65 Books in a Year: Book #4 Skeleton Creek

I don't usually gush about middle grade books as I am too far removed from the experiences and feelings about a middle grader to feel like I fall in love with books meant for kids in junior high. I can usually appreciate their plots, themes, characters and so on, but if I didn't read them at the appropriate age my adult brain prohibits me from falling love with them. True and sad, I know.

I thought I was going to feel the same way about this book and its subsequent series.

I was dead wrong.

A student kept on gushing about these books and he said that he'd read the series more than once and was shocked that I'd never even heard of the series before. He asked if I wanted to borrow it and he brought the whole series in for me to read. He said I would love them and he told me to be sure to watch the videos. I started reading it and could not put it down and I made sure to watch all of the videos.

This series is touted as 'The X-Files' meets 'Blair Witch Project'. It involves two best friends who, after an accident that occurs before the beginning of the story, aren't allowed to hang out with each other as they always get themselves into trouble when they do. Ryan writes in his journal about what caused him to be bedridden in a Big Bertha caste and Sarah does all the investigating sending him videos and chats about a ghost, a gold dredge and a secret society cover-up. The fact that we get to hear Ryan's voice through his journals is cool enough (there aren't enough boy narrators in YA fiction), but we also get to see Sarah's videos as she talks directly to us via the internet giving us mysterious passwords based on scary stories and haunting characters to see what she sees. If I were a kid in this day and age I would be love. I'm a little creeped out anyways and read this book in an hour. It doesn't help that Ryan thinks everyone is out to get him and nothing and no one is what it seems.

I love the allusions to classic horror novels, movies and characters. I love the historical background (I had to look up what a drudge is) and I look forward to reading the rest of the series...in one sitting in the dark of the night.

55 Books in a Year: book #44 The Last Unicorn

My first memory of The Last Unicorn is from 1982. My grandfather had taken the three of us to watch the movie. I was 5 years old. I remember that he bought us popcorn and a soda and candy each, so we didn't have to share. I remember sitting on one side of him, my sister Marissa on the other, my sister Kim beside me. Eventually Kim moved into the seat with me (there are parts of that movie that really are scary to a 4 year old).

I was mesmerized by the unicorn "the color of snow falling on a moonlit night", I fell in the love the singing and I was enchanted by the story of a lone unicorn searching for her brothers and sisters. A unicorn who sacrificed herself to save those she didn't even know she loved.

I remember reading the book not long after and I realize, now that I've read it again, I didn't get a lot of it and the parts that I remember most vividly are the parts that are included in the movie; a movie I have seen at least 100 times. This book, like other fairy tales, is perfect in the sense that it has the fantastic story of a unicorn, a prince, a castle, the sea, adventure and love. As an adult I still had all of these themes floating around in my head and heart, but as an adult I could see all that the unicorn lost and I could see all that she gained. When I was a kid the story didn't seem so bittersweet. I just liked all the unicorns. I knew she couldn't be the last.

You can read the sequel...I guess one can call it a sequel here. It's even more bittersweet and, well, sad.

Young Adult Fiction: A Definition...maybe...

[Source]

So, after thinking about the NPR poll yesterday and thinking more and more about a] our societies' current obsession with YA fiction and b] how NPR's reply to their poll just muddied the water considerably I thought I'd put in writing what makes YA fiction what it is. And, yes, for the sake of teacher's everywhere, it really does need to be a little more scientific than what NPR has given us.

First, how NPR classifies YA Lit

1. We don't care if it's adult literature, if a teen reads it than we can call it YA fiction, unless we didn't want to...see #5.
2. Young Adult means ages 12 to 18.
3. A book where the publisher says it's for ages '8 and up' or '10 and up' is automatically Children's lit, except, um, see #4.
4. If a book has won a Newbery Award it's too young...um, unless, our judges said it wasn't too young.
5. Books we deem 'rites of passage' should be consider YA even if we deem them too young (The Last Unicorn) or not intended for young adults to begin with (The Lord of the Rings, Dune, The Catcher in the Rye. Did Salinger really mean for his book to be for adults? I'll have to Google that later.)
6. If a book was meant for a teen audience and it has too many adult themes we didn't add it too the list (their examples: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Ender's Game...I guess they forgot all about how Tom Robinson was accused of rape, oh, not to mention the abuse aspect, in To Kill A Mockingbird and that The Hunger Games is set in a future society where 24 kids are forced to kill each other, in pretty gruesome fashion, until there is only one and the reason isn't survival, but domination in a post-apocalyptic/dystopic society)

