65 Books in a Year: Book #17 Class of '88 Junior (2013 Read)

In an effort to review books that I've read in the past four years, but haven't reviewed I'm digging into my Goodreads archive and hacking away at it. If we're lucky, I'll be all caught up with the reviews by the end of the year. I'll be sure to put the year I read it in parenthesis in the title.

Here's a gem, that I've had sitting in the queue waiting to be finished up.

I've been reading With Rigor for All: Meeting Common Core Standards for Reading Literature. I feel like I could've written the book (if I'd ever had my act together) as Jago says things that I either do in my classroom or believe. In one of these instances she talks about the importance of reading literature true, but she also talks about the joys of re-reading.

One of my favorite quotes:

"Books ask readers to look inward, to examine our beliefs in light of new information, to consider the world through different eyes, to take time for reverie and reflection."

After reading that don't you want to just reread every book you've ever read as just the act of reading has made you look at the themes, characters and life in generally differently.

I'm looking at this series in two ways 1] as a piece of nostalgia and 2] as a how-to manual of sorts. I'll be talking about each book in this manner.

Class of '88 Sophomore

The Story

Allie comes back from New York full of piss and vinegar. I didn't care much for Allie's character from this point on. It's also during this book that Celia begins to show the worst of her true back-stabbing colors. Um, everything is out of whack, the guy that Allie is seeing starts seeing that chick from the Class of '89 series, Nick is dating Darcy and Meg is trying to be cool and popular and smart. The only good thing is that Sean gets a girl and Brooke is just lovely.

As A Piece of Nostalgia

Until this last year I didn't really care for this book much. Rereading it now, I realized that your Junior year is the hardest. Frankly, year three of anything is the hardest. But, your Junior year of high school is when you can't really be a kid anymore, but you aren't really an adult and oh, all of the decisions!

As A How to Manual

I've learned...er...remember that Juniors have a lot of crap going on and coming to class is only one of those things.

I'm not sure that Celia grew up to be all that nice. 

50 Books in a Year: Book #56 Mare's War #59 Dark Water #60 The List #63 Let It Snow

So, the above four books are pretty amazing and I'm kind of sorry that I'll be speed reviewing them. I hope you'll  get the idea of how much I love them, although they are all quite different. I'll be putting up full reviews on Teen Text Talk and will link to those as I complete them...which, um, may be the 12th of Never....we'll see.

Dark Water 
(edited from a conversation on YA Reads for Adults...where you too can join and I love that this was our guest author selection and Laura McNeal was there to talk with us about her book)

I love the ending so much. It's so hopeful and romantic and uplifting that I was willing to accept that even her cousin's, who is truly much weaker than she, hatred couldn't deter her from the goal of finding Amiel. 

I suppose I just see the whole book as being uplifting. I see it as a struggle for a girl to find her own identity, who is forced to find it faster than most because of what happens, and in the end she knows exactly who she is, what she wants and how she's going to get it. Pearl is much more than just a girl of divorced parents, much more than a poor girl et cetera, and while Amiel helped her on this road in the end she did this alone and I can take comfort in that. To me she is more alone than lonely and alone isn't all that bad. I don't think she was lonely just a little bit lost and I could/can/will identify with that.  All the people are experiencing  something that so real that at times it's painful. 

 I totally remember those times in my life when I felt like I was changing, and the world around me was staying the same...I think that's one of the many steps towards maturity. I also lived in my head a lot, um, er, still do and could be that extroverted cheerleader, but was also the person who thought about everything too much. I had to learn to balance those two me's a little better and in the process I grew up and realized that it's OK to be quiet sometimes and sometimes it's OK to yell. I think that Pearl is that the beginning of that journey.

Finally, this discussion has reminded me of this poem:

Song by Adrienne Rich http://southerncrossreview.org/41/ric...

We're all just diamonds and wood after all. 

The List 

Although I was a black girl in a pretty much all white school, I mean I was the first African-American to graduate from Lebanon High School and that was 1994 (you can read more about that here). Aside from my early years of school, I wasn't really teased. And in high school I wasn't blacklisted or whatever it is teens do to other teens. I do remember being in a clique that would rival that one in Mean Girls and reading this book reminded me so much of those, what I thought were harmless, lists of pretty girls and boys. I never thought about what it meant to be on those lists or to write those lists or to even see those lists floating around.

Popularity contest are not cool.

I love how this book shows this, but doesn't really tie up any of the loose ends...the ending is neither happy nor sad. Everyone learns lessons and everyone suffers. How could you win when the list is so horrible and intrinsic to the very backbone of the school. Vivian really has shown us every example of the teenage boy and girl. I'm pretty sure every adult will see him or herself in the characters and be glad that time is over. I hope teenagers read this book (yes, I bought it for my classroom in hard-cover) and see themselves and use it as a tool to change.

