Twilight cartoon mentioned in class today

If anyone's still looking at these blogs, here's a link the Twilight cartoon/commentary Kelsey and I were talking about in class today:
http://theoatmeal.com/story/twilight

Review 2: No Safe Place by Deborah Ellis

No Safe Place

Deborah Ellis

Toronto, Ontario: Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press, 2010.

205 pp., pbk., $12.95.

ISBN 978-0-88899-974-0.

Grades 9 and up / Ages 13 and up.

Review by Sheela Sur.

****/4

excerpt:

     The small concrete yard was empty in the heat of the day, so Abdul had no problem crossing it and letting himself out through the high metal fence that separated the house from the street.

     He stepped into a city he didn’t recognize.

     It was as though God had picked up the world, shaken it madly, then let it fall through His fingers and scatter on the ground.

     The houses immediately around Abdul’s house all had pieces missing.  One had a huge hole in the roof.  Another had a hole in the wall.  Another had collapsed altogether.  There were big chunks of cement and glass everywhere.

Deborah Ellis’s No Safe Place is the story of three teenaged migrants who have travelled illegally from their home countries and, brought together by a corrupt smuggler, make the final stretch of their journey to England together in October 2009. 

     Ellis tells the harrowing tales of Abdul, a fifteen-year-old boy with a passion for song-writing who flees Baghdad after witnessing the violent murders of his father, mother, and best friend; Rosalia, a strong-willed Roma girl who escapes from northern Berlin after being sold to a brothel; and Cheslav, a gifted musician who refuses to face the brutality and suppression of a Russian military academy. 

  

   Their stories are believable and heartbreaking.  Ellis, author of The Breadwinner Trilogy, continues to expand the reader’s knowledge of the challenges that are faced by too many young people around the world every day.  The action is fast-paced but the characters are still given ample room for development.  This novel will work for the socially conscious reader, in the political science classroom, and as a riveting story for the teen reluctant to read.  However, the ending does not provide a tidy resolution and should not be read by someone hoping for a “happily ever after.” 

Highly recommended

Find No Safe Place at the London Public Library (Click here!)

The Virgin Suicides: A crossover book with a media tie-in

Talking about crossover books got me thinking about The Virgin Suicides, the subject of my digital booktalk video.  Not only is this adult book enjoyed by teens, but it has also been made into a movie!  The film is written and directed by Sofia Coppolla.  The script uses mostly excerpts from the book which makes it fun to watch if you've already read the book, and makes the book fun to read if you've already seen the movie.  I'm going to copy the link to my booktalk and my write-up for the assignment for those of you who want to know more:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pV6XdcdbNM


Eugenides, Jeffrey. The Virgin Suicides. New York: Warner Books, 1994. 

Cecilia Lisbon, the thirteen-year-old youngest of five daughters, sends her quiet 1970s suburban neighbourhood reeling when she attempts suicide by slitting her wrists.  Though unsuccessful, her suicide attempt prompts the entire neighbourhood, especially the narrating group of teen boys, to increase their scrutiny of the already somewhat reclusive and mysterious Lisbon family.  Encouraged by Cecilia’s psychiatrist to increase their daughters’ social activity, Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon throw a co-ed party for Cecilia and their other girls (Lux, age 14; Bonnie, 15; Mary, 16; and Therese, 17).  However, this first and only Lisbon party ends in tragedy as Cecilia succeeds at ending her life by jumping from her second-story bedroom window and landing on an iron-spiked fence. 

Though their house begins to fall into disrepair as they deal with their grief, the Lisbons appear to return to a normal, everyday life.  The girls return to school in the fall and Mr. Lisbon continues his position as a high school math teacher. He even agrees to allow Trip Fontaine, teen heart throb, to take Lux to the homecoming dance (on the grounds that Trip finds dates for the remaining three girls).  But when Lux fails to make curfew the Lisbon house goes into a complete lockdown.  The girls are taken out of school and Mr. Lisbon eventually leaves his job.  The narrating boys manage to catch glimpses of the girls through windows and spy on Lux’s midnight trysts with local men on the roof.  After a brief correspondence, the girls invite the boys to their house, supposedly to run away with them.  However, the boys have actually been invited over to be witnesses to the girls’ dramatic final act, as they all commit suicide simultaneously in various ways throughout the house.

Told through the collective voice of a group of middle aged men remembering their days with the girls (the ambiguity of the narrators makes them become almost as mysterious as the Lisbon girls), The Virgin Suicides haunts the reader with a sense of poetic beauty, undying obsession, and the intensity of teenagehood.  The men recall the “year of the suicides” through their own firsthand accounts, interviews conducted with numerous characters, and exhibits of personal belongings collected from the Lisbon house. 

In his debut novel, Eugenides successfully creates the world of a 1970s suburb as it falls victim to the diseases of urban sprawl, environment change, and teen suicide.  He creates real, multi-dimensional characters, and his beautiful prose makes every word interesting and compelling to read.

            Though this book was not necessarily written for young adults, the subject matter and writing style can be appreciated by mature high school readers (age 16 and up).

A little post about dystopia and YA fiction.

Sorry folks: no deep, meaningful stuff from me tonight.  I read Susan Beth Pfeffer's The Dead and the Gone recently.  At first it was really creepy, then it got kind of boring, then it ended and I was disappointed.  I am not a fan.

What creeped me out was that in my experience, dystopian literature takes place in some far-off future where something catastrophic happened or the current political/technological climate came into being a long time ago.  The Dead and the Gone seems to be set today, and the novel starts on the day that the world-changing catastrophe happens.  For this reason I found the first few chapters pretty hard (emotionally) to get through, especially after the recent events in Japan.

So, the first few chapters were very effective, but I got pretty bored after that.

I also read Laura Miller's article "Fresh Hell"* and liked what she had to say, especially about dystopian fiction mirroring the young adult's high school experience.

*Miller, Laura. 2010. Fresh Hell: What’s Behind the Boom in Dystopian Fiction for Young Readers?” The New Yorker June 14.

I don't like Twilight.

This is the story of when I read Twilight.

My roommate loves Twilight.  Like, a read all the books multiple times, counts down the days to the movies, and lines up at midnight kind of love.  I was a Twilight skeptic.  I had heard bad things about the books and was sick of hearing about the movies all over my (admittedly beloved) celebrity gossip websites.   But, last summer, I had some downtime between school ending and jobs starting, was rolling around my London house looking for stuff to do, and my Twilight-loving roommate convinced me to read the first book.

So I did.

I hated it.

OK, OK, "hate" may be a strong word.  I strongly disliked the writing and really disliked a lot of the main characters.  But I understood the appeal. I was interested in the story and kept reading because I wanted to find out what happened next.  Compelled to find out what happened when the book ended, I read the second book, New Moon.

I hated it even more.

Not only was the writing bad, there was no story and the characters were even less likable.  I still get the appeal.  Spending two books with the same characters could leave a different sort of person needing/wanting to know what happens to them.  A different sort of person may enjoy reading 200+ pages about a girl who likes a guy but doesn't know where he is so she wonders where he is and kind of starts liking some other guy, but OH NO she doesn't know where the first guy is and she really likes him but she's starting to like this other guy, and he's really nice and all, but what about that first guy....

Aaaanyway, I watched the movie and, needless to say, didn't like it either.  Something about the way it was filmed (cinematography?) was ridiculous, but I did like seeing how the characters and story were represented.

So I think it's pretty clear that I don't like Twilight as a piece of literature/film.  But I do like that lots of tweens/teens like it.  It's getting "reluctant" readers to read and  encourages them to read similar books outside the series, which may lead them to an even broader range of literature.  The media tie-in makes the books accessible to an even wider audience.  I'm reading through the Margaret Mackey chapter and hope to have some more intelligent things to say soon....

Getting the Laughs: Absolutely Positively Not by David LaRochelle

I thought Absolutely Positively Not was a great book.  It was really funny without downplaying the seriousness of the main character's situation (coming out while attending high school in a small town).    It approached the topic effectively and managed to avoid predictability and cheesiness (cough - Judy Blume).  The humour made what could be an uncomfortable or embarrassing topic approachable and readable.  I thought the protagonist was realistic and charming. It's a fun read with an important message. 

Response to "Gossiping Girls, Insider Boys, A-List Achievement: Examining and Exposing Young Adult Novels Consumed by Conspicuous Consumption" by Wendy Glenn

Glenn, Wendy. 2008. “Gossiping Girls, Insider Boys, A-List Achievement: Examining and Exposing Young Adult Novels Consumed by Conspicuous Consumption.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 52(1): 34-42. 

I liked Wendy Glenn’s take on the sort of novels that idealize glamorous, luxurious lifestyles of rich New York teens: that they can be useful tools in teaching literary criticism and critical thinking.  However, I don’t think there’s much librarians can do about it.  If these items were included in book clubs we could of course bring up the subjects discussed in this article.  But when a teen comes to the circulation desk with a Gossip Girl book, I think it would be a bit out of place for the librarian to say “Now, while you read this, think about whether or not you identify with the characters and what point of view the author is bringing to this kind of world.”  Of course these items have to be in a library’s collection, and reading this article has only made me feel even more uneasy about how teens may react to these materials.  

Digital Booktalk for The Virgin Suicides

Woohoo! Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pV6XdcdbNM

Special thanks to the lovely and talented David Sylvester and Sarah Soles. 

Getting the Girl: A Guide to Private Investigation, Surveillance, and Cookery

I just read Getting the Girl by Susan Juby and really enjoyed it.  I thought Juby captured the feeling of high school cliques and the pressures of being a teen girl quite effectively.  Showing the high school "girl world" (I had to draw some comparisons to Mean Girls as I read) through the eyes of a grade nine boy was a different approach and worked really well.

That being said, I was not looking forward to reading this book.  I'll admit I went to Chapters and bought the cheapest book they had from this week's list, and the other books available (Zusack's I am the Messenger and Vizzinni's Be More Chill) looked so much cooler and edgier.  The cover of this edition of Getting the Girl is pretty awful.  The photograph made me imagine something really cheesy.  The subtitle of the book gives a hint of its cleverness and humour, but given in the context of the cover I was expecting a bad Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging knock-off.  We've talked about book covers in class, and this example really drove the point home.  Had I wanted a cheesy romance, I would have been difficult.  If I was looking for a witty mystery novel, I never would have picked up this book.  What were these publishers thinking???


Seriously?

Weetzie Bat

I really enjoyed reading Weetzie Bat.  It was like reading a stylized cartoon.  More thoughts later.

(This image is kind of like the sort of thing I imagine as I read Weetzie Bat)

Review 1: Fishtailing by Wendy Phillips

Fishtailing

Wendy Phillips

Regina, Saskatchewan: Coteau Books, 2010.

196 pp., pbk., $14.95.

ISBN 978-1-55050-411-8.

Grades 10 and up / Ages 14 and up.

Review by Sheela Sur.

****/4

excerpt:

Tricia

When the police come

they say

The neighbours made

a noise complaint.

When Kyle staggers

bleeding

down the stairs

they say

Let’s go, kid.

We’re bathed in

flashing blue silence

at the doorway

and I realise

the music has stopped.

Wendy Phillips’s Fishtailing tells the haunting story of four Canadian high school students during the fall and winter of their senior year.  Through a series of short free verse poems told from the perspectives of each character, we learn about their lives and how their fates become intertwined.  We meet Natalie, the manipulative new girl at school with a troubled past and a destructive plan for her new classmates; Tricia, the product of a mixed-race marriage struggling to form an identity and fit in; Kyle, whose new-found love of music causes tension between him and his mechanic father; and Miguel, a recent immigrant who fled a war-torn country with few surviving family members hiding a dangerous secret.

     By peppering the narrative with commentary from the high school’s English teacher and counsellor, Wendy Phillips creates a rich, authentic, and believable world that draws the reader in.  The breathless pace of the narrative excels the reader to the book’s climax: a party at Natalie’s house that ends in tragedy.

     Fishtailing is a very quick read and thus may appeal to reluctant readers.  However, its free verse prose style may not be enjoyed by everyone. The content is quite mature and may not be appropriate for younger readers (includes scenes of child pornography and rape, suicide, and cutting).

     This is Wendy Phillips’s first book.  It was awarded the 2010 Governor General’s Literary Award for Children’s Literature (English text).

Highly recommended.

Sex in YA Lit Part 2

As promised, here are my thoughts on Forever... by Judy Blume.

As soon as Michael and Katherine first said "Forever..." I knew they'd break up.  I have to say I'm happy that Katherine was the one that broke it off.  Michael was a creep and a jerk for the entire book (I would have gotten out of there at the first mention of Ralph) and I'm glad that Blume had the girl be the stronger character and be a solid role model for the teen girls this book is aimed at.

At first, I was a bit miffed by how short the story was and how bluntly the relationship ended.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that that's what highschool relationships are like.  I remember imagining marrying my first highschool boyfriend.... We broke up 7 months later.

That said, I wasn't a huge fan of the book.  It may have been realistic, but I found it boring (perhaps it was too true to life?).  The Erica/Artie subplot was MUCH more interesting and I liked their characters a lot more.  I'd have much rather read a book about them.  

Sex in YA Lit Part 1

I read 101 Ways to Dance by Kathy Stinson on Saturday morning (I couldn't sleep and read the whole thing sometime between midnight and 5:30 a.m.) and just finished Forever.  I'll write a bit about 101 Ways first and gather my thoughts on Forever for Part 2.

I was expecting the book to be a cheesy romance with a sex scene or two thrown in for good measure, but was pleasantly surprised.  I actually really liked it!  The different ways Stinson finds to approach the subject of teen relationships and sex were so clever, creative, and well done.  I never felt like she was trying to be cool or force the reader to believe that this was a teenager's perspective, and she made me think about situations that I'm sure happen in real life that I had never thought about before. I think this book would be great to encounter as a teen reader.

I laughed, I cried, I cringed, and I enjoyed every minute while reading 101 Ways to Dance.

Reactions to Rutherford

OK, so I'm in a pretty bad mood tonight and don't feel much like writing, so bare with me.  Initial reaction to the Rutherford article on marketing youth fiction online: How many typos can you get away with in a peer review journal?  Second: I used to live on Rutherford Street.  Third: It seems fairly obvious to me that to market something to teens you should get hooked up on Facebook, make a slick website, and sensationalize to the point of celebrity everything you possibly can. 


The only interesting thing in this article was when Rutherford talks about popular fiction being sold in places other than book stores.  I had never thought about why romance books were sold in drug stores until I read that "the point of sale for the mass–market romance was not just bookshops but wherever women bought daily commodities." This reminded me of the Scholastic book orders you'd get at school: Scholastic was selling its mass-market children's books where children went every day.  And now, publishers sell/market their popular teen fiction where teenagers go every day: the Internet.

Catcher in the Rye

What a damn good book. Grand, even.  The way old Holden criticizes everything he sees really gets me.  When Phoebe asks him if he likes anything he can’t even think about the question.  That kills me.

But seriously, I loved this book when I was 17 and I love it now.  I was one of those moody drama kids who hated everything in high school and I could really identify with Holden.  I definitely felt like an “outsider” in those days, and Holden really comforted me and made me feel like I wasn’t alone in my plight of teenagehood. Even as I read this paragraph back to myself, I can tell that this book still resounds with me; it’s hard to think that Holden isn’t a real person and that I’m actually talking about a character written by someone else. 

I think this goes to show the importance of one of the main traits of YA literature we identified in class last week:  the teenage protagonist.  If Holden had been any other age I know I wouldn’t have felt so close to him when I first read this book.  I still enjoy the book because revisiting Holden is like revisiting my teenage years.  I can look back and realize how I overreacted to things, reacted badly in some situations, and found joy in things I no longer find joyful, just as I now realize how immature Holden can be and the foolishness of some of his actions. 

“It seems we’re always searching for something to satisfy us, and never finding it.”  This insight from Cherry Valance of The Outsiders pretty well sums up how I feel about Holden, how I felt as a teenager, and gives me plenty to think about as I continue the foray into the young adult mind and YA literature.   

Bookstore YA Section Observation

This afternoon I went to a large Chapters bookstore to observe their young adult (“Teen”) section:

I noticed a lot of books on display with photographs of teenagers’ faces (I took particular note of this after our discussion of feet on book covers in class last week), and a lot of (what looked like, at least) fantasy/romance books, such as the Twilight series and Vampire Diaries.  These observations came from the various table displays including “Top Teen Fiction” and “Teen Read Awards.”  There was also a large display of board games at the entry to the Teen section, and one table display of Hello Kitty and Glee paraphernalia.  There was one shelf of teen manga, in its own back corner of the section.  Close by, a small magazine rack was hidden behind a pillar.  My favourite part of the Teen section was the “Teen Lifestyles” shelf, which included the titles How to be a Vampire, How to be a Zombie, and The Werewolf Handbook. 

After reading Claire Snowball’s article*, I was disappointed in the diversity of materials presented.  I’m pretty sure there are teens out there that aren’t interested fantasy and romance, and, as pointed out by Snowball, reluctant readers who would probably enjoy manga or graphic novels if they knew about them.  The amount of books in the section was impressive, but I feel the presentation could involve some more equality of genre. 

* Snowball, Claire. 2008. “Teenagers Talking about Reading and Libraries.”Australian Academic and Research Libraries 39(2): 106-18.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6j8EiWIVZs
Looking forward to lots of reading this term....