Archive | Young Adult RSS feed for this section

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline / Review

9 Jan

  This was not a book that I expected to like, but, as it was our January book club pick, I tried it anyway. And, to my surprise, I liked it.

Now, I would not say this is a well-written masterpiece. Or really literature. And I spent the entire book confused about whether or not I was reading a young adult novel.  But I liked it.

Ready Player One is the boy-video-gamer equivalent of chick lit. In an America of the not-too-distant future, reality has become so unbearable that the world has submerged itself in a virtual reality called OASIS. When the creator of OASIS dies, he leaves his entire fortune and empire (Willy Wonka-style) to the player who can locate a hidden easter egg located somewhere in the game.  When teenage trailer-park-resident Wade Watts finds the firt clue — after the world has spent five fruitless years searching — chaos and virtual adventure ensues.

In spite of the fact that this novel revolves around video games, I found it interesting enough to keep reading.  And I read it pretty quickly. Though I don’t think Cline meant it to be a young adult novel, it plays to that audience. If nothing else, I’m glad I read this book because I have already recommended it to several students who loved it. 

Cline certainly doesn’t need my approval — or anyone else’s. There was a bidding war among publishers for the novel, and the following day the rights were sold for a film. Before the book even hit the shelves. Amazon listed it as one of the top books of 2011.  For me, there is nothing deep or literary about this book, and it falls squarely in the domain of beach reading, but it is an interesting read.

Noah Barleywater Runs Away by John Boyne / Review

4 May

 While I continue to crawl (in the most wonderful way) through Wolf Hall at home, I picked up John Boyne’s newest, Noah Barleywater Runs Away, at school while my students silently read. Reading the cover, I wasn’t immediately drawn to the young adult (very young?) novel. The blurb reads:

Eight-year-old Noah’s problems seem easier to deal with if he doesn’t think about them. So he runs away, taking an untrodden path through the forest.

Before long he comes across a shop. But this is no ordinary shop. It is a toy shop, full of the most amazing toys and brimming with the most wonderful magic. And here Noah meets a very unusual toymaker.

The toymaker has a story to tell, and it’s a story of adventure and wonder, and broken promises. He takes Noah on a journey. A journey that will change his life. And it could change yours too.

I teach high schoolers, so it’s rare that I will pick up a young adult book unless I think I could use it with my students in some way.  This didn’t seem to fit the bill. Still, I was completely arrested by Boyne’s previous novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Stunned.  So, I picked up Noah Barleywater, if for no other reason than out of admiration for the author.

I would tell you more about the plot (it’s actually better than the blurb makes it sound), but that would give away some really neat surprises that this book delivers well.

While entirely different from The Boy, Noah Barleywater plays on the same mix of whimsy, fairy-tale-esque storytelling, and real, human darkness. No, there are no concentration camps this time around, but the emotional depth of the story is nearly equal in its poignancy.  Thus, much like a Pixar movie, it is a book for early chapter-book readers, and a book for teenagers, and a book for adults, too. A younger reader will really enjoy this book, and might even learn som important life lessons. It’s so true, I cried.

I was really moved by this book and charmed once again by Boyne’s narrative voice and his ability to so fully capture the naiveté and heartbreak of childhood. In weird ways, it sort of reminded me of Mantel’s Beatrice and Virgil — a quasi-fairy tale that’s not a fairy tale at all. (However, if you did not love Beatrice and Virgil like I did, don’t let my mental comparison scare you off.)  I have used The Boy in the Striped Pajamas with my high schoolers in a Holocaust literature unit; I’m not sure I would go so far with Noah Barleywater Runs Away, although it would be interesting to use it as a mentor text for fairy tale writing.

I highly recommend this book, and it has persuaded me to pick up anything John Boyne writes,  seemingly juvenile or not!

Thanks to the publisher for an advanced copy of this book!

The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney / Review

18 Apr

  Alex is a junior at a prestigious, progressive New England boarding school when she wakes up, disoriented, in an unfamiliar dorm room next to a naked boy whose name she can’t remember. She remembers going to the concert. She remembers playing drinking games. After that — nothing. When Alex makes her way back to her room, her roommate suggests that if she can’t remember having sex, she was probably date raped. Though Alex initially hesitates to accept this diagnosis, bits and pieces of the evening — of her fear and resistance to Carter’s sexual advances — come rushing back to her.

But what to do? If she calls the police, it will simply be a case of he-said-she-said that will quickly become very public and include involving her parents. The school disciplinary committee is notoriously hands-off.  Instead, Alex appeals to The Mockingbirds — a group of student advocates who monitor and punish the student body for various offenses.  They take their name from To Kill a Mockingbird, believing that doing the right thing for victimized students on campus is their raison d’etre.  The Mockingbirds spring into action to defend Alex and all girls who have been date raped at Thamis Academy.

