that the teachers at her school were in the wrong by not asking about her situation? Do you plan on being “nosy” when it comes to your students? When should the line be drawn in terms of a teacher over-stepping their boundaries into their students’ personal lives? What do you all think?

Attention Teens! (And Teachers)

Lots of you across the country are talking about Banned Books Week this week.  What do you have to say about book challenges?  What should you do when a book is challenged in your own community?  What about a challenge in a community far away?

Jennifer

Speak Loudly about Book Challenges!

Book challenges get people emotional.  Really emotional.  Usually it starts with the indignation of the would-be censor.  Then the community of teachers, librarians, professors, book critics, and authors fights back.  Teens, caught in the middle of these debates, tend to respond by tracking down a copy of the latest banned title as soon as possible.  More power to them.

What's different about book challenges now from the old days--when you had to get a copy of the ALA's Banned Books Guide, published every three years by Robert C. Doyle, in order to find out the reason for repeated challenges to certain books--is immediacy.  When a couple of challenges were recently lodged in our own state of Missouri, the YA reading community exploded with activity.

Laurie Halse Anderson posted about the Missouri challenge to Speak on her blog.  Indiana teacher Paul Hankins started a Twitter feed called #speakloudly.  Teri Lesesne, also known as Professor Nana, launched a series of posts on her blog about Banned Books Week, but also resolved to buy multiple copies of Speak and other books challenged in Missouri (including Sarah Ockler's Twenty Boy Summer and Sherman Alexie's Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian) and send them out to teachers across the country.

Now professor and YA author David Gill has started a website where teachers, librarians, bloggers, and authors can come together to speak out against the censorship of media materials for teens.  Here you can find archives of #speakloudly Twitter posts as well as posts by bloggers who have joined in on the conversation in the past week.  There's a Facebook group for Banned Books Week, too.

All this activity around book challenges can leave your head spinning.  But what better way to remind us of the importance of Banned Books Week--and the importance of an informed, invested reading public.

Jennifer Buehler

The kiss never came.

I was dreading the kiss but the kiss never came. That is why I like this book.

Somehow Amber’s friend Ty began to stand out from the other members of The Five and it seemed inevitable that Amber and Ty would end up together by the time Matthew Quick finished writing page 353 of Sorta Like a Rock Star. But the kiss never came and its absence is what earned my respect for this novel.

It threw me off when Ty started showing his feelings for Amber because it seemed as though she had tried to be her own person, a solitary hope spreader, and in the end she could only get herself back together with the help of a man. That is why I am glad the kiss did not happen. The kiss always happens and it always sends the message that people need to have a significant other to be happy, that they can’t just be happy on their own. This book was different though, because it didn’t resolve the relationship between Amber and Ty. We know there is some interest there, but it never develops. I can’t decide if the inclusion of the Amber-Ty relationship makes the novel stronger or weaker. I feel like it detracts from the storyline by adding extra tidbits that don’t need to be there, but at the same time it almost adds to the message by pointing out that Amber gets back on her feet not because she has some significant other to fall back on, but because she has her friends’ love for her and her love for everyone she meets. She is not like her mother who needs to rely on one boyfriend or another; she can be strong and support herself with the help of her friends.

Hilary Korabik

"Sassy Girl" Books

I read two books this week that encompass that fit a remarkably similar mold: Sorta Like a Rock Star and Big Fat Manifesto. I liked them both, a lot actually but the formulas went a little something like this: there is a sassy girl protagonist, she is loud, confronts social expectations but is having a crisis within herself that she does not reveal. Then something bad happens which causes “sassy girl” to question who she is. The rest of the book is devoted to finding and accepting oneself, and the girl returning to her sassy ways with a better sense of herself.
I do not want to devalue what these books actually accomplish. They both have strong female characters that would make good role models for young girls. They both, despite following similar formulas, explore painful and complex issues. Big Fat Manifesto centers around Jamie, an extremely overweight teen who writes a column entitled "Fat Girl". Jamie struggles to find her identity in the world, as do all teens, but she often relies on her image of "Fat Girl" in order to have an identity. This book was so relatable because I think just about every girl and woman has felt defined by the image of her body. Like Big Fat Manifesto I think everyone can identify with losing someone like Amber does, or feeling left out at school. Amber struggles to define herself we she can no longer be the “hope spreader” during her crisis. So what is wrong with fitting into this mold? Sassy girls are real girls trying to find themselves in the world just like everybody in that world.

Meaghan Myers

FREADOM- Banned Books Week 2010

September 25th marks the beginning of Banned Books Week.

"Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982. The challenges have occurred in every state and in hundreds of communities... People challenge books that they say are too sexual or too violent. They object to profanity and slang, and they protest against offensive portrayals of racial or religious groups--or positive portrayals of homosexuals. Their targets range from books that explore contemporary issues and controversies to classic and beloved works of American literature."
Since we have been reading and discussing some books that have been banned (for example, Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak), I thought that some of you would like to hear about this celebration of challenged literature. On my own blog, I keep a running list of banned books I have read and this week I hope to add a few more to it. Many libraries and book stores around the country are holding celebrations for this week devoted to celebrating censored literature. Hopefully this week will help us appreciate how lucky we are to live in a nation where none of these books are banned by the government. Happy reading!

-Shannon Hunt

Heavy Topics in Speak

I read Speak as my choice read this week and I definitely commend Laurie Halse Anderson for delving into the heavy, heavy topic of rape. The protagonist of the story is raped the summer before entering high school at a party and ends up calling the police, not knowing what else to do and, consequently, no one knows why she called them and hates her for it. I think the book captured the suffering and pain and thought process a young girl - or any woman for that matter - would go through on her path to healing and coming to terms with the horrendous experience she survived. Surviving itself after the fact is, I think, probably the worst thing to live through - remembering.

Kaylin

What to do with Weetzie Bat?

Image from charlotteaddams.vox.com

In class we were talking about how the publishers had no idea what to do with Francesca Lia Block's short story Weetzie Bat.  I quite agree, what do you do with this kind of story?  Well, I would suggest, don't change it.  The language of these stories is very rapid, the sentences don't leave you satisfied.  Here you delve into the mind of the narrator as they are seeing Weetzie and the world around her.  All I could think about when reading this was how am I going to keep up?  It is a constant race to the end of the section.  The story is sugar coated with adjectives that seem to describe the people and setting in a unique way, but could easily be lost on a distracted reader.

What's in a name?
Another element of the story of Weetzie Bat are the colorful names and descriptors that radiate throughout the story.  Weeztie doesn't find the "man of her dreams", but "My Secret Agent Man" and Dirk finds "Duck", does this allow the reader to create an image of the character instead of telling you who it is?  There are so many mysteries within this story.

What is a traditional family?
Weetzie Bat is a girl with a mission and a plan when she was trying to have a baby.  Though it was not the most traditional of settings to have sex with multiple men just to have a child it does seem logical in her mind.  Putting the idea of G-d and religion aside, were Weetzie's actions really morally wrong?  In her mind they weren't because each of the men in her life, well not My Secret Agent Man, had a part in bringing their child into the world.  Each of the men loved the little baby Cherokee and claimed a part of her as his own.  Is that so bad to have so many people taking care of a child? Personally I don't think so and I don't think that Weetzie thinks so either due to her own experiences with her parents not being together.

What are the questions that you found yourself asking when reading Weetzie Bat?

-Rachel Ball

Riot Gear

I just finished Feed by M.T. Anderson.  I really liked the book.  What really stuck out to me though was Riot Gear.

On page 159 of the book  Titus and Violet go to a party at Marty's house.  At the party some of Titus's friends are wearing Riot Gear.  In the book, Riot Gear is clothing that is stressed and faded in a way that simulates what protesters clothing would look like in after a riot.  One of these lines of clothing is WTO Riot.

This is what happened at the WTO (World Trade Organization) Riot

All the WTO Rioters did to provoke this violence from police was hold a march near the Washington State Convention Center where the WTO Conference was held.

Feed brings up a practice that has been going on for decades.  Groups of dissident people like punks and hippies seem to create a style of clothing that is stereotyped mainstream fashion designers.  Below is an example.

People that are not part of that dissident group but want to seem edgy demand this fashion so they too are edgy.

In the dystopic future that exists in Feed fashion designers have removed themselves so far from reality that they market a brand to the entire world called WTO Riot Gear to a global community.  The WTO Riot was against globalization and everthing that the "feed" is.  M.T. Anderson did a great job of making painful irony in Feed.

- Jason McCoy

In the News

I found this article related to a recent controversy about Speak with a professor suggesting it is “soft pornography.” I thought it was especially fitting since some of our class is currently assigned to it. First, here’s the article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/20/young-adult-soft-porn_n_731744.html

What do we do with an argument like this? Are there any grounds for what the Missouri State Professor is saying? How does this make you feel? How do we handle sexual content?

Danielle Maxwell

To All Those Who Resist the Feed- M.T.A.

