InLand/YA Booktalks

Book Talk: A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket

By Susan Schroeder

 

“If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book.”  Contrary to these opening words, The Bad Beginning is an enjoyable read.  True, it is a sad tale of one bad event after another, but there is the hint of a possible happy ending.

The Bad Beginning details the trials of the three Baudelaire children.  Violet, age 14, the oldest child is a consummate inventor.  Klaus, her 12 year old brother, is a reader that applies his book learning to help them out of the predicaments they find themselves in.  And, Sunny Baudelaire is an extremely small female infant, who likes nothing more than to bite anything and everything. 

The story begins with these three unsupervised children enjoying a grey and cloudy day at Briny Beach when a figure, Mr. Poe, appears out of the mist to inform them of the horrific death of their parents due to a house fire.  Mr. Poe, a banker and the executor of the parents will, temporarily takes in the Baudelaire children until a relative can be found.  Not overexerting himself in the attempt to find a relative, Mr. Poe decides that the best caregiver is one Count Olaf, a very distant cousin, and the only relative that lives in the city. The remainder of the book details the abuses suffered by the Baudelaire orphans at the hands of Count Olaf, and his attempt to gain access to the Baudelaire fortune that will be Violet's once she becomes of age. As stated by the narrator, the story does not end on a happy note, but encourages the reader to pick up the next volume in this book series to see what subsequently happens to the Baudelaire children.

This series is written and narrated by Lemony Snicket, who is a fictional character as well as a real person. As a writer, Snicket is able to convey a rather dark story with humor, and defines the text for the reader with such gems as: “over a dull dinner of boiled chicken, boiled potatoes, and blanched- the word ‘blanched’ here means ‘boiled’-string beans, Mr. Poe announced that they were to leave his household the next morning.”  These asides to the reader, while informative for a ten year old, are also a source of amusement.  The legal pen name of Daniel Handler, Lemony Snicket also appears as a character in later volumes of the series.

Praised by the Library Journal and Publishers Weekly, the Kirkus Reviews wrote that it was not for the squeamish, and yet stated it was “wicked good fun.”[1]  The Bad Beginning is a fast paced volume with characters that the reader can sympathize with in their unfortunate lot, or detest because of their vileness.  This play of good against evil, while exaggerated and stereotyped, could lead the reader to the conclusion that sometimes evil wins. Also, young readers may perceive that the circumstances of the Baudelaire children are due to the guilt of adults who are “only following orders.”   While this book alone has a simple message, this along with the others in the series delves into deeper subjects of human nature.                

Written in 1999, The Bad Beginning is the first in a series of 13 books that detail the unfortunate lives of the Baudelaire children.  The use of this single book would be ideal as a “Read Aloud” in a 4^th or 5^th grade classroom to spur the interest of students to continue reading the series individually.  Otherwise, I would not teach this lone volume, as it really needs to be followed up by others of the series to give students a view of the deeper subjects Snicket addresses. 

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[1] Retrieved from: http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/adult/lemony-snicket/the-bad-begninning/  October 19, 2010

 

 

Book Talk: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

By Kasie Walters            

 

            The Absolutely True Diary of a Part- Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is a book that is inspirational to all kids. Junior, the main character, is the epitome of what all is geek. He was born with fluid in his brain and was left with speech impediments and seizures. Feet at a giant size, Junior also endured lopsided glasses. To top it off, Junior is an Indian born and raised on the Spokane Indian Reservation, or “rez” as he calls it. All the other kids on the reservation beat up Junior and call him names except one. Rowdy is Junior’s only friend, and Rowdy is a tough bully that protects Junior. Both boys find a passion in playing basketball, however, Junior is the only one who attends school regularly at the reservation school, Wellpinit. Junior is very smart and has the determination to exceed in school. Until one day, Junior discovers that the text books the school is using are texts books that his mother had used because her name was in his book. In anger, Junior throws the text book at the teacher and hits him in the face. Coming as a surprise, the teacher is not greatly upset with Junior, in fact, the teacher understands Junior’s dilemma.

            While conversing, the teacher tells Junior that he should go to the white school, Reardan. The teacher sees the potential Junior has and encourages him to go. Junior is informed that all the other Indians have given up and that the only way to break the cycle is to go to Reardan and get a proper education. Junior proceeds to tell his parents, who believe he is joking at first, but in the end just tell him what he is at risk of and then continues about their business. When Junior tells Rowdy, Rowdy punches him in the face. No one is supportive of his decision.

