InLand/YA Booktalks

Amazon declared 2000-2010: The Decade of Young Adult Lit

"No other genre (except maybe graphic novels) has grown and changed as much during the last decade as young adult fiction. Inspired by Harry Potter (and probably a little bit by Lemony Snicket and Artemis Fowl), a whole generation of..."

Read the Omnivoracious blog for more:
http://www.omnivoracious.com/2010/01/the-ya-decade.html

 

Omnivoracious: The YA Decade

www.omnivoracious.com

 

 

If You're Interested, Respond to This Request from Joan Kaywell on the Best YA Books 2001-2010

TOP YA PICKS FROM THIS DECADE 2001-2010

Hi Fellow YA Lovers,

Every decade, Dr. Ted Hipple would ask YA enthusiasts, what their favorite YA books were for the last decade.   He would compile the list and publish the results in THE ALAN REVIEW.  Given that he was my mentor, I figured I'd follow the tradition.  So, here's my request:

Please e-mail me at [email protected] your response to this question:

In your opinion, what are the 10 best YA books published between 2000 and 2010 with 1 being your favorite and so on?  Please list title and author and identify your primary role in how you made your selections as (choose only one) either a secondary teacher, a university professor, an author, a media specialist, or a parent.

When Ted asked me in 1990-2000 for my recommendations, this is how it looked:

TOP TEN NOVELS OF THE 90'S (Joan F. Kaywell, university professor)

 

1.  Ironman by Chris Crutcher (1995)

2.  Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher (1993)

3.  The Watsons Go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis (1995)

4.  Good Moon Rising by Nancy Garden (1996)

5.  Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey by Margaret Peterson Haddix (1996)

6.  Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse (1997)

7.  All But My Life by Gerda Weissmann Klein (1995 in paper, 1957)

8.  Push by Saphire (1996)

9.  When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago (1993)

10.  Make Lemonade by Virgina Euwer Wolff (1993)

The deadline for your nominations to be included is April 15, 2010.

I would appreciate your copying, pasting, and sending my message to all YA enthusiasts you know.  PLEASE only respond one time.

Booktalk: Let The Circle Be Unbroken by Mildred D. Taylor

By Bradley LeDoux

            Choosing a book for my written talk was very difficult for me. Given the list of potential young adult literature classics, I zeroed in on a select few novels that interested me. One of them happened to be by Mildred D. Taylor called Let The Circle Be Unbroken. This book is in a series with Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry coming first and The Road to Memphis following it. I had previously read this whole series and was shocked to recognize how much I didn’t remember about the novel and the plot line. What attracted me to this book is its unique setting of Mississippi during The Great Depression. Furthermore, it’s told from the perspective of a young black girl, Cassie, and about her African-American family.

            Without the doubt Cassie strikes us me as the most intriguing character that is caught in between an understanding of a child, but also starts to explore subjects from the mind of an adult later on in this book. Being told from her perspective we get to know Cassie very well as time progresses. This adventurous, mischievous, and smart 11 year old takes us on this dramatic ride. She is the one who profiles and explains other characters to us. Little Man and Christopher-John are her little brothers and throughout this story we find these two boys are a branch off of Cassie, following her footsteps and acting as a responsibility at times forcing a maturity to such a young girl. All three of these younger siblings look up to Stacey, the oldest brother. Stacey has made the transition from a young boy in Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry to Let the Circle Be Unbroken. He finds himself guiding his younger siblings, but when he feels responsible for something he acts upon his ambitions. We see this playing out before T.J.’s trial and then when he leaves to chop sugar cane on a plantation to try and make money for the family. Cassie’s father, David, is perhaps the only African-American man to own a significant portion of land in the county. He is a respected man both in his household and throughout the African-Americans. He always attempts to do what is best for those around him, which unfortunately takes a toll on the family. These major characters which also includes her mother, Big Ma (grandmother) provide a strong support system for Cassie, and also Uncle Hammer who helped them with money.