This book has won a number of Young Adult awards over the last year — and I find it hard to pass up anything inspired by Harper Lee. This book was really better than I expected.  Sort of like a more gown-up Speak, the issue of rape has become a familiar tune in YA lit. Though this book is no exception, it’s slightly edgier than what I’ve read in the past. The writing — though not revolutionary — is pretty good.

I really only have a couple of complaints about this book. First, the language — a perennial concern in YA. Though there is not too many obscenities, there is enough to make me hesitate to send it home for something like summer reading.  And in this book, it’s really unnecessary. Ditto on the sexual content. It’s not too graphic, but it’s just descriptive enough to make me uneasy.

My other concern was simply a round dislike of the little love story. It was trite and too trite for a book with a bite. Moreover, having a new love interest seemed to make Alex’s ordeal somewhat easier — she has a defender, a powerful defender at that.  And it also seems to ignore some of the more nuanced issues about intimacy that often come out of sexual assault.

All in all, for a young adult book, I liked The Mockingbirds. I will definitely put it on my bookshelf at school and recommend it to my young readers. It has a great lesson for teenagers to absorb.

Geography Club by Brent Hartinger / Review

24 Mar

 Russel believes he is the only gay student at his small-town high school until he gets online one night and meets GayTeen, a fellow student. Russel is stunned when he meets GayTeen only to find out that he is one of the most popular jocks in the school … and he has a crush on Russel! When Russel finally confesses his sexuality to his best friend, Min, she reveals that she is bisexual.

The gang decides to meet for support — pulling a couple of other gay students into the fold. In order to meet regularly without raising suspicion, the group forms a club they think no one else will ever dream of joining: the geography club. All is well until the school newspaper writes a story revealing that the school as a gay student … and the witch hunt begins.

I picked this book up in a yearly ritual of trying to find good young adult fiction for our school’s summer reading list. To be honest, I’m not sure Geography Club will make the cut.

Here’s the thing: I love the idea of having some gay young adult fiction on the list. However, it also needs to be well-written. While Geography Club is an easy, entertaining read, it’s certainly not young adult literature. It’s okay. It’s fine. It’s a teen romance with the traditional sexes switched up a bit. It’s not revolutionary.

Truly, John Green and David Levithan’s Will Grayson, Will Grayson is a much better-written pick in the same genre. But it has a lot of cursing in it, which we hesitate to send home over the summer without the proper context that studying a book together in class can provide.

So, what to do? I’m not sure.  For now, I’ll say that I would recommend Geography Club to students who want a nice read in this genre. To the summer reading committee, I think I’ll recommend something else.

The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahern / Review

18 Jan

  When sixteen-year-old Tamara Goodwin’s father commits suicide, he leaves her and her mother bankrupt and forced to move away from their posh Dublin lifestyle to a remote country village at the foot of a ruined castle.  Housed by her uncle and “possessive” aunt, Tamara quickly finds herself bored, causing trouble to pass the time. To make matters worse, Tamara’s mother’s grief seems to have moved beyond simple sadness and into something much darker — she’s nearly catatonic, and only Tamara thinks this is a problem.

Things become more interesting, however, when Tamara discovers that all is not what it seems; life in the country is shrouded in secrets — both within her family, in the community, and in history of the ruined castle. Compounding the mysteries is a journal Tamara finds which reveals what will happen in the future.  To save her mother, Tamara must uncover the truths of her family and her own origins.

Re-reading this synopsis, I realize that this seems like pretty typical YA fare … but I can assure you, it’s not! Ahern’s writing is good — no drivel-y, angst-ridden teenage dialogue here. What’s more impressive, though, is Ahern’s crafting of the central mystery. Although there is nothing spectacularly unique about the plot of this book, the way she carefully unfolds the mystery keeps the reader hanging on. By page 184, I was getting brief glimpses of the truth, but I didn’t have it all figured out yet. To keep me surprised – that’s a good story!

I am always thrilled to read a good young adult book; let’s be honest, while huge strides have been made in the genre, it’s a rare treat to put your hands on one that is worthy of recommendation.  I will be recommending this one to my students. 

Still, this book raises for me many of the perennial questions surrounding contemporary young adult literature — namely, what makes a YA book have real literary merit? How much obscene language is okay? If it has obscene language, can I send it home with a student? Put it on the summer reading list?  If it involves smoking, drinking, and sex — is that okay? And does a YA book have to have these things in order to be popular with teenagers?

In some ways, I suppose these questions aren’t relegated solely to the world of YA. These are debates inherent to the teaching of any literature. Just look at Huckleberry Finn. And if you asked me if that novel is suitable for teenagers, you would hardly be able to stop my chorus of resounding “YES!”-es. Not only should studnets have the opportunity to read Twain, I would argue they need to read it — not simply for the literary merit but because of the controversy! They need to understand it.