            Reardan is an all white school and bigger than Wellpinit. Junior finds himself lying to fit in. He lies about being full Indian, about being poor, and about his history and situation. After taming the bully, jock of the school (through a swift, but quick fight that Junior never thought he would ever overcome), Junior became more popular. Junior even tries out for the basketball team and makes varsity as a freshman starter. Among his lies and new image, Junior is now a star on the basketball team. Junior comes to find out that his basketball team plays his old school’s basketball team, whom Rowdy plays for and Junior used to play for. The teams play each other twice, once at each gym. When Junior’s team plays Wellpinit at the Wellpinit gym, all of the fans heckle him. They boo him and call him traitor, and Rowdy plays extremely rough against Junior because of how upset he is. However, when it is the other way around and the Wellpinit team comes to Reardan to play, the fans hail Junior.

            Junior begins to battle himself on who he is. The title of the book gives a hint with the “part-time Indian” piece. While going to Reardan, Junior sees himself as white, while back on his reservation, he is Indian once again. Junior’s tribe had completely disowned him and saw him as a traitor, while the people in Reardan accepted him and made him happy. Proceeding through two different lives, Junior has to overcome the racial barrier and discover which “tribe” he really belongs to. The major realization that Junior discovers is at the end of the novel when he tells the reader that yes he is from the Spokane Indian tribe, but also the “American immigrant tribe…tribe of basketball players… tribe of teenage boys…tribe of poverty…tribe of beloved sons…” (217). Junior looks at the bigger picture and realizes that the “part-time Indian” is not half with being white, but rather, a huge pie chart full of tribes he belongs to.

Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Little, Brown and Company.

            New York, NY, 2007.

 

 

Book Talk: The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore by Joan Lowery Nixon

By Andrea Peck

 

            The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore by Joan Lowery Nixon begins by introducing us to the main character of the novel, Christina Lattimore. She is discussing with her best friend, Lorna, her plans to talk to her grandmother in order to get some of the money from her trust fund to go on a trip to France with the rest of the junior class. After a long pause, Christina raises the question to her friend, asking her, “what’s important” (45). She explains further, “Sometimes I think I really need something in my life, and then it turns out not to be important at all” (45).

            After this encounter with her friend, Christina heads back home, afraid because she thought a stranger had been in her house earlier that evening. Christina gets out of her car, and two people grab her and drug her so she cannot run away; Christina gets kidnapped. She wakes up in the cold basement of an unknown house on a cot with only a table and a glass of water in the room with her. She soon engages in a conversation with one of the kidnappers and learns it’s the guy that owns her favorite hamburger place, Zack. Because Zack is disguised, she doesn’t mention that she knows who he is. Instead, she does what she’s asks and signs a paper saying money from Cristabel’s (her grandmother’s) company needs to get sent to the kidnappers’ address. To send a signal that she’s been kidnapped, Christina signs her name incorrectly.

            After three days and two nights of being held hostage, Christina learns that Zack’s wife and one other person is taking part in the situation. She learns this information by sticking her head through an old furnace and overhearing a conversation from one of the rooms the furnace leads to. She tries escaping by taking the furnace door off and chipping the paint around the lock on the door, but she is unsuccessful. She eventually gets told that the money has been sent and she can go home, but she has to shower first so her parents don’t worry about her looking like a mess (the kidnappers were not mean to her). The wife holds a gun to Christina so she can’t try to escape, and when cops come in the house, the wife tosses the gun onto Christina’s lap and the police suspect that Christina may be guilty of her own kidnap.

            Because of this, her whole family, especially her grandma, Christabel, doesn’t believe she was actually kidnapped. She meets a cameraman from a local college and works with him to figure out how to prove she’s innocent. They keep in touch with the police who was in charge of the case and eventually, after the maid, Loretta gives things away subconsciously, and the third person is figured out and the case is solved.

            Christina’s family shows love toward her again and apologize for not believing their daughter. She narrates that she has learned a lot from being kidnapped about her life that she wishes to change, and she ends her story on the same day when the case is solved saying, “I’ve got to tell Lorna someday that I’ve found out what is really important—I am. It’s a great feeling” (305).