            One of the greatest assets to a young adult literature novel is its plot. In this particular instance Mildred D. Taylor wound story lines together creating a near life experience because no one’s life consist of just one single issue. She cleverly overlaps her main focal points to create substance within her characters and books. The three major events she wraps over the top of each other are T.J.’s trial, a push for a farmers' union, and Stacey’s runaway. In the previous novel, Roll of Thunder Here My Cry, T.J. had nearly been lynched by a mob because he along with two white kids committed burglary and one of the white kids killed a man and the blame was all on T.J. because he was an African-American. Well his trial takes up the first section and we get our first blast of what is truly a hatred of African-Americans by the white people. While Cassie is struggling to understand why T.J. is the only one in trouble, she consistently presses for the answers finally coming to the realization; he was black that is all. Next comes the labor union which is fighting for the rights all farmers who are being dragged through hell due to new restrictions by the government and by corrupt landlords who only want to make more money. Mr. Wheeler is the name of the man who is trying to start up the union in their parts and he tries and succeeds at convincing David to go because he is a respected member of society and a land owner. With growing enthusiasm and fear, the landowners fight back leaving the union movement dead. Overlapping the labor union attempt, Stacey grows up more and tries taking matters into his own hands with his friend Moe. They joined a plantation in hope of making money for their families and they become a statistic on a massive sugar cane plantation. The family is searching for him and Big Ma, the kids, and even his father worry about him constantly and it came as a shock when he left. It took nearly seven months, but eventually they were reunited. By creating these major plots there are plenty of other mini events along the way to fill in the dots, but it is these event that really create the lasting essence of this novel.

            Nigger is a commonly used word in this book and it marks historical impact along with why it is offensive today. This is just one of many historical elements to Let The Circle Be Unbroken. If a reader closely examines this book, accurate assumptions can be made about the history behind it. Looking at the plot we see how prejudice towards African-Americans was both true and extreme. First, let us analyze the trial and the events around it. First off, T.J. was the only African-American of three burglars and the other two were white. The two white kids R.W. and Melvin said that T.J was a liar and they had no part of it. When the defending attorney Mr. Jameson set up what would normally be a clear cut case with numerous witnesses; it only took R.W. and a prosecutor calling T.J. a liar and Mr. Jameson a nigger lover to convince a jury to hang the African-American boy for killing someone when he was innocent. Furthermore at the trial there was no outhouse. So Cassie, Little Man, and Christopher-John went inside and when they used the restroom and drank water. One of their white friends threw them out and protected them because they were only for the white people. At the trial they also only allotted a small section for the black people and that was considered generous. These events in a city reflect three scenarios that could have happened on a consistent basis. Then came the treatment of African-American workers both when sharecropping and when working on a plantation. The shareholders were being forced to cut back on their farmlands and the government paid them to not harvest. So when they would cut the governments share they would hand it over to their landlords who would take that money for themselves. These landlords took from people whose homes consisted of dirt floors with holes found in their ceilings or in their walls. On the plantation, it was far worse for Stacey. They were promised wages and then when it came time to collect all they got were excuses. They each had a small area to sleep and that was it. No doctors, no money, no help whatsoever made it unbearable so they left, but not before asking for their money. When the plantation owner laughed he told them that they owed him money for the small area to sleep and for buying on credit at the store. I am yet to read a document or book that claims that African-Americans were treated different. The fact that this book is accurate in that sense in sickening when reading what they had to endure to survive and yet at the end of the book I was satisfied that they still held onto hope for a better future.

            In conclusion, this could be perhaps the best book I have ever reread. Now that my knowledge of history and understanding of the south during the 30’s I am able to fully comprehend how difficult these situations were as opposed to when I read it in 6^th grade and numerous situational events drifted over my head. I would strongly recommend this to anyone above the age of 12 along with serious guidance of appropriate and inappropriate terms that an adolescent may pick up while reading Let The Circle Be Unbroken. While it is in fact fiction, some of these events took place for the author’s father who actually lived as Cassie’s brother Stacey. Therefore, we can assume that numerous details and descriptions of events that took place, like hanging T.J. instead of the white Simms boys, actually happened. I am going to have to read Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry again to understand how this book is on a less frequently used book because the passion that you feel for the Logan family and all the other African-Americans who may have gone through the ordeals in this book have to compete with those of Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry. I would encourage all to pick it up and give it a whirl because it will truly effect how you view: The Great Depression, life as an African-American in the 30’s, and the emotional damage caused by racism.