So why do I have trouble extending the same rationale to contemporary young adult literature?

Philosophically, I would absolutely make the same argument for any book that I would make for Huck, but when it comes to putting it in the hand of a student as required — or even recommended — reading, I falter. I suppose it’s because it’s a stretch to compare much of what is available in YA to Huckleberry Finn.  Twain wrote literature. I wouldn’t recommend much young adult literature for the same reasons I also wouldn’t recommend Danielle Steele to a teenager.  

And there is young adult literature with potentially-offensive language that I would fight for as necessary and important — for instance, almost anything by Chris Crutcher or Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers.

Ultimately, a few instances of “fuck” in The Book of Tomorrow will prevent me from putting it on our school’s summer reading list or using it as a literature circle option in class. Which is a shame because it’s a really good book.  Still, the language in this book doesn’t strike me as narratively-necessary … and, so, I wouldn’t fight for this one.

What do you think? Am I a censorship-hypocrite (as I fear)? Can really popular, but literary, young adult fiction be written without all of the sensational stuff that makes teachers cringe?

Will Grayson Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan / Review

29 Jun

 In suburban Chicago, two teenage boys, each named Will Grayson, meet in a porn shop where each ends up by happenstance and coincidence. Neither Grayson is comfortable with his high school life; Will Grayson has few friends except for a gargantuan gay guy named Tiny Cooper who is currently producing a musical based on his life with funding from the student council. The other Will Grayson has few friends and hasn’t told anyone that he is gay … until he finds out that Isaac, his online boyfriend, isn’t real at all but rather a trick played on him my his frenemy, Maura.

The Will Graysons are outcast and miserable.

Will Grayson (the gay one) meets and falls in love with Tiny. Will Grayson (the straight one) opens up and finds friends (and a girlfriend) by learning to accept himself and his friend.

I had my eye on this book for a long time; co-authored by YA powerhouses John Green and David Levithan, I was fascinated.  Here’s the thing: I absolutely thought the novel was clever. The chapters alternate between Will Graysons, and their voices could not be more distinct. In capturing teenage angst and teenage voice, Green and Levithan nailed it. As they typically do. The use of language is original and often funny.

However, beyond that, the gimic didn’t fly for me. On the most basic level, I just didn’t find the plot interesting. There was no real movement for me — no arc, no real point. There are probably a lot of angry teenagers who will love — and need — a book like this. But it wasn’t an enjoyable read for me, and it was definitely not a piece of YA that I could really use in class or for summer reading.  Overall, while the ending was really good, this book is a blech for me.

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan / Review

15 Jun

 Last summer, my husband and I took frequent daytrips to a secluded little beach near(ish) to home, and I frequently took one of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson & The Olympians books with me. While 2008 was the summer of Twilight, 2009 was the summer of Percy Jackson. (2010, I suppose, will be the summer of The Hunger Games on my YA summer reading tour. Mockingjay!!!)

I was so excited to see that Rick Riordan had begun a new series, The Kane Chronicles, in The Red Pyramid — an “audio” account of the adventures of two siblings, Sadie and Carter, as they fight Egyptian gods and harnass their own magical powers to save their father.

*shrug*

Disappointingly, The Red Pyramid fell squarely into the category of Young-Adult-Literature-That-Is-Just-Like-I-Would-Expect-It-To-Be — Cheesy.  The characters are drab when they aren’t confusing.  The plot is perfectly ordinary. There are twists, turns, explosions, magic that mortals can’t see … all the same shtick that I loved in The Lightning Thief series. I just didn’t love it here. 

There are likely multiple reasons for this, the first of which I have mentioned — I didn’t like the characters. I loved the characters in The Lightning Thief. Secondly, Riordan uses the conceit of an audio diary throughout the novel — Sadie and Carter are recording their telling of their adventures. This leads to asides where Sadie pokes Carter, or Carter tells Sadie something along the lines of “Hold on, Sadie! I’m getting to that part!”. It’s distracting and adds nothing to the narrative.

 Most of all, though, The Red Pyramid lacks the charm that pervaded the Percy Jackson series. Perhaps because we (or at least I) am far more familiar with Greek gods, The Lightning Thief had lots of winks to the audience ; it existed on that clever line of Pixar movies — accessible for kids, smart enough for adults. The Red Pyramid felt heavy and dead. I only smiled once when Sadie and Carter arrive in Brooklyn, a sort of safe haven for Egyptian magicians, and they are told that they shouldn’t go to Manhattan because there are different gods there. That was cute. The rest was neither cute nor interesting.

A sad disappointment to teenagers and English teachers everywhere!

