Module 10/Graphic Novels and Censorship Issues/August 3-August 7

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Collins, S.  (2008).  The hunger games.  New York:  Scholastic.

Summary

In the futuristic dystopian Panem,  there are twelve (really thirteen) districts that make up society.  There is also the Capitol, which is the enemy to the people but who run all of the districts.  Every year, each district has to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to compete in the hunger games:  a series of games televised that leaves only one participant living. This year, Primrose Everdeen is chosen from District 12 but her older sister Katniss volunteers to go in her place.  The boy from District 12 is Peeta Mellark, a friend of Katniss'.  The hunger games are devastating, as audiences watch 12 year old Rue die among others.  Katniss and Peeta are guided by Haymitch, a past winner of the Hunger Games.  In the end, it is Katniss and Peeta who survive, and instead of killing one another, they threaten to eat the poisoned berries and kill themselves which the Capitol will not allow.  Instead, the Capitol allows them both to win and punishes them by entering them both in the next round of games.  However, their defiance is what sparks the already building rebellion against the Capitol.  

My Impression

The book is an awesome beginning to a great trilogy.  It is exciting and a page-turner and I read it easily in one setting because I could not and did not want to put it down.  This book intrigued me so much that I dove into the world of dystopian novels and I found a new passion in reading.  I like the excitement of it and I loved the notion of a woman as the hero.  Katniss is everything a hero should be:  strong-willed, not easily swayed, protector of her family, and just a good person.  It was very easy to root for her throughout the story.  

Reviews and Awards

"Katniss Everdeen is a survivor.

She has to be; she’s representing her District, number 12, in the 74th Hunger Games in the Capitol, the heart of Panem, a new land that rose from the ruins of a post-apocalyptic North America. To punish citizens for an early rebellion, the rulers require each district to provide one girl and one boy, 24 in all, to fight like gladiators in a futuristic arena. The event is broadcast like reality TV, and the winner returns with wealth for his or her district. With clear inspiration from Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and the Greek tale of Theseus, Collins has created a brilliantly imagined dystopia, where the Capitol is rich and the rest of the country is kept in abject poverty, where the poor battle to the death for the amusement of the rich. However, poor copyediting in the first printing will distract careful readers—a crying shame. [Note: Errors have been corrected in subsequent printings, so we are now pleased to apply the Kirkus star.]
Impressive world-building, breathtaking action and clear philosophical concerns make this volume, the beginning of a planned trilogy, as good as The Giver and more exciting. (Science fiction. 11 & up)."
(2010, May 20).  [Review of the book The hunger games].  Kirkus Reviews.  Retrieved from 
      https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/suzanne-collins/the-hunger-games/.

"If there really are only seven original plots in the world, it's odd that “boy meets girl” is always mentioned, and “society goes bad and attacks the good guy” never is. Yet we have Fahrenheit 451 , The Giver , The House of the Scorpion —and now, following a long tradition of Brave New Worlds, The Hunger Games .
Collins hasn't tied her future to a specific date, or weighted it down with too much finger wagging. Rather less 1984 and rather more Death Race 2000 , hers is a gripping story set in a postapocalyptic world where a replacement for the United States demands a tribute from each of its territories: two children to be used as gladiators in a televised fight to the death.
Katniss, from what was once Appalachia, offers to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, but after this ultimate sacrifice, she is entirely focused on survival at any cost. It is her teammate, Peeta, who recognizes the importance of holding on to one's humanity in such inhuman circumstances. It's a credit to Collins's skill at characterization that Katniss, like a new Theseus, is cold, calculating and still likable. She has the attributes to be a winner, where Peeta has the grace to be a good loser.
It's no accident that these games are presented as pop culture. Every generation projects its fear: runaway science, communism, overpopulation, nuclear wars and, now, reality TV. The State of Panem—which needs to keep its tributaries subdued and its citizens complacent—may have created the Games, but mindless television is the real danger, the means by which society pacifies its citizens and punishes those who fail to conform. Will its connection to reality TV, ubiquitous today, date the book? It might, but for now, it makes this the right book at the right time.
What happens if we choose entertainment over humanity? In Collins's world, we'll be obsessed with grooming, we'll talk funny, and all our sentences will end with the same rise as questions. When Katniss is sent to stylists to be made more telegenic before she competes, she stands naked in front of them, strangely unembarrassed. “They're so unlike people that I'm no more self-conscious than if a trio of oddly colored birds were pecking around my feet,” she thinks. In order not to hate these creatures who are sending her to her death, she imagines them as pets. It isn't just the contestants who risk the loss of their humanity. It is all who watch.
Katniss struggles to win not only the Games but the inherent contest for audience approval. Because this is the first book in a series, not everything is resolved, and what is left unanswered is the central question. Has she sacrificed too much? We know what she has given up to survive, but not whether the price was too high. Readers will wait eagerly to learn more."
(2008, Nov. 3).  [Review of the book The hunger games].  Publisher's Weekly.  Retrieved from 
     http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-439-02348-1.