          For my blog post this week, I wanted to talk about M.T. Anderson’s Feed. For those of you who have not had a chance to read the novel, it begins with a group of teens flying to the moon for their Spring Break. The main character, Titus, and his friends belong to a society in which people are connected to the internet through a ‘feed,’ or a chip that is implanted in their brains. While on vacation, Titus and his friends meet Violet, a strange but beautiful girl who has traveled to the moon by herself. Violet decides to join the kids in their plans to go to a night club, where they are attacked by a ‘hacker’ who essentially disrupts their feeds and implants a type of virus to corrupt their connections. As Titus and Violet begin to grow closer, he learns that she is home schooled by a single father and that her father’s income and personal beliefs prevented her from getting her feed installed until she was older. Because the feed was implanted in Violet’s brain so late, she is unable to fully recover from the hacker’s attack and it begins to have a detrimental effect on her body physically, as the technology has become connected to the natural bodily functions of human beings.

            This story basically illustrates all of our current fears of the affects modern technology will have upon our society in the future. The characters chatting through instant messaging instead of speaking out loud. The Earth being essentially destroyed and overpopulated to the point that people have built outward from the surface and fly through the vertical levels of neighborhoods in their ‘upcars,’ which have replaced contemporary automobiles. It is easy for the reader to get caught up in all of the futuristic aspects of this story. I was interested to read in “A Conversation with M.T. Anderson” in the back of the novel that the story was not written with the intention of being solely classified as a ‘futuristic novel.’ Anderson explains,

             “I think of it more as a novel that uses images from an imagined future in an almost allegorical way to discuss things we’re dealing with now.”

             In the interview, Anderson talks specifically about how are society is manipulated by the media and how we have a responsibility to be aware of the complexity of the world we live in and the issues and events occurring every day. He encourages teens to use Violet’s character as an example and to develop a healthy sense of curiosity and individuality. In the novel, Violet comes to the realization that the advertising and media companies controlling the feeds are targeting consumers based on their demographic, which is in turn causing the interests of each group to become more and more similar, and therefore losing their individuality in the process. She makes an attempt to confuse the feed by expressing interest in a long list of random and obscure products, so that the technology will not be able to figure out how to market to her. Anderson encourages his readers to explore themselves and their interests and not be so influenced by trends in the media.

-Katie Durkin

Monsters

Absolute justice, some will say, is virtually impossible to accomplish in the world we live in. The book Monster focuses on the issue of justice and the constant struggle human beings have finding it. Since Monster is not on everyone’s reading list this week, I will offer a brief overview of the book and discuss some of the difficult issues it raises. The story is about a boy, Steve Harmon, who is accused of murder. It is written through his point of view using the outline of a movie script as its format. At first, this type of writing confused and distracted me. However, the longer I read, the more the format added to the character of the book. The entire story takes place during Steve’s trial; during which, we are thrust into the flurry of emotions he undergoes.

In certain parts of the book, I found myself getting so nervous my stomach hurt. Facing a life sentence in prison would be horrifying! It made me think about the overflowing prison system in our country. How could there be so many people that chose the wrong path in life? Yet again, how is it possible that so much evil exists? Granted, there are various degrees of criminal severity, but all crimes cause harm to someone. If we loosely define “evil” as any crime done against another to do harm, then how can there be so much evil in the heart of mankind? Furthermore, by incarcerating people for their crimes, are we truly rehabilitating them or fostering an environment of increased violence and hostility? Is this system really proving to be effective? These are all questions I found myself asking throughout this book. The brutality and finality of prison is a disheartening reality; a place where evil seems to flourish in the hearts of men as a means of survival.

These thoughts also broach another question: What about innocent people wrongly accused and living in such close quarters with these monsters? Would a good person, sentenced alongside hardened criminals, be transformed into a monster to survive the horror of prison life? If so, what really separates you and I from the serial killer whose childhood was the result of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of alcoholic parents?

Monster is a book that provokes all these thoughts and questions. It is a book that leaves you questioning what you thought you already knew; then it forces you to evaluate whether your knowledge was a distortion of the true forces manipulating your life every day. The book forces you to re-think your approach at evaluating a person’s true character; did you really know the person at all? Emotions of fear, anger, sympathy, regret, and sadness will overcome you as you plunge into the journey of this dark, yet realistic, book. 