 

Book Talk: A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Twelfth: The Penultimate Peril By Lemony Snicket

Paper By: Jasmine Cawley

We are reintroduced to the Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus and Sunny, at the same beach that was introduced to us at the beginning of the series, the same beach where the children find out that their lives of unfortunate events begins.  There the Baudelaire children encounter their new guardian named Kit Snicket.  Kit Snicket seems to appear to the children as a really nice lady, who just likes to talk about everything in riddles, so it’s hard for the Baudelaire children to really know for sure if she is trustworthy or not.  In the end they start to trust her after finding out secrets about an organization their parents use to be in when they are taken to a hotel called Hotel Denouement.

Hotel Denouement use to be the “penultimate” (or next-to-last) safe place for an organization known as the VFD to hide out and meet to discuss any plans they would have in order to help defeat their enemies, but from previous books within the series the reader ends up finding out that the hotel is actually officially the last safe place for the Baudelaire children and the members of the organization.  This is because the safest place (the Mortmain Mountains headquarters) was actually burned down right when the Baudelaire children discovered it in the eleventh book.  The irony of the organization VFD as well as the books within the series is that this organization was established in order to put out fires (literally and figuratively), but due to something called the “schism” the organization broke apart and now anyone who was “evil” would start fires and the others would try to put them out, but of course not all of the fires were able to be extinguished.

Once the Baudelaire children arrived at the hotel Kit Snicket had them dress up as concierges so that none of their enemies would be able to discover who they were and what they were doing at the hotel.  With these disguises, the Baudelaire children were told to listen in on every conversation that they happen to overhear in order to find out more information on when Count Olaf (their arch nemesis) would be arriving and to find out the details behind any plans that he might have.  As the Baudelaire children do their jobs as concierges they end up realizing that all the enemies that they’ve ever met from their previous adventures were all at the hotel with them.  They ended up figuring out that they were all sent here by Count Olaf and to find out where the Vessel For Disaccharides, also known as the sugar bowl, was being held.  Except the importance of this bowl was never actually told to the Baudelaire children other then it has to connect with the fire that had killed their parents.

Towards the end of the book the Baudelaire children find out that non-villainous people from their past, like Justice Strauss, Jerome Squalor and even Mr. Poe start to show up in the hotel and learn that they are all there to bring real justice to Count Olaf and to take him to court to make sure that he is guilty of all crimes that he’s committed over the past several months, which in turn will keep the Baudelaire children safe from any more harm.  Of course, Count Olaf knew that this was going to happen that he ends up rigging the trial so that everyone within the trial has to wear blindfolds so that they can’t see that the judges that are on the stand are actually his partners in crime apart from Justice Strauss.  From there an uproar begins of who is actually telling the truth and who is actually to blame, but if you want to know exactly what becomes of the Baudelaire children then you’re going to have to read The Penultimate Peril.

A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket is a great series to read for anyone between middle school/junior high to high schools.  The books are very cleverly written that makes the reader not want to listen to all the warnings of putting the book away and pick up a different more happy book to read (as the author suggests).  Instead the book has subtle hints of humor and sarcasm that can let the reader laugh along with all the unfortunate events taking place for the children.  In all I would recommend this book to anyone who just wants something to read to pass the time away or to let them know how much better their lives are compared to the Baudelaire children.

Booktalk: Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

By Dong-Hwa Kang 

 

I chose Alice in Wonderland for the written in book talk. Alice in Wonderland was written by Lewis Carroll in 1865.  I liked it when I was a kid and it was a kind of necessary book for all kinds of kids in Korea.