Mare's War 

This book was first introduced to me during our Missouri Reading Initiative meetings. Our presenter Kae read a couple of really great descriptive passages from the book and then we used them as writing assignments. Those passages really made me want to read the book.

This book is quite lovely as it encompasses historical fiction, Mare is a African-American girl fighting in WWII, strong females, and it shows how African-Americans were discriminated against even in the face of war. The book is told alternately through flashbacks in Mare's voice and in the voice of Mare's youngest grand-daughter. It's important to appreciate your heritage and to not take for granted any member of your family.

Let It Snow

Super cute stories centered around a small town and the teenagers who get snowed in on Christmas and Christmas Eve. There are three stories that interweave the characters and each story is written by a prominent YA author.

The Jubilee Express by Maureen Johnson
I love this story. I enjoy a good meet cute. Stuart sounds just too perfect. I could go on, but I'd just feel like some sort of moron. Is it wrong that I want to collect little Christmas themed knick-knacks one day...with a train running through the whole town? I don't think so.

A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle by John Green
This story is kind of like Road Trip meets Pineapple Express meets Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist. I loved. I rooted for the good guy. I wanted there to be cheerleaders. I wished I had a cool nickname like The Duke.

The Patron Saint of Pigs by Lauren Myracle
I'd been reading about how this one wasn't as good as the other two. At first I totally agreed the main character is a whiny, selfish girl who doesn't really deserve to have friends let alone a boyfriend. Despite my dislike of her I really thought she acted like many of the teen girls I see today and in the end she learns some really valuable lessons from her guardian angel and the only entirely tea-cup pig thing was adorable.

55 Books in a Year: Book #27 Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings

Here is another book for my mermaid challenge.

Just in case you've forgotten it's lovely marvelous details or you want to play along you can find all the information you need by clicking on The 2012 MerBooks Mermaid Book Reading Challenge.

How could you not love a book that starts off with a girl getting her period while trying on swimsuits damaging the one she decides to buy and ends with a recipe for Chocolate Mug Cake (something I'm definitely going to try in the future)? The answer is that there is no possible way that you couldn't.

After Jade reaches puberty, things about her begin to change...a certain boy begins to notice her lovely wavy hair and curvy figure and one day in the bathtub she begins to notice that instead of feet she's sporting a shimmering blue-green tail.

I love the voice of Jade, she's sassy and quick-witted, just how I feel every middle grade school girl should be. She thinks she's too curvy (there's a whole scene with a tankini that is just too real and adorable), she thinks she's not beautiful (without wavy red hair, how could she be anything else?), and she is missing her mother, who drowned a year ago, more than anything.

But, is her mother really dead or is that her mother she hears calling her? Can she stand being part mermaid? Trying to find these answers means that she has to keep telling big lies to her best friend and it means that she could be putting herself into more danger than she realized.

The best part of this book is the fact that the mermaid stuff seems to be par for the course in Port Toulouse and the story isn't really about keeping the secret or finding her true love or identity, but in finding out what really happened to her mother.
What can I say? This book is cute and fun and light and fluffy. A perfect summer read for any girl age 9 to, um, 36.

Oh and book two just came out...yippers!

55 Books in a Year: Book #25 I Just Want My Pants Back

For my birthday we, a bunch of my friends and I, went out to eat in Springfield, and because it was my birthday we ended our lovely dinner of various fondues with a trip to the bookstore; Barnes and Noble to be exact. The husband took the kiddo to the play area (sometimes he can be nice and thoughtful) and I spent some quality time amongst the shelves. Of all the books that caught my eye that evening I Just Want My Pants Back caught my attention the most. I found a comfy seat and started reading it on my Nook, immediately I was entertained by the male voice (a character who reminded me a little of the guy in Ethan Hawke's The Hottest State and a little like the guy in The F***-Up with a hint of the chick in Diary of an Emotional Idiot) and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much that I read about 70 pages before my friends and my husband and my kid found me.

This, of course, left me no choice, but to download the book (BN knew what they were doing when they allow people to start reading books for free...) and finish it, which I did the next day.

This book is chock full of pop culture references. There are so many that I could relate to that I had to look up the year the book was published, 2007, and, noted that David was definitely Millennial and all those books that said people born during 1976 were tail-end Gen X or old-ish Gen Y were closer to being right than I thought. That's all I could think about as I read this book...that, while I definitely didn't booze it up or do drugs or sleep with strangers at all, I totally knew this guy. I totally got how he was feeling and remembered when I felt behind everyone else my age. Actually, if I allow myself to think about it, I still do. He was reminiscing about the same lost youth/opportunities/friends et cetera...it was pretty sobering.