Some NPR commenter highlights

(at the time of writing this blog post there are 54 comments)

• There should be a list of Middle Grade books.
• Where is Michael Cadnum, manga, Steampunk, Mark Twain, Scott O'Dell, Norma Klein, Cleavers, Jean Little, gender and ethnic diversity, All the Pretty Horses, Out of the Dust, Pride and Prejudice, Science Fiction like Heinlein, ERB, Moorcock, Baroness Orczy, Neil Gaiman, Alexander, McKillip?
• Do kids really like Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, The Chocolate War, A Separate Peace, and other 'classics' anymore? Read my answer to what I feel teacher's should be doing about this here.
• Why are some of the books so new?
• NPR you're being a little contradictory: Yes to LotR as being a rite of passage, but no to Pride and Prejudice? Yes to Catcher in the Rye, but no to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn? Go Ask Alice isn't too mature? Yes to Twilight and The Hunger Games, but no to Ender's Game? If A Wrinkle in Time is too young so is Tuck Everlasting. 
• Thanks for the variety of genre and age ranges within the YA spectrum and for accounting for all taste...(I think somebody even used the words 'precious gems'). Thanks for your efforts.
• Remember this is a poll of readers.
• The fundamental question was flawed: Was I supposed to be selecting books I read and loved as a young adult? Was I supposed to only be selecting YA books? What is YA? Was I supposed to select books that make you 'well-educated' or are deemed 'classics'? Did I have to actually have read them all or just the ones I voted for? How was I suppose to choose only 10? (I can tell you I picked 10 books that I definitely read that I know moved teenagers in some fashion)
• How did Betsy-Tacy get in?
• Judges shouldn't use personal feelings to determine readership.

A recap of a brief discussion in Young Adult Book-Content Advisory

• Children's and YA should be separate
• Why do bookstores, publishers and librarians get to say what is Children's, YA or Adult?
• YA needs a rating system
• YA should mean 17-25
• An interview with Isaac Marion

My categories...based on Wikipedia, this article, my own brain and a post. These are followed by my 'two-cents', for what it's worth
(this can be found in the above discussion, as well)

There are actually three classifications

Children's
Age: 0-8

Description:
Picture books, early reader books, very simple language, use large print, and have many illustrations

Examples:
The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales,
The Complete Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales,Chicka Chicka Boom Boom,Skippy Jon Jones Collection,Chicken Little

Middle Grade 
Age: 9-12

Description:
1. Middle grade novels tend to be shorter. (Though not always—the huge and intimidating Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is middle grade, while Angela Johnson’s brief-as-a-vivid-dream The First Part Last is quite clearly teen.)
2. Middle grade novels tend to have main characters who are the age of—or slightly older than—the target reader. (Though this, too, isn’t hard and fast: The girls in The Witch Family are younger than the reader who can fully appreciate the story, and even characters such as Mr. Putter or Frog and Toad are for all intents middle-aged.)
3. Middle grade novels tend to be more outwardly focused: Their plot of events, of things happening to the character, is more important over the course of the book than what happens within the character. (Though that matters very much to the climax of the book, when the outward events trigger an inner change.)
4. Middle grade novels tend to have a simpler vocabulary and a simpler sentence structure.
Middle grade novels tend to have a single inciting element—the thing that sets the comfortable, given world a-kilter.