 

Book Talk: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

By Kara McMurray

                  The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri is a book that follows the story of a family of immigrants from Calcutta. The Ganguli family—Ashima and Ashoke—are attempting to make new lives for themselves in America following their arranged marriage. The book starts off with Ashima giving birth to the couple’s first son. In their culture, it is tradition for an elder within the family to name the newborn. Seeing as Ashima and Ashoke are living in the United States and the rest of the family is still back in Calcutta, they had Ashima’s grandmother mail a letter to them with one name for a girl and one name for a boy. The grandmother did not reveal the names to anyone, honoring tradition. Also, the families have no way to communicate over the phone, internet, etc. When their baby is born, the letter has not yet arrived and Ashima and Ashoke are faced with the decision of having to name their baby and dishonor their traditions back home. The hospital where their son was born will not let them leave the hospital with him until he has a name.

This is where Ashoke begins to reflect on a very important incident that saved his life. Long before he came to the United States, he was on a train to his grandfather’s house to collect books. Ashoke loved to read. He loved reading far more than anyone else and he shared this passion with his grandfather. On the train, he was reading The Overcoat, by Nikolai Gogol. While the other passengers slept on the long ride, he stayed up into the wee hours of the morning reading this book. The train crashed a short while later after it exploded from bombs—the train was a target for a terrorist attack. Many on the train were instantly killed and search crews had no luck finding anyone. Ashoke survived the train crash, but only by a tiny miracle. He was buried beneath the rubble for days before he heard anyone near him searching. And when he heard them, he had a small piece of paper clutched in his hand from The Overcoat. The book had flown out of his hands when the train crashed, leaving him with the page he was holding. When he heard the search crews, he dropped the paper and that called their attention to him. They would not have known he was there otherwise, but the page saved his life.

Ashoke credited his life to his favorite author then—Nikolai Gogol. When Ashima and Ashoke must name their son against tradition then, Ashoke suggests “Gogol,” but suggests it to only be temporary, until a time when they get the letter from Ashima’s grandmother. Ashima knew the significance of the name to Ashoke and decided that the name was perfect for now. As the name went against their culture and tradition, the name was destined to cause problems for young Gogol from the outset. Ashima’s grandmother died shortly after Gogol’s birth, taking with her the secret of Gogol’s true name. The letter also never arrived. Gogol Ganguli was destined to stay Gogol Ganguli.

Gogol grew up hating his name and resenting his parents for ever giving him the name. Ashoke and Ashima did not tell him why his name was so significant because they did not think he would understand. He hated the name so much already and they did not want to make him hate it more. One of the reasons why Gogol hated his name so much is because it had no ties to Bengalese culture, which was his true culture, nor to American culture, which was the culture he tried so hard to belong to but never felt like he belonged. He did not feel connected to either of the cultures that he was supposed to and when he learned that the name Gogol was a last name, it only made him resent the name even more. Not only was his name not from American or Bengalese culture, but it was a last name, just making it more shameful than it already was. Gogol felt that everyone around him made fun of him while he was growing up for his horrible name, when in reality, Gogol was the only one who was making his name bad for himself.

He was determined to hate it, so he was also determined to make it seem as though everyone else hated his name as well. The Namesake follows Gogol through his teenage years as he struggles to create an identity for himself with his hated name, and then through his college years when he takes on a new name and is suddenly free to do anything and everything he wants. The new name of Nikhil changes him so much. He makes more friends, starts dating several girls, and becomes more and more distanced from his family. He even legally has his name changed to Nikhil Ganguli so that he could truly take on a new identity and become a new person.

The book is basically a coming of age story for Gogol/Nikhil as he hates his name, learns the true meaning behind his name, comes to terms with himself, his father, his name and his life, and as he realizes that his name does not truly matter, but it is only who he is that truly matters. Overall, I do recommend this book. It is a very enjoyable and sometimes funny read. It is full of a lot of teenage angst, which is something that a lot of teenage readers will be able to relate to. This is a book that is being taught in several schools across the United States and one that I can’t wait to teach in my classroom, as it is full of rich material to teach. This book is also a very easy read, or it was for me as well as several other people that I know. Students would probably enjoy it a lot and have a good time reading it. Also, this book is now a movie that does very well at capturing Gogol’s character and his struggle to grow up with his identity crisis. 