And, who knew that a book about a guy who gives away his favorite pair of pants during a hook-up, a book about a guy who goes out of his way to figure out ways to avoid talking to his good Mid-Western parents, a book about a guy who loses his temp job, almost messes up his friends' wedding (by the way I know people who definitely took their wedding a wee-bit too serious, much like this faux-yuppie couple), cusses, pops pills and gets so drunk and strung out that he throws up in a taxi could be sobering?

Anyway, I digress. This book was a lot of fun.While it is definitely not as well-written as Generation X: Tales for an Acclerated Culture and definitely won't define a whole generation of lost souls, I can totally see how it has described an era and a time that, whether I want to believe it or not, is long gone.

I guess there's a show on MTV, but I probably don't have to tell you hipcats that...maybe I'll watch it (just read that MTV canceled it so that means it must be good!), maybe I'll just revel in the fact that this book is a little bit like me and those I have known and leave it at that.

Modern Bildungsroman

[Source]

Several months ago a post on Goodreads got me to thinking. It was a simple enough post. The person was asking for a list of coming of age books for boys. I mentioned A Separate Peace as I loved that book as a teenager, I love it still and we teach it to our Sophomores. Sure it's a Classic, but it's a good Classic, one that I can get into and I can get the kids into. I mean really who doesn't have a best friend who they are also jealous of? Who hasn't wanted physical harm to come to someone, but regretted it when it actually does? Who hasn't realized, at least once, that they're the bad guy and they deserve to lose? This book is also set during war with main characters that are too young to fight, but who really want to, with main characters who see their friends going of to war and realize that maybe war isn't really all it's cracked up to be. This was especially poignant in 2002 and is still poignant if I have a student whose older brother or sister or friend has been or is in Iraq or Afghanistan. They get it.

Anyway, so I mentioned A Separate Peace and someone replied that kids don't read that anymore, they find it boring and can't relate. I wanted to know why students could no longer relate, I mean I was/am teaching it to students and they seem to be interested enough (seriously, I find that anything that's assigned will not agree with everyone, but if I can get one kid in my class to hop on the band-wagon, several others follow). I began to wonder what modern coming of age novel appealed to teens today. To be clear, on my search for these books I didn't want trendy books, I wanted genuine Bildungsroman novels that for some reason or another would stand the test of time, and sure, that's going to be slightly subjective. I also feel that no matter what age of a teen book, if you can find the hook, it can relate to any teen. The themes found in any Bildungroman are universal to the teen experience.

At first, I found this article from NPR that seemed to play into what the Goodreads post was saying. Sure, for those of you who don't want to click to read it, The Catcher in the Rye is still be assigned and still on banned book lists, but really it seems to be out of touch with young people today. This article at least points out that Holden Caulfield may not relate to teens today because the majority of teens are not WASP-y (my words not theirs), and those that weren't when the book came out didn't really have a voice to say otherwise.

Nowadays there are tons of voices (GLBT, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, Christian, Muslim, inner-city, male, female, tween, rural and I could go on and on and on) and I'm sure each of these voices have different ideas of what might classify as a coming of age novel for the modern teen.

Major traits of a Bildungsroman or Coming of Age Novel (for this I'm using the word interchangeably)

1. "focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood and in which character change is thus extremely important"*
2. the protagonist is looking for answers and experience 
3. a journey to maturity through a major event in the character's life
4. because the above books were both written in the 50s and I'm looking for books for modern teens written, all of the books below were written after the 1950s. I suppose that makes them post-modern, but anyway...

25 Modern Bildungsroman (alphabetized by authors last name)

1. Alexie, Sherman The Absolute True Diary of a Part-time Indian
2. Andersen, Laura Halse Speak
3. Blume, Judy Forever
4. Brashares, Ann Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Books 1)
5. Chbosky, Stephen The Perks of Being A Wallflower
6. Childress, Alice A Hero Ain't Nothin But A Sandwich
7. Cisneros, Sandra The House on Mango Street
8. Crutcher, Chris Chinese Handcuffs
9. Danizger, Paula The Cat Ate My Gymsuit
10. Diaz, Juno Drown
11. Eugenides, Jeffrey The Virgin Suicides
12. Gough, Julian Juno and Juliet
13. Green, John An Abundance of Katherines
14. Guest, Judith Ordinary People
15. Haddon, Mark The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
16. Murakami, Haruki Norwegian Wood
17. Myracle, Lauren Kissing Kate
18. Hinton, SE The Outsiders
19. Ockler, Sarah Twenty Boy Summer
20. Picoult, Jodi My Sister's Keeper
21. Potok, Chaim Chosen
22. Sebold, Alice The Lovely Bones
23. Vizzini, Ned It's Kind of a Funny Story
24. Woodson, Jacqueline The House You Pass on the Way
25. Zindel, Paul The Amazing and Death-Defying of Eugene Dingman

My knee jerk votes can be found here.