 

The main character is Alice who is seven or eight years old, and she has one older sister. One sunny day, Alice was reading a book under the tree with her sister. Alice saw one white rabbit who was watching a clock, and repeated to Alice, “Hurry up, we are late.” And then, the rabbit ran to somewhere. Alice was surprised, but also curious, so she followed the rabbit.

 

However, the rabbit hole was very small, she couldn’t get through there. She cried a lot and found a bottle labeled, “Drink Me," and she could get out there. Alice tried to find the white rabbit, and she met lots of people and animals who Alice thought were weird and strange. For example, Alice met a Cheshire cat, and she asked him where there white rabbit was. However, the cat disappeared and reappeared; he told to Alice he might know or not.

 

But, later on, the Cheshire cat told her that the white rabbit went to the garden of queen and gave a warned Alice might get killed. When Alice entered a dark forest, she met a caterpillar and got some red mushrooms which could get bigger and smaller when she ate.

 

Finally, Alice got to the party for the queen. The queen, however, didn’t like Alice, and she played one game with her. The queen didn’t accept it and said to kill Alice. Alice was nervous and ate the red mushroom which the caterpillar gave her before, and frightened the queen. In the emergency situation, she got the hole to come back to the safe world. And then, she heard that “Alice, get up!” It was her dream.

 

I might use this book for elementary-aged children classroom because they have unbelievable imaginations. For little kids, the teacher needs to help developing their ideas and thoughts. In addition, I think there are some lessons for children in Alice's view. I heard that the movie version of Alice in Wonderland  is coming on March 5^th. I’m looking forward to it, too.

Booktalk: Breaktime by Aidan Chambers

By Elizabeth Gallien

 

Breaktime by Aidan Chambers is a story about Ditto, a teenage boy who sets out to prove his friend Morgan wrong.  Morgan believes that “Fiction is crap.”  Morgan’s basis for this belief is that fiction is fake, literature as a way of telling stories is dead, literature makes life appear tidy when it is really chaotic, and that when you are reading fiction you are pretending a lie.  Ditto disagrees with this entirely, and the majority of the rest of the book is him writing a rebuttal to Morgan’s claims. Ditto’s rebuttal is him writing about his break from school.  Through this, we learn a lot about Ditto, but are left wondering what is fact and what is fiction. 

As the story progresses, it becomes evident that Ditto and his father do not have the best relationship.  They are constantly arguing with each other.  Ditto feels that he cannot make his father proud.   It becomes evident, however, that his parents really are proud of him after all.

His father is also very sick, having had a heart attack near the beginning of the book.  Just before his father’s heart attack, Ditto receives a letters in the mail from Helen, a friend who had moved away.  The letter contained her photograph and asked him to write back to her soon.  Ditto decides to leave town for awhile and to visit Helen, despite the fact that his father is gravely ill.  His parents are disappointed in him leaving after his father has just had a heart attack, but they let him leave. 

Ditto meets two guys on his little vacation away from home, Jack and Robbie.  They essentially become drinking buddies and start to have adventures together, including breaking and entering.  Though, it is soon learned that not everything and everyone is as they appear to the world, a common lesson in young adult books such as with Rudy in Deadline or Melinda in Speak. 

Their risky behaviors lead the book into the story about Helen.  Helen is a stunning teenage girl who does not have the best reputation.  Her parents believe that she is promiscuous, and that seems to frighten them.  She lets Ditto try to keep her entertained, taking her for a picnic, having to cross a narrow bridge over a river. They both seem to enjoy this experience together, but in the end Helen really calls the shots, using him before she can really be used.

It is evident that Ditto and Helen will never really have a relationship.  They were just there to use one another; the same lesson that Ditto learned from Jack and Robbie. Essentially, this is a coming of age novel for Ditto.  Ditto begins to realize who he really is.  He returns home to his sick father.  He does not appear to have any more plans for breaking and entering.  He grows up over his break from school. 

Ditto presents these facts to Morgan in a mixture of prose, poetry, dialogue, and having the reader fill in some of the details.  Morgan argues that his rebuttal is not fiction, so that fiction still is crap.  Ditto responds that perhaps it is just a work of fiction. 