 

Book Talk: Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks

By Samuel Luke                                                                                                                          

Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks tells the story of a young runaway’s adventures and growth through his troubled adolescence. The protagonist Chappie Dorset lives in a small home with his mother and step-father Ken. As you find out, Ken has sexually abused Chappie who is deeply involved in smoking weed. Chappie by the end of the first chapter has been kicked out of his house because he has been stealing from his parents to buy weed, getting piercings and flunking out of the eighth grade. As you can see, Chappie is a bit of a troubled youth. Chappie’s friend Russ has also been kicked out of school and the house at 16 and is living in an apartment with some bikers. Chappie starts to live with Russ and selling weed to the bikers, which eventually causes problems. These problems manifest into the apartment being set on fire and the only decent biker being killed trying to rescue Chappie from the fire that he already escaped from. From there, Chappie and Russ break into a rich person’s summer house and live there until Russ wrongs Chappie. Chappie realizes that Russ has been a bad friend to have and then discovers I-Man living in a bus and befriends him. At this time, Chappie also gets a tattoo of bones and changes his name to Bone, demonstrating his budding independence.

             I-Man is a Rastafarian who is constantly high but takes Chappie under his wing and starts to teach him things about weed and life in general. I-Man helps Chappie grow and acts a bit like a mentor. Chappie then starts to hang out at the mall in order to find people to sell weed to. At the mall Chappie meets Froggie, a 7 year old who was sold to Buster, a child porn producer by her mother. Chappie, with I-Man’s help, is eventually able to separate Froggie from Buster and then takes her on to find her mother. As Chappie see’s Froggie off to the bus, he realizes that he went from being completely dependent on his parents and Russ to being independent and the guardian of Froggie. He has turned from a follower to leader because of the struggles he takes to do the right thing by freeing Froggie and reuniting her with her mother. After that fiasco, Chappie departs America with I-Man and travels to Jamaica where he meets up with his real father.

            In the interest of not spoiling the end of the book, I will end there and discuss the book’s potential in the classroom. The novel discusses many controversial themes such as drug use, dropping out of school, and sexual abuse. However, this book is a story of a young and modern anti-hero, who many compare to Holden Caulfield. The novel is essentially a story of the growth by a young and discarded youth who has to fend for himself in an often hostile world. The novel, I believe would be in some way relatable for many high-schoolers today.

            I personally would not teach this book in the classroom because while it may be interesting for a discussion, the deeper meaning of the novel can be more readily explored by others like it, such as Catcher in the Rye. However, I would keep this novel on the bookshelf and would allow my students to do a book report on it, if that was how I was conducting the class. 

 

Book Talk: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

By Raeiah DeGraaf

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is the story of an autistic child dealing with his parents divorce. Christopher is a brilliant boy who happens to be autistic. Even though his autism does not affect his level of intelligence, it does affect his social interactions. Because Christopher is autistic, his parents have to take special measures in order to insure that he feels safe and understands what is happening to him.

In the book, there is a story as well. The story is written by him, about himself and his life. Christopher does this in order to distance himself from the content and as a project which will help him to solve a mystery. In the beginning, the reader is unsure whether or not the story is true, but as the book progresses it is obvious that the story is in fact a part of his life. Thus the book is either written by Christopher or from Christopher’s perspective, shedding light on the difficulties and struggles face by an autistic student.

Christopher’s story begins when his neighbor’s dog is murdered with a garden fork. He begins asking around and learns things that he was not supposed to find out. The reader discovers that Christopher does not have a mother; she died of a heart attack at the age of thirty-nine. When Christopher re-tells the story of when he was told about his mother dying, he was very unemotional and tried to rationalize the event. The reason for his impartial attitude is due to his autism, he does not understand human emotions. Over time, he has come to understand how to use emotions and when particular emotions are expected, but he does not internalize the meaning behind the outward display of emotion. When Christopher is trying to find out who killed the dog, one of the neighbors innocently tells Christopher something that he was never supposed to discover, she tells him that his mother was having an affair with the his neighbor, Mrs. Shears, husband. Because of his autism, Christopher does not seem to mind that his mother was having an affair. When he hears about his mother and Mr. Shears, he says, “Was that why Mr. Shears left Mrs. Shears, because he was doing sex with someone else when he was married to Mr. Shears?” Christopher is more interested in finding out why Mr. Shears left than the fact that his mother was unfaithful to his father. Christopher recorded this discovery in his “mystery novel” when he had a chance.