Examples:
The Hunger Games Trilogy Boxset,Charlotte's Web,
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (the whole series)


Young Adult/Teen
Age: 13-up

Description:
1. Teen novels tend to have a wider vocabulary and a more complex sentence structure.
2. Teen novels tend to give as much weight to the interior mechanics of character dilemma and change as to the outward mechanics of plot and event. That is, how a character feels about what is happening is as important as what is happening.
3. Teen novels tend to be less a simple-upsetting-of-a-status-quo (the world as it the reader knows it) and more the realization that the world is more complex than we suspected as children. (Its mysteries are legion.)
4. Teen novels tend to be longer and more demanding of the reader.

Examples:
Twenty Boy Summer,Divergent (whole series),Twilight (whole series)

I find it interesting that these descriptions don't really, directly encompass the amount of sex, cussing, violence et cetera in each book. However, I really didn't think much about it until I read The Hunger Games series. As an adult reader I could tell that I wasn't the target audience, I could also tell that most high schoolers (while they like the books) would find it any easy read, below their reading levels and easy to figure out. I truly had a problem with the amount of violence in those books. I'm not arguing with the tag of middle grade...mostly I'm arguing with myself about whether I would let my kid read those books or not. I've come to the conclusion that I would let her read anything that she was prepared (maturity etc.) to read. 

This is why classifying books in any other way, but the broad strokes above would be so tricky, as subjective attitudes, personal mores and our own morality come into play when wanting to classify books. I am positive that using our personal ideals is fine on a personal level at home, but on a broader level if we, as parents/adults/teachers, use these classifications to determine readership we are doing a subtle form of censorship, as what one person believes on a personal level is totally different than what another person believes.

It is no longer the day where a parent can just grab a book on a shelf, like the cover and let their kid read it. If we want to help our kids make appropriate (according to us) discussion we have to read the book too and not leave the determination in the hands of bookstores, libraries or teachers (as I promise I've been burned a time or two by 'letting' my students read a book that seemed just fine for a 15/16 year old to read). 

And, finally, it would seem to me that book stores and libraries and teachers that do not use these three distinctions are behind in the times and doing everyone a disservice, especially themselves.

A plea to adults everywhere
Read YA Fiction all you want, but leave its plots, themes and expectations in the hands of its appropriate readers; the youth it was intended to propel into reading in the first place. Do I think the Twilight Saga blows chunks? My adult brain says, "Yes" while simultaneously harboring an inappropriate crush on a certain undead vampire. Really, it's perfect YA lit and if we're lucky Twilight readers will find Sookie Stackhouse and then Anne Rice and, finally, the ultimate in vampire literature Dracula (yes, I feel vamp lit has a hierarchy. Heck! I believe all genres have hierarchies). We have to give those reader's time to grow and mature. Let's not impose our adult brains on what teens read either. There are some adult books that truly speak to the growth and maturity of youth, and it's OK that teens read them, but let's not call those books YA just because they do. And, in that same respect, we can read teen lit all we want, but let's not commandeer it as our own, OK?!

30 Day Book Challenge: Day 28

Last year I found this book challenge (since then I have seen many variations of it, but I like this one best!), and have been intrigued about how I would answer the questions posed. Feel free to comment with your own answer or post the challenge to your own blog.

First favorite book or series obsession

At first I thought this one was going to be like all of those others where I put the same answer that I put for Day 01...but, it's not, it's first favorite book or series obsession! First, changes everything!

First favorite book

From Goodreads:
Sheldon has more than enough pancakes for his own lunch but not enough for his friends, so they proceed to make more.

Of course, ask me tomorrow and I might have a different book, as about 10 are floating in my head and there are about 10 more who's names I can't remember, but whose pictures and words (in my mother's voice) are always floating around in my head.

Series obsession

I got about 80 books in and matured to Sweet Valley High books, I think I read about 40 of those and then some University books...not very many. I was getting tired and, well, these books NEVER stop, NEVER! I hear the new book Sweet Valley Confidential isn't really how I want to remember my girls, so I haven't read it. My obsession with these books easily transferred to The Hardy Boy and Nancy Drew Super Mysteries, of which I read and own 25 of the original 36...wow! I really need to find and buy the rest of those! As for SV...I'm good with what I have...of course, there's whole e-series I can purchase for $1.99 each...hmmm!?