-Catherine 

High School Social Classes

High School. The best four years of your adolescence. Or so everyone is told. But high school is not without its ups and downs. High school is full of jocks and pretty cheerleaders, nerds and brainiacs. Every high school no matter the size has cliques and social divisions. Melinda in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak sees all the divisions in her high school and feels like an outsider like she doesn’t fit in. In every high school in every town in America there are cliques and people who don’t fit in them or who fit in more than one. However there is no way to escape the reality that is high school cliques.
You hear people talk about how at their high school there weren’t any cliques; everyone was friends with each other. Maybe truth is that everyone they were friends with was the ‘everyone’ that counted. Maybe it takes an outsider like Melinda to see the truth, to see all the divisions. Maybe we all see them but don’t want to do anything about them. Maybe we all just say that’s how it is, that’s how it’s always been, why change it?
I think the truth is we all feel comfortable inside our own cliques, in with our own friends. Maybe we see that lonely person sitting by themselves; maybe we are that lonely person. And maybe if we did reach out we could change the social structure just a little bit, or maybe it would all come crashing down. But it seems in reality we are all more comfortable not rocking the boat. In some ways we are all like Melinda, mute.
- Jessica Cervenka

Monster of a Unique Book

This week I read Monster by Walter Dean Meyers. If anything, it was really unique. The format of the book is that of a screen play. However the book also contains diary entries in order to reveal what the main character is thinking.

The book is about the trial of a 16 year old African American who is put on trial for helping with a murder that resulted from an armed robbery. However it is not explain whether or not the main character was actually involved. The book explains what happens in the courtroom as well as the jail. There are also flashbacks; however the only point of view that is seen is that of the main character.

I liked the main character of the book and I really like how the book portrays relationships with other characters. I was actually very shocked because I thought that the author portrayed the main character, a young black teen, very well. I was shocked because I thought the author was of Caucasian origin but once I looked up the author I realized he was African American and because of his childhood he could probably relate to the main character in an effective way, in order to get his message across.

I was actually looking up the author to find his background. The book takes place around a trial and Meyers was able to make it feel very real. I looked into Meyers’ bio to see if he had any background in law but I did not find anything about it so I’m assuming he had to do extensive research about the justice system in order to write this book. The assumption signifies that the author is very dedicated to his work because of the detail found in his writing.

The strongest part of the book is how relationships and views are portrayed. I especially like how the author portrays the main character’s relationship with his family and the main character’s views on living in a jail. The emotions portrayed were very strong and real.

The main problem I saw was that because the book was written as a screen play, the main character seemed distant. The diary entries seemed to make the main character more relatable but I do not think there were enough entries to make the audience feel fully connected to the character.

Monster is a strong YA book because the author fully immerses himself into the teen persona. The character handles the situations without the slightest hint of an adult’s perspective. This writing style will make the character a lot more relatable to teens.

Overall I liked Monster and I think that a young adult could take a lot from the book. It teaches about the importance of self discovery amidst other peoples’ strong predispositions. It slightly battles racism with respect to people prejudging, however it does not tackle the subject fully. I think that the ending was also unique and it leaves a lot of room for discussion.

--Amer Rasheed

"The Chocolate War"; a modern YA "The Lord of the Flies"

The Chocolate War, embracing its dark tone sends an equally dark theme of the unbelievable cruelty of the human race. This novel is not the first nor will it be the last to attempt to portray the evil to be found within all of us and the situations, such as power and reputation that bring that evil out. I personally could not avoid comparing this novel, the ending in particular, to The Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Both express the ways that youth can get carried away in a power struggle, always trying to “save face”, and the consequences that follow. The horrible cruelties shown in both novels are hard to accept, and though many would say that the murders in The Lord of the Flies makes it an ultimately more disturbing novel I have to disagree. I personally found The Chocolate War harder to digest specifically due to the character of Brother Leon. To me all the horrible happenings seemed (and I know it sounds cruel but….) like normal happenings in a high school; there will always be a hierarchy, there will always be those kids getting bullied and beaten up. What made it all so horrible was the way that Brother Leon let it all happened, encouraged it even. To me that is what ultimately made this novel so dark and evil, the way this teacher, a priest even, allowed all of this to happen in order to save his own reputation. This is an ultimate form of cruelty; letting those you are suppose to protect get attacked in order to conserve your own reputation. It is this interference, or more aptly lack of interference, from adults that makes this novel seem so much darker then The Lord of the Flies to me, sure in that novel the deeds are worse, but there was no one to interfere while in The Chocolate War there was and they didn’t.

-Chloe Janvrin

Second Read

I read Robert Cormier's "The Chocolate War" in eighth grade while on vacation. I had run out of books to read and found myself lost without a book in my hand while waiting to board an airplane on the way to my final destination. So upon browsing the shelves of the airport convenience store loaded with magazines and books with various titles and subject matters, I settled on "The Chocolate War"...and I hated it. I didn't see the point in the book. I didn't understand how it got the reviews on the back cover that it had. I just didn't like it.

Now, upon giving it a second read for class I was open to having a different experience with the book since I was a few years older and have had some experiences I hadn't had when I first read it as well as having a different perspective on life due to those experiences. I will say that giving the book a second read after a long period of time, I'm liking it a lot better and can see the things I couldn't understand then because I hadn't experienced them (like Catholic high school) and that now having had that time to experience them and look back on those experiences I can relate a lot better to the characters then I could as an eighth grader of a Catholic grade school.