 One day, his father found the novel and became enraged. He did not like Christopher snooping around. It was at this time that he physically hurt Christopher, a thing that Christopher did not fully understand. In addition to physically hurting Christopher, his father took the book from him and threw it away. However, when Christopher snuck outside to retrieve it from the trash can, it was gone. Christopher was determined to find the book and began searching the house. He found it in his father’s bedroom, with a stack of letters. Christopher noticed that the letters had his name on it, but he could not decide if it was right to open them. After thinking about it, he decided that he should. They were from his mother, postmarked after her death. Christopher read through the letters and went into a state of despair. His father had lied to him (a concept he did not understand), hurt him, and his mother was alive. Christopher’s world was crashing down around him.

After Christopher discovers his father’s dishonest behavior, he cannot imagine living with him. Christopher, as a result of being lied to, does not trust his father and is afraid of him. So, Christopher ventures out on his own and goes to his mother’s house. The trip is very difficult because Christopher is breaking his daily routine and has to overcome many social fears that he has. His autism also makes it difficult to be near a large number of people and he feels pain when they accidentally touch him. Christopher makes it to his mother’s house and discovers that she is living with Mr. Shears. His mother welcomes him with open arms but Mr. Shears does not want Christopher in his flat. Within a week, Christopher’s mom leaves Mr. Shears and brings Christopher back to his father.

The parents do not get back together, but they manage to work out a way to keep Christopher happy and safe. Christopher lives with his mother, because he still fears his father’s volatile reactions, and seems to be content. The family dynamic has however changed and Christopher never seems to re-connect with his father.

The experiences, which Christopher has in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, provide a lot of insight into the life of a child with autism. The author writes it from the perspective of the boy and the reader is able to struggle through situations with Christopher. The reader is able to see how a social skills and ability to show emotion is not something that comes naturally, some students may deal with these struggles every day. Learning how others deal with trauma and emotions can help a student to become a better leader in his or her school and community.   

 

 

Book Talk: Fault Line by Janet Tashjian

By Lauren Loftis

            Becky Martin’s life revolved around comedy. Ever since she was a little girl, she wanted nothing more than to make the world laugh, and in all her spare time she practiced doing it. She, along with her best friend Abby, spent hours on end looking all around for comedic gold, writing down anything that had the potential of being funny, and creating and perfecting routines to perform at whatever San Francisco clubs would let the seventeen-year-old seniors in.

            And it was at one of these clubs that Becky met Kip Costello. Becky, self-conscious and believing herself unable to follow her instincts, felt instantly connected to Kip, who was smart, funny, quirky (instead of writing on notebook paper, he always wrote on paper towels), and, most importantly, was a teenage comedian just like herself.

            Their relationship quickly progressed from there. Becky and Kip begin to spend all their time together, believing, as their bond grows, that their love is special and that the world around them just wouldn’t be able to understand it. Becky begins to feel as though she has the perfect life; comedy and a loving and caring boyfriend.

            That is, until Kip starts acting a little strange. It starts out simple. He doesn’t like Becky talking to other boys. He stops wanting to hang out with Becky in a group, disliking time spent with Abby and her boyfriend, more comfortable with just the two of them hanging out. Then, he starts to become annoyed with her over the little things. Kip gets disappointed and angry when she can’t hang out because she’s busy doing something else or when she doesn’t check with him over a comedy set before she sends the tapes out to the various clubs she wants to perform at. Until finally, when Becky goes to leave one day, he pulls at her ponytail and knocks her to the floor.

            He states that it was an accident, that he never meant to hurt her, and Becky believes it. She knew that he loved her and really did feel bad about what happened. It was over so quickly that neither of them really had the opportunity to really process what had just happened. It wouldn’t happen again.

            But as time goes on, Becky finds herself having to be careful about what she says around Kip. She doesn’t want to set him off and make him angry all over again, finding that she’d rather keep the peace in their relationship than be heard. But no matter how hard she tries, she just can’t seem to make Kip happy. And the story of the abusive relationship continues from there.

            This book was interesting to read in the way that it clearly showed the progression of abuse in a relationship and how a couple doesn’t go from being perfect to one of the members being abusive in a sudden motion. It shows the slow process of the controlling behavior and the steps of said process incredibly well.