Breaktime leaves the reader with this question of fact and fiction, truth and untruth. It gives a new take on a coming of age novel, as well as the idea that fiction is not crap after all.

Book Talk: My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger

By Maddie Starkovich

            It is no secret that young adult literature is classified primarily as literature for teenagers, but I believe that there are some exceptions to that stereotype.  My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger is a wonderful example of such a novel.  This story is full of many of the themes that are prevalent in other YAL books, such as relationships, family issues, and high school drama, but it is one of the most realistic and up-to-date stories I have encountered in a long time.  Everything from homosexuality to the Boston Red Sox are explored in this book, and its refreshing modernity is what makes it appealing to any and every reader.

            One of the most interesting things about this novel is the format.  The story opens with a high school writing assignment given to the three main characters in which they must keep a diary of the entire school year.  One of the characters decides to entitle his project, My Most Excellent Year, immediately setting the theme of the story. From there on out, the novel is written mostly in e-mails, letters, and school assignments from these characters, making the story personal and very unique.  You also get to see a few emails that their parents have sent to each other as well as to teachers and friends.  This gives a perspective of the characters and their families from all angles without any of the typical prose format to help the story along, which is something that is rare in any kind of literature. 

 The three main characters are Augie, T.C., and Alejandra. Augie and T.C. are best friends, so much so that their parents consider them to be more like brothers than friends.  It is very clear early on that Augie has a crush on a boy named Andy, though he doesn’t admit it to anyone because he is afraid that his peers will judge him for being gay.  T.C., like any good friend, already knows about Augie and does not care, nor does he understand why Augie has fears about telling anyone.  Besides their sexual preferences, the only real difference between Augie and T.C. is that Augie’s true passion is the theater, while T.C.’s is the Boston Red Sox.  Alejandra is new at the school, and is quickly spotted by T.C. who has a massive crush on her.  She is from a family of wealthy politicians and even has her own bodyguard, making her alluring and mysterious to T.C.  When a school play comes along, the three main characters each take part in it and are thrown into each other’s lives, quickly forming a strong friendship.

As anxiety builds with the approach of the school play, the three main characters run into a few situations that test their sanity.  T.C.’s father begins dating his guidance counselor from school, Augie falls madly in love with Andy, and Alejandra’s politically driven family makes it all too clear that they don’t approve of her being in a play.  As their friendship grows stronger throughout their hardships, they meet a young boy named Hucky that will change their lives forever.

T.C. first notices this young boy because he is always at T.C.’s baseball games.  After meeting this shy onlooker, the three friends discover that he is a foster child that has no real friends or ambitions.  His caretakers explain that the reason he is so shy is because he is deaf, and therefore avoids human contact in order to avoid uncomfortable situations.  The three friends take it upon themselves to help him, and are thrown into one of the greatest adventures of their lives. 

One day, when Hucky is hanging out with T.C., Augie, and Alejandra, they show him the movie, Mary Poppins.  He is immediately enthralled with it and wants nothing more than to meet this mysterious woman with such amazing magical powers.  After a failed attempt at writing a letter to Julie Andrews (the actress who portrays Mary Poppins in the movie), they decide to take him to a musical performance in New York City where they know she will be performing.  They sneak backstage and break into her changing room, encountering a number of security guards and theater workers on the way.  Eventually, they meet up with her and explain their situation.  She agrees to meet Hucky and even pretends to be Mary Poppins during their conversation (conveniently, she knows ASL).  Thus, Hucky’s dreams are fulfilled and the three friends can rest easy knowing that they’ve changed someone’s life for the better. 

My Most Excellent Year is a wonderful coming of age story that not only gives an intimate look at the lives of three unique teenagers, but at their parents and teachers, too.  This is why it is such a wonderful book for all ages, because it shows all aspects of the modern teenager’s life.  Each of the characters is relatable in some way, and the humor that is present throughout this book makes it an enormously enjoyable read.  Not once was I ever bored or exhausted from reading; it was a page-turner that I couldn’t put down from start to finish.