Day 01 – A book series you wish had gone on longer OR a book series you wish would just freaking end already (or both!)

Day 02 – A book or series you wish more people were reading and talking about
Day 03 – The best book you've read in the last 12 months
Day 04 – Your favorite book or series ever
Day 05 – A book or series you hate
Day 06 – Favorite book of your favorite series
Day 07 – Least favorite plot device employed by way too many books you actually enjoyed otherwise
Day 08 – A book everyone should read at least once
Day 09 – Best scene ever
Day 10 – A book you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
Day 11– A book that disappointed you
Day 12 – A book or series of books you’ve read more than five times
Day 13 – Favorite childhood book OR current favorite YA book (or both!)
Day 14 – Favorite character in a book
Day 15 – Your “comfort” book
Day 16 – Favorite poem or collection of poetry
Day 17 – Favorite story or collection of stories (short stories, novellas, novelettes, etc.)
Day 18 – Favorite beginning scene in a book 
Day 19 – Favorite book cover (bonus points for posting an image!)
Day 20 – Favorite kiss
Day 21 – Favorite romantic/sexual relationship (including asexual romantic relationships)
Day 22 – Favorite non-sexual relationship (including asexual romantic relationships)
Day 23 – Most annoying character ever 
Day 24 – Best Quote from a Novel 
Day 25 – Any five books from your "to be read" stack 
Day 26 – OMG WTF? OR most irritating/awful/annoying book ending
Day 27 – If a book contains ______, you will always read it (and a book or books that contain it)!
Day 28 – First favorite book or series obsession
Day 29 – Saddest character death OR best/most satisfying character death (or both!)
Day 30 – What book are you reading right now?

55 Books in a Year: Book #29 Cycles

The author of Cycles, Lois Brown, sent my other blog, Teen Text Talk, her book to review. There was a contest for however many reviews she received by a certain date. There was no way that I was going to get this book read in such a short amount of time, so I didn't bother with the contest, but told her that when I got to the book I'd give it an honest review. A month later, on my birthday no less, I read it in one sitting...seriously, it's that entertaining.

Renee Beaumont is a typical 13 year-old girl, she loves horses, her best friend who is an older boy science genius, Sam, and her neighbor, Dr. Dawson, a man who let's her come over whenever she wants and who takes care of her when her rich overly busy parents aren't around, which is a lot. One day Renee gallops away trying to save the doctor's prized horse from thieves, the horse trips and down goes Renee on a rock. At the hospital they can't figure out what is wrong, she's losing loads of blood, but they can't find out her blood-type. In walks her neighbor to save the day, he has some of her blood saved from a time he helped her with a science fair project...the only thing is this is all a lie and things only get weirder for Renee and her Sam as they try to find out the truth.

At first, this book seemed a bit confusing, it intersperses Renee stories with that of an older woman who is telling the story of her daughter's disappearance through diary entries. I spent the first 40 or so pages trying to figure out what exactly was going on, which I think will compel curious readers forward. And, although I know a bit about science and love science fiction, I did not see where this book was going. I'm guessing it's because this book begins so easily and subtly. The ending, WOW, so looking forward to the 2nd book!

Frankly, I need someone else to read this book so I can talk about it with them. I've never read a book like this before.

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 #26 Pinch Hit

OK, so Pinch Hit is one of those books that I probably would not have picked up and read on my own, but I won it at YA Reads for Teachers (And Other Adults) and the rules of winning are that you read and post.

So, I read it, and let me tell you I read it in May at the end of the school year with a million other things going on...it wasn't really doing it for me. Frankly, I'm not sure if I do middle grade books for middle grade kids very well. But, I kept going Sam in one chapter and Trevor in another. I found that, if I stopped being 'adult' about it, I was beginning to enjoy the cliffhanger end to each chapter and then starting the next chapter up with the other character so a person might read 4 or 5 chapters before they realized it. Perfect for reluctant readers (OK, so I totally/all the way didn't stop being 'adult' about it).