            I personally found the best part of the book the fact that at the end of pretty much every chapter, the author included the “Paper Towel Dialogues of Kip Costello,” which showed the relationship through Kip’s perspective. While I was reading this novel, I always found myself looking forward to this narrative because I think that it did a really good job of showing that Kip was human. He wasn’t just some horrible abuser, but an eighteen-year-old kid with problems of his own. His father abused his mother, he has to work two jobs to help his mother with the costs of living, and his grades at school aren’t the best. Plus, it showed just how bad he felt about what he did to Becky. He hated himself for it and was really committed to changing his ways.

            Somehow, Kip became my favorite character, and I found myself trying to justify the things that he did. Of course I couldn’t, and of course I knew that everything he did was wrong and that he really needed help, but that didn’t stop me from trying. I just personally found him much more interesting and complex than Becky (who I didn’t, for some reason, much care for), and I found myself wishing that the whole book was from his perspective.

            I don’t necessarily think that this is a bad thing though. Like I said, I think that it made Kip seem more human and more real, and I think that because of it, I could really identify with Becky and see why she didn’t just leave him. I could see that he did have good parts to him and that he really wasn’t this evil, negative force in the world that did nothing but push Becky around and didn’t really care about her at all.

            And I think that this makes it a lot easier for readers to understand why victims of abuse don’t just leave. It shows that it really is more complicated than they might originally think, and that there is a basis of love in a lot of these relationships. That doesn’t mean that people should stay in harmful situations, but it does a good job of showing why people do.

            And I think that that’s really important to recognize, because I think that once we, as a people, see this, we’ll be able to help more people in these situations. Both the batterers and the victims.

 

 

Book Talk: Finding My Voice by Marie G. Lee

By Valerie Agnew 

            Finding My Voice is a novel about discrimination and overcoming the fear of standing out. Marie G. Lee shows how difficult high school can be for minorities, especially when the high school is in a small, rural town. Finding My Voice takes the reader through Ellen’s senior year: the racial discrimination that she receives from her peers and teachers, the difficulty she has dealing with her parents and their strict views on life, making friends that she will keep for the rest of her life, finding her first love’ and getting into college.

            The story starts off with the main character, Ellen, getting on the school bus, first day of her senior year of high school, and being called a “chink.” Along with this being offensive, as a whole, it was even more offensive for Ellen because “chink” is racial slang applied to the Chinese; Ellen is Korean. Ellen then has to deal with more racial comments throughout the year from the head gymnast, her chemistry professor, and other peers. It doesn’t help that Ellen is one of the smartest people in the school, which leads her to be pointed out in all her classes, bringing more attention to her. The most shocking part of the discrimination is when her chemistry teacher says that she must be stingy because she is a “chink.”

            When it comes to Ellen’s parents, they are strict toward Ellen when it comes to her social life, homework, and grades. They expect her to get straight A’s, get into Harvard, and become a doctor. They use her extra-curricular activities as leverage – if she gets anything below an A on an assignment or test, she can’t go to gymnastics until she gets her grades back up. Ellen does not understand why her parents are so strict on her when all her classmates are able to go to parties, take on extra-curricular activities, and just have fun in high school, in general. She believes it to be because her parents are Korean and they don’t know how things work in the US.

            The theme of friends is a strong one in this book. It is Ellen’s friend Jessie that she goes to for support in regards to the racist comments and the disconnect between her and her parents. Ellen’s only other real friend in high school is Beth – the only person that can academically compete (and beat) Ellen. It is because of Ellen’s friends that she is able to make it through her senior year and deal with all the challenges that arise within it.

            Although Ellen’s parents want her only to be considering Harvard (because being a woman, Harvard is the only place that would allow her to be competitive enough to be an acknowledged doctor), Ellen also wants to apply to Brown and Wellesley. While her father understands applying to Brown (as a back-up school), it is not comprehendible why Ellen would ever want to apply to Wellesley (a highly ranked, all-female college). As Ellen goes through the interview process at each, she comes to realize how different life is out of her small town and how unacceptable the racism that is being displayed toward her truly is.

            Lastly, Ellen’s story goes through her adventure with finding her first love (popular jock, Tomper). Because of her relationship with him, she is exposed to even more racist comments and more hatred from the girls who want him. It is through Tomper, though, that Ellen finds the courage to stand up to her parents, to the people discriminating against her, and allows her to realize that life moves on.

            I believe this is a great book to teach in high schools because it shows that discrimination is not acceptable and that it does hurt people. It also shows that no matter how hard things are, life goes on; you just have to be strong enough to let it.