Kaylin

Is YA Lit appropriate for its audience?

The other day in class we were asked to find an excerpt from Looking For Alaska that we felt helped define the book as literature. What we discovered is that it is almost impossible to create a simple definition of Literature, it is something that must be looked at from several different perspectives. I believe that this holds more true for the more specific Young Adult Literature. One important factor when defining what is YA Lit is the level appropriateness. If a YA book is made into a film could it be rated R?

It is no secret that many YA books, including Looking For Alaska, address adult situations, but the question is do they do it an a way that is appropriate for the intended audience. Looking For Alaska addresses teenage alcohol and drug usage, death, sex, and other questionable topics while still being considered a novel for young adults. There are however other novels that discuss these same topics and have characters that are in the same age group as the characters in Looking For Alaska and yet these novels, namely Youth in Revolt by C.D. Payne, are considered to be adult novels.

I mention Youth in Revolt because it brings us back to the initial question, if a YA novel was made into a film can it be rated R. Youth in Revolt though it covers similar subject matter it apparently does it in a more “mature” way. When Youth in Revolt was released it did receive an R rating, and I believe that it would be very possible for Looking for Alaska to be given the same rating. It seems to me that the line between what is and what is not YA lit is a little arbitrary.

-Danny Commes

Death by Diorama

It really is not The Chocolate Wars fault but I absolutely hate this book. My fifth grade teacher handed it to me unceremoniously. She, in all likelihood, had no idea how to deal with an avid reader like myself. It was book report season and everyone needed a book, the fact that I had read the majority of the books she brought was clearly my fault. That was the death knoll for this book the book report. I had no desire to read this book, let alone make a pitiful diorama that would show the world just how terrible I was at arts and crafts. This project was meant to encourage students to read I am sure. For me though it was these kinds of projects that turned me off from the books on which they centered. The Chocolate War was the last “young adult” book I read until high school. Even now as I reread it I cannot enjoy this book that might otherwise be perfectly enjoyable.

I am concerned with the fact that children do not read, but I think that people tend to oversimplify the solution, and suggest only that students should be given more YA novels, or should be able to choose their novels. While these are great solutions it does not absolve teachers from the need to create engaging projects and assignments that encourage reading.

I have been reflecting a lot on how this novel, ruined by a terrible assignment, affected me as a reader. I am lucky I already loved to read so it did not shut me down from reading as a whole. It ended up shutting me off from a section of reading that I might have otherwise enjoyed. I began associating YA literature with cheesy art projects and plots reducible to dioramas. These projects become the image associated with the genre as a whole; simplistic characters that can be represented by a drawing, and themes that can be reduced to titles. These projects are not fair to the genre, and probably are not fair to The Chocolate War, but even now that is the only image of the book I can see, a pathetic cardboard diorama.

-- Meaghan Myers

Disturbing the Universe

The theme of The Chocolate War is a very common one in human history: violence against dissidents. For a reason that is never completely explained Jerry defies the natural order of the school. The reason that Cormier does this is to show readers what typically happens when people "disturb the universe".

I believe that Cormier was trying to warn the youth about what happens when you start using violent protest as a form of dissent: you lose. During the decade before the writing of this book there is a very evident trend in protests. Non-violent protests achieved their goals and violent protests did not.

Some of the historial events that Cormier may have been drawing upon were the difference between the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War Protests.

On the whole Civil Rights Protests were largely non-violent.  They became effective when they found national media because people didn't like police beating non-violent political dissidents.  The Civil Rights Movement was very successful in that respect as the Civil Rights Act was made into law in 1964.

The Vietnam Protests had the sigma of being violent.  On a regular basis protesters broke windows and threw rocks at police.  These actions hindered their effectiveness because national government doesn't like it when you challenge them with violence.

I believe that this is what Cormier was trying to say by writing the boxing match as the climax of the book.  If a dissident group is ever tricked into using violence as a form of protest against the larger group they will not be successful in the same way that Jerry was beaten to a pulp in the boxing match.

I don't like that the ending of this book is so dark.  Jerry defies the school, Jerry gets is bones broken.  It's a rather authoritarian message that doesn't promote the productive dissidence we need to make the world a better place.