2008 Cybils Award for Fantasy and Science Fiction-Young Adult
2009 Hal Clement Award
2010 Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award

Suggestions for Use
*Have construction paper, markers and pens and have children create their own dystopian society and what it would look like and what the government would be like.
*Have students create their own tribute poster advertising themselves. 
 

 

Module 10/Graphic Novels and Censorship Issues/August 3-August 7

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Green, J.  (2005).  Looking for Alaska.  New York:  Penguin Group.

Summary

The story follows the life of Miles, who transfers to Culver Creek Prep School to search for something more in his life.  As soon as he arrives, he is nicknamed Pudge and so that is his name for the remainder of the story.  Pudge makes fast friends with a group of boys and girls but most important to him is Alaska.  She is a mysterious girl and although she already has a boyfriend, Pudge can't help but to fall in love with her.  Much of the novel includes pranks:  pranks from Pudge's group, pranks from the Weekday Warriors, and pranks played on The Eagle, the dean of the school.  Everything comes to a head when the group plans the biggest  prank of all and they drink all night preparing for it.  However, Alaska leaves in the middle of the night and dies in a car crash.  The Eagle announces it at school the next day and Pudge is heartbroken and confused.  They never know what truly happened to Alaska and she remains the mystery she has always been.  In her honor, they pull the biggest prank the school has ever seen:  hiring a male stripper to perform at their ceremony.  

My Impression

I love anything by John Green...seriously, anything.  What I like a lot about his writing is it seems to be in layers.  Throughout the book he leaves little hints and things that tie other situations together and you don't realize it until you look back.  He also writes exactly like a teenager would speak.  I believe that is the big appeal of Green.  Also, I love that this was a mystery and there was never really any conclusion to the story.  I usually don't like this, but with a character like Alaska I felt it was very fitting out of respect for her.  

Reviews and Awards

"The Alaska of the title is a maddening, fascinating, vivid girl seen through the eyes of Pudge (Miles only to his parents), who meets Alaska at boarding school in Alabama. Pudge is a skinny (“irony” says his roommate, the Colonel, of the nickname) thoughtful kid who collects and memorizes famous people’s last words. The Colonel, Takumi, Alaska and a Romanian girl named Lara are an utterly real gaggle of young persons, full of false starts, school pranks, moments of genuine exhilaration in learning and rather too many cigarettes and cheap bottles of wine. Their engine and center is Alaska, given to moodiness and crying jags but also full of spirit and energy, owner of a roomful of books she says she’s going to spend her life reading. Her center is a woeful family tragedy, and when Alaska herself is lost, her friends find their own ways out of the labyrinth, in part by pulling a last, hilarious school prank in her name. What sings and soars in this gorgeously told tale is Green’s mastery of language and the sweet, rough edges of Pudge’s voice. Girls will cry and boys will find love, lust, loss and longing in Alaska’s vanilla-and-cigarettes scent. (Fiction. YA)"

(2010, June 24).  [Review of the book Looking for Alaska].  Kirkus Reviews.  Retrieved on 

      https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-green/looking-for-alaska-2/.

2006 Michael L. Printz Award

Booklist Editors' Choice Pick

2006 Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults

Suggestions for Use

*Have each person make up a nickname for themselves and tell why they would use that nickname

*Have students research their favorite last words of a famous person and share with the group     

   

Module 9/Poetry and Short Stories/July 28-August 3

Glass by Ellen Hopkins

Hopkins, E. (2007).  Glass.   New York:  Simon and Schuster.

Summary

Glass continues to follow the story of Kristina/Bree as she is now a single mom after being raped by Brendan in Crank.  Kristina has tried to clean up and even did for a while throughout her pregnancy and while she was breastfeeding, but she cannot beat the monster.  She doesn't know a lot of people in town so she seeks out Robyn, the cheerleader she used to do crank with.  She tricks her mom into letting her use the car and getting away for a night (with her mom's money) and goes to Robyn's college campus.  She almost immediately meets Robyn's dealer Trey and falls in love with him.  He offers crank that is more pure than anything she has ever tried.  Trey and Kristina make a connection and she returns home.  Soon, Trey is visiting Reno and calls Kristina up.  At this point she has gotten a job at a gas station and is trying to start a new life.  Kristina and Trey do meth together and she is introduced to Trey's cousin Brad who has the connections in Mexico for the pure drugs.  Kristina is soon living at Brad's because her mom kicked her out due to her neglecting Hunter during one of her binges (he was stuck under a chair and screaming and Kristina didn't even wake up).  Kristina soon realizes she has to quit her job because she doesn't want to work during Christmas (plus her boss is a pervert who asks her to do pornography for him on the side).  Brad offers to allow her to nanny his girls for a job.  That does not last long though because a strange love triangle comes about and both Trey and Kristina are kicked out.