This book is about Sam, an All-American baseball player and Trevor, a prissy (not because he wants to be, but because his mom makes him) Hollywood mega-star. Trevor wants to play real baseball more than anything and Sam wants his father's horror film script green-lighted (or, is that green-lit?). After Trevor realizes that he and Sam look about 99% identical, they, with the help of Trevor's female co-star, switch places. There are parts were things get a little hairy...Sam reads/Trevor does not, Sam knows Shakespeare/Trevor does not, Sam can switch it/Trevor...and so on, but for the most part the grown-ups don't get it. Things go rather well until the boys figure out that they are, in fact, real twins and Sam uses Trevor's star power to find their real mother.

Who can the boys trust? Will Trevor be good enough to fool the coach and scouts? Will Sam be able to act? These are all things that will keep kids on their toes and there's just enough sports to make it interesting and just enough romance to entice all kids to want to read it. I got hooked and got to the end wanting more, I'm pretty sure most kids will too.

This book is like the Prince and the Pauper meets The Whipping Boy, I think it would make a cute Disney movie starring a set of adorable twins...I guess the Sprouse twins from The Suite Life of Zach and Cody are too old aren't they?

55 Books in a Year: Book #22 OyMG

OyMG by Amy Fellner Dominy is one of those books that could easily be someone's favorite. It's cover is cute, entertaining and appealing to tweens (it's target audience) and its title is fantastic. It's insides are just as appealing, a speech and debater (seriously, first book I've read about one of my favorite extra-curriculars) who is Jewish must hide her identity to attend an all Christian speech and debate camp. It tackles the issues of race and religion and honesty...or does it?

And, that's were this book kind of leaves me, well, a little peeved. Ellie has been raised by her Jewish family and although she is raised Jewish, she doesn't question it, until being Jewish means losing a scholarship to a prestigious, definitely Christian, high school. From the very beginning we see Ellie as a strong-willed girl and then we see this girl become less willful and, well, less truthful as the Christian camp progresses. She begins to hide her Jewish grandmother's cross and is embarrassed by her very Jewish Zeydeh (her eccentric grandfather).

I sort of understand why her parents would allow her to lie about her religious affiliation, if they would have protested too much she would have done it anyway, but they don't really talk to her about what it means to be Jewish or about what it means to be Christian. In this respect they seem like good-natured hippies and I bought that. But, if they're so good-natured why must Ellie be anything at all? In fact, it seems that all the Christians in this book are in some ways the villains of the piece...because of an incident long ago, Doris hates all Jewish people, so much so that she wants to punish them horribly and Ellie's Lutheran grandparents seem to be those crazy Christians who feel that their son 'dun did 'em wrong' by raising Ellie Jewish only. Her father talks to her a little bit about how he doesn't go to church because he feels spiritual in the great outdoors gardening and such, but she doesn't say much about where she feels most spiritual. And, why is Ellie only Jewish, just because her father leans towards wanting no religion that doesn't mean they shouldn't teach her all they know, instead of just assuming she will be?

The story itself is adorable and the characters are developed and believable. Ellie has never been challenged before and there are speech and debaters there who are better than her. The speech she gives at the end is poignant and would truly convince any kid waffling on either side of the issue to chose one...Ellie is two cultures, yet she must give up one to be the other. As a person of mixed heritage I find that, well, sad.

Hmmm...maybe that's the true problem I have with this book...the fact that Ellie chooses a side. I like the novel Kissing Kate because it gives us all the information and definitely tells us were the main character is leaning, but allows us to see it for ourselves. Lissa is still learning and questioning, therefore so must we. I like that ending. Teaching kids to question is the best part of teaching. I'm not sure this book does that.

I suppose if Jewish kids are reading this it is important for them to identify with Ellie and her family and then understand that being Jewish is their heritage and their identity. And, that would have worked had Ellie not been  part Lutheran and if Ellie hadn't had family members (ie. her Lutheran grandparents) to talk to about their religion. She never does talk to them, by the way, she only goes to church once and the whole time she sees both she and Jesus as outsiders.

All of that being said, I think that OyMG is a great book for those middle grade kids who may see that Ellie is truly conflicted, to me that did come across very well.