- Jason McCoy

Passive Participants

“Nobody wanted trouble, nobody wanted to make trouble, nobody wanted a showdown…most kids wanted peace at any price.” – The Chocolate War (p.48)

If you’re lucky in middle school and high school, they talk to you about bullying or sexual harassment, and then they talk with you after an incident as well, but who really talks about the way we psychologically manipulate one another. Who really talks about this layer of bullying that entrenches the physical, but exists just as equally on its own?  You’re picked last in gym class—classic example—but there shouldn’t have even been a line-up. Your teachers first set-up a system that then enabled your peers to weigh, measure, and judge you. A kid jumps in front of you in a line for lunch, at the store, when you’re waiting for tickets and you grind your teeth or squeeze your fist, but to what end? They say not to rat out someone else because it’s all about the team or it’s all about the school or it’s all about something that in a few years from now doesn’t really matter (if it ever really did). We take the looks that define what we’re supposed to wear, the curriculum that says what we’re supposed to learn, the organization that says what we’re supposed to think, and then all the pain, torment, and suffering when we don’t quite fit. We take it all silently. Victims. Speechless? Voiceless. Peace at any price? Do we really believe that being all twisted up inside, that feeling unwelcome, unordinary, ridiculed is peace?

Silent victimization maintains the system and then the systems maintain those systems until we’ve trapped ourselves into a process that sets group mentality against individuality. We’re in a state where we’re more likely to help others when there’s no one else around. We bully ourselves. There’s a group like the Vigils in all our schools and companies, and we’re all involved, passively participating in all the psychological posits and positions.

Did we ever think about saying no to selling the box of chocolates? Damn it, why not?

Danielle Maxwell 

Puddnhead Books and free YA swag!

I moved to St. Louis one year ago.  A huge part of my settling in process hinged on discovering an independent bookstore that specializes in books for kids and teens.  Puddnhead Books in Webster Groves is a place where you can count on finding knowledgeable staff members who are reading the newest and most awesome YA titles.  This is a place that offered midnight pickups on the release date for Suzanne Collins' Mockingjay.  Due to a combination of first day of school jitters and excitement to finish this intense dystopian trilogy, I was there!

This coming Monday, Puddnhead's YA expert, Melissa, will be booktalking her favorite new children's and YA titles.  On top of her energetic booktalks, Melissa will be giving away swag--that is, promotional stuff that publishing companies send out to drum up interest in new titles.  Here's her invitation to booktalk night:

Educator Night
Monday, September 13th at 6:30 PM
Okay, teachers and librarians, here's the deal:
You come in, and I tell you about the newest, most awesome books - picture books through YA. You receive 20% off not only on your professional purchases (like you always do), but on ANYTHING you buy that night. You walk out with armloads of free posters, buttons, advance copies, tshirts, and everything else I've been stashing in my house for you since May.
I Get to have a blast talking to you AND keep my husband from complaining that there are 20 BIG NATE tshirts lying just inside our front door (not that you'd see them as they are buried under four boxes full of giveaway novels).
Sound good? Just email or call to tell me you're coming (so I can have enough chairs) and forward this info to anyone you think would be interested!
**Educator nights are now MONTHLY rather than seasonally - next one is October 18th at 6:30. However, the most stuff will be given away on Monday as I have four months' worth rather than one month!**

Puddnhead will also be sponsoring YA author Ellen Hopkins' upcoming visit to St. Louis:

Ellen Hopkins
Monday September 20th at 7 PM
St. Louis County Library HQ, 1640 South Lindbergh Boulevard.

NYT bestselling (and frequently banned) YA author Ellen Hopkins discusses her newest book, "Fallout." "Fallout" is the stunning conclusion to Hopkins' bestselling "Crank" trilogy about teenage addict Kristina Snow. "Fallout" is written from the perspective of Kristina's children, now teenagers and dealing with how their own lives have been shaped by the choices Kristina made when she was their age. The "Crank" trilogy is a transfixing, vivid look at teenage drug abuse and a testament to the harsh reality that addiction is never just one person's problem. Ellen Hopkins is one of THE BEST speakers in the YA world - this is going to be a dynamite evening!

 Jennifer Buehler

Living authors

It used to be that if you wanted to interact with an author, your only option was to write a letter and send it to the author in care of their publisher. I did this once. Back on New Year’s Day in 1995 I was working in a bookstore. That morning I’d finished reading a brand-new YA novel called Wish You Were Here by Barbara Shoup. My response to the book was so personal and so large that I felt compelled to write the author. A couple of hours later in the staff lunch room, I scrawled out a handwritten letter on the pages of a tiny white notepad. My writing was messy, hard to read, heartfelt, and spontaneous, but I sent the letter off to Hyperion Books in New York anyway, wondering if it would ever get to Barb.

Three months later I got a two-page typed letter in response, my first ever letter from an author. Barb’s handwriting on the envelope was a thing of wonder to me, and my heartbeat raced as I opened it. I poured over her words and carried her letter with me for days. What began as a shot in the dark—my spontaneous reader response—led to an ongoing correspondence and friendship. Barb’s book will always hold an important place in my life because of the personal connection we forged through letters.

Now in the era of the internet, YA authors are everywhere. We can read their blogs, watch their online videos, find archived interviews they’ve given, locate their email addresses, friend them on Facebook, and even chat with them on Skype or online. This access may help some readers to feel even closer ties to the books they love and the authors who write them. It may help more readers to forge personal connections with authors in the way I did with Barb Shoup. On the other hand, it may feel strange to encounter a favorite author outside the confines of the book they wrote, kind of like running into your teacher wearing sweatpants in the grocery store. What’s it like for you to have access to the authors you’re reading, and to get a sense of who they are as people when you find them online?

Jennifer Buehler

The Last Words Lightning Round

I stumbled upon this and thought it was pretty cool.  John Green gives us 50 last words in 4 minutes.  Maybe John Green used himself for a model for Pudgy?

Enjoy,

 Jason McCoy

Judging YA Lit Books 101

           The Aronson article gave me a new perspective on YA book awards.  I know it’s a little dated but I would have never guessed if I didn’t see the dates on the books he was discussing.  First of all it was interesting to get a little Bio on the Printz Award.  I always wondered how awards were named, and this article gave me a little insight on how it happened.  It was also interesting how they named the article after a librarian instead of a teacher.  I think it symbolizes (although I don’t think it was intended to) the idea that that forcing students to read lowers their drive to go out and discover books on their own.  This keeps them from discovering a true love of reading.  In contrast, the library has thousands of books available for checkout, and it symbolizes freedom to pick and choose and grow at one’s own will.

            I wondered whether the central debate (Popularity vs. Literary Excellence) is a big deal in the world of adult awards.  I do not believe it is because I remember Aaronson implying that people assume literary excellence leads to adult popularity.  For the Printz award it seems like the debate is actually between Teen popularity and Adult popularity.

            Like I said before, I thought this article was written earlier so I was really shocked to find out that the Printz was the first award of its kind, the first award for books for ages 12-18 (I wonder if it is one of the factors for the continuing boom of the YA sector of books)  However once the article was put into chronological perspective it made more sense.  One thing I found quite interesting about the article was the idea that they would market the award toward teens.  One example of this was the idea that the winner would go on MTV rather than Today.  This makes sense since the award is made for teen books, therefore teens should be the ones exposed to the winner.

            The bulk of the article argues that the Printz award should focus on literary excellence rather than popularity.  However it was interesting how the author does not just choose one side or the other.  Rather, he makes a unique argument.  He stresses that contrasting popularity to literary excellence is an insult to teens.  He argues that teens are very smart they are not just “dumber forms of adults.”  He also states that teens are sometimes able and willing to understand things that adults are not.  He asserts that teens are not just once big blob, who all like one thing.  They will like many types of books.  So because they are so vast and different, just picking one book as the most popular one would be an insult to the diversity of teens.

            The article was refreshing.  It is nice to see an advocate for teens who acknowledges their positives instead of just treating them like a charity case.  This is an author who is willing to challenge teens so they can grow.  Adults need to change their thinking to model Aronson’s.  It will challenge the teen population and help them improve and help create a next generation that the last one will be proud of.

--Amer Rasheed

Loss of Life

As I read John Green’s Looking for Alaska, I couldn’t help but ignore the other chores on my to-do list. Every page kept me hanging on, laughing out loud and yearning for more and more pages of entertainment. The book made me feel genuinely happy and nothing at all like I was reading. I felt I was with Pudge and the Colonel at Culver Creek, smoking the same cigarette and laughing at the same witty jokes. I wanted to be at Culver Creek and secretly regretted not asking my parents to ship me away to boarding school for four years of my life. John Green did a magnificent job of portraying young adults in such a fashion that one can only assume his honesty is genuine.

Unrenowned to me, this cheerfully sharp novel was about a search not for life, but death. I didn’t know this book would take a dramatic turn into the search of why one lively girl would decide to screw it all and find out everything there is to know about the afterlife.

The transition, however from “before” to “after” was, in my opinion, perfect. Yes, I cried when the Eagle announced the death of Alaska, and yes I was angry at Pudge and the Colonel, vocalizing “why didn’t you stopped her???” I was there, and I was mad. However, after I calmed down, John Green brought me back in and kept me dedicated for the last eighty-four pages. “Real” is the only word that comes to mind when I try to describe this novel. I felt at ease with her death, and nervous acceptance to Pudge and the Colonel’s “liking” that Alaska had passed away. Their feelings initially were what we would call a “normal” response to a friend passing; tears, hurt, loneliness, guilt and frustration, but they as time passed, their acceptance of their friend’s death started to grow on me.

When my friend passed away this past year, I was full of sadness that kept being interjected by a feeling of beauty. I was confused that the only sorrow I felt was really towards his family and close friends. I wasn’t sad that he was gone, I was happy for him. I couldn’t get myself to admit that to anyone, and grant it, Alaska had decided to end her own life, unlike my friend who had no control over his passing, but John Green has made that publicly acceptable.  I questioned how I felt and wondered if I was some kind of a freak for not being an emotional wreck and wondering “where are the freaking tears???” I was pleased with the subtlety of the ending and look forward to seeing what other novels John Green has in store for the future.

-Lucy

Subverting the Patriarchal Paradigm

When I shut Looking for Alaska, I sat staring blankly, frozen in an abyss of emotions and emotionless-ness. I thought about suicide—about the stranger in eighth grade who hung himself, about my mother’s own numerous attempts, about that friend in fifth grade who popped pills [unsuccessfully] before me… out of my reach. Alaska wasn’t like them. I’m convinced Alaska couldn’t be them. I now find myself satisfied that what happened—the event that this entire novel is built around—was one of those freak accidents. Alaska was strength. She was beauty. She was an androgynous masterpiece. But the strong die, too. The beautiful can choose. And the androgynous might be his or her own device. Her story was not in her death, though, nor in her life, but in her labyrinth. She was a being that moved those around her, who was the brilliance behind the plans, who others loved and admired, but who also realistically and psychologically-consistently suffered.

It is not often in literature that readers see a main male character paired with an even stronger secondary character being a female. John Green should be applauded in the way he crafts the character of Alaska, challenging gender roles. Though we have seen the emergence of strong female heroines in novels, the presence and role of female characters in male-centered pieces is dragging behind. Yet again Alaska has sought to subvert the patriarchal paradigm. Alaska is the kind of woman young women can aspire to be—to smell like sweat, wet grass, and vanilla lotion; to feel thoroughly comfortable within her body, sex, and sexuality; to know one’s individual identity. Her development is then made believable through her labyrinth—through her suffering.

I hope to think of Alaska every time I read about female characters in other stories and wonder what she would say about them: “Are you letting men objectify you as you sit there on hands and knees with that look of disinterest?” Is this character more than emotional support? Is she more than a sexual object? What work is the author allowing her to do of her own breath, strength, and beauty? Is she the kind of woman younger women would seek to be? And if she’s not, then is our literature transferring the messages that women (and alternative masculinities) need in the 21^st century? If she’s not, then is our literature sending us backwards, setting us frozen—locking us away within the labyrinth?

Danielle Maxwell

What do your reading choices say about you?

I’ve been reading young adult literature all my life. As a teen in the 1980s, once I’d discovered A Wrinkle in Time and Meet the Austins, I went on to read every other novel by Madeleine L’Engle that I could find. I did the same with books by Judy Blume. Then, in search of other books that might speak to me, I turned to the mass market paperbacks housed on the one YA shelf in my county library, having no idea that authors like S.E. Hinton, Robert Cormier, Richard Peck, Isabelle Holland, Norma Fox Mazer, M.E. Kerr, Paul Zindel, Katherine Paterson, Mildred Taylor, Norma Klein, and Paula Danziger would go on to become giants in the field that I now follow with a passion.

I read other things in addition to YA lit when I was a teen, including plenty of Stephen King. I read Bloom County comic book collections, autobiographies of politicians and celebrities, and trashy books like Flowers in the Attic. I also read lots of classics that I found on lists of books for the college-bound. But the books that stayed with me were the ones written about teens and for teens. When I became a high school teacher and decided to build a classroom library, the first books I thought to include were young adult novels. I had no idea how much the field had grown and changed while I was finishing high school and moving through college. Discovering books by new YA authors in the early 1990s such as Chris Crutcher, Francesca Lia Block, and John Marsden rekindled my love of reading and of teen books in particular.

It’s easier than ever for me to be a fan of young adult literature now that I teach classes on the topic, produce podcasts on new YA titles, write articles about YA authors, and serve on YA award committees. I’m surrounded by people who love these books, from teaching colleagues to former students to professional mentors. Every day when I turn on the computer, I’m likely to hear from a YA author or critic or fellow YA reader through the online world of Facebook, listservs, and blogs. My identity is deeply tied up in the books I read, as are my personal and professional relationships. For others, though, embracing YA lit may feel like more of a challenge. Defining oneself as an English major or an intellectual may seem to leave no room for books that are easy to write off as “kid stuff.” Our reading choices communicate messages about who we are. What do your reading choices say about you?

Jennifer Buehler