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins / Review

16 Apr

 Earlier this week I enthusisastically reviewed Suzanne Collins’ young adult novel The Hunger Games, and I mentioned that I couldn’t wait to get the sequel from the library.

No, seriously. I couldn’t wait to get the sequel from the library.  I was tenth on the list — that could have taken forever! Thankfully,  a friend helped me out with a loaner so that I could get busy on Catching Fire, the second in Collins’  Hunger Games trilogy.

The Hunger Games leaves readers with a cliff-hanger; Catching Fire picks up months later. Katniss and Peeta have returned home to District 12. Although their lives have been massively improved, many of their relationships haven’t. Tension is thick between Katniss and her best friend Gale as well as with the supposed love-of-her-life Peeta. 

Katniss might not think that her Hunger Games victory is unusually remarkable, but people of the neighboring districts have taken notice, interpreting her small defiance of Hunger Games rules as a spark of hope for defiance of the Capitol at large. In fact, as Katniss later finds out, she has become the face of revolution. Naturally, the Capitol is displeased.  Not coincidentally, a special rule is pronounced that will send victors back into the Hunger Games arena for the first time ever. Thus, Peeta and Katniss head back to the Capitol but with virtually no real hope of returning home due to Katniss’ defiance.  As a last-ditch effort to protect themselves, they announce that they have secretly married, and Katniss is pregnant. Living a lie and hoping to spark a revolution, Peeta and Katniss enter the arena once again.

I must confess that I do get a little suspicious of young adult authors who write series, simply because after Harry Potter the financial allure of young adult series-writing is hard to resist. Still, this is a GREAT series. Collins is a good writer; the plot is creative, the dialogue is good. In fact, this series is technically classified as sci-fi (a genre I try to avoid), and yet I absolutely am riveted by both the characters and the world Collins has created. It’s a series that makes sense. Collins’ themes are also darker and more mature than a lot of young adult literature, so while the writing is accessible for middle school or struggling high school readers, this is a great read for adults.

Catching Fire ends with a tremendous cliff-hanger–shocking, horrifying, irritating. The third and final installment of the trilogy is due out at the end of August, so I suggest you grab The Hunger Games and Catching Fire and take them with you to the beach! (Mom — that’s a recommendation for you!) That way, you won’t be tortured like Iam waiting months-on-end to finish up!

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins / Review

10 Apr

 Modern young adult literature is a special teacher secret, shared by few adults who do not daily work with pre-teens and teens as an educator or parent. For many, the image of “young adult literature” is still cluttered with The Babysitters’ Club,  Sweet Valley High, the inimitable works of R.L. Stine, and, perhaps more recently, the Harry Potter or Twilight series.

If that’s you, you are missing so much. There is a whole world of real literature out there, yes, aimed at young adults, but well-worthy of grown up reading lists.   And many of these stellar YA finds are poised to become future classics like Lord of the Flies…

…which is what I kept thinking of as I devoured Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games.  (We teacher-types are always trying to find YA to lure our own young readers into the world of classics.)

In a North-America-of-the-Future called Panem, the world is separated into twelve distinct districts, and most of the citizens are starving. Since the destruction of North America (we don’t know exactly how … I hope we find out in future installments!), the Capitol has made it its mission to remind the people of Panem that even the meager life they cling to is absolutely controlled by a higher power — the government. Guised as entertainment (but truly an annual demonstration of just how much power the Capitol holds over the people), one boy and one girl from each district is chosen each year to compete in a festival called the Hunger Games.   In the Hunger Games, twenty-four young people are thrust into the televised wilderness and dared to be the last one to survive. If starvation and dehydration doesn’t kill them first, the other contenders will.  Part Truman Show, part Survivor — this competition is cruel, heartless, brutal, and watched by the citizens with the same eagerness that sucks us into the Olympics.

When Katniss’ twelve-year-old sister is selected as the female contender from District Twelve, Katniss jumps in to take her place.  Along with Peeta, the male contender from her district, Katniss is whisked off to the Capitol  — a land of plenty of food, stylists, and game-strategy consultants — and into the whirwind of the Hunger Games. As she fights for her very life, Katniss must learn who she can trust, who she cannot, and what, exaclty, she is really made of.

This is a great read. It’s part of a burgeoning series, seems ideally staged for a film adaptation, includes action and love story — what more could one want from a YA book?  But seriously, this book raises very interesting issues about human nature, the role of the government,  and the strength of love. While it’s a fantastic, compelling read on its own, it would pair very nicely not only with Lord of the Flies, but also dystopian reads like 1984 or Brave New World in traditional English classrooms. I’m thinking … Romeo & Juliet? (I like a challenge.)

If you are not a seasoned YA reader, go grab The Hunger Games — it’s a darker than the Percy Jackson series (another personal fave!) and deeper than Twilight.  I can’t wait to go get book number two, Catching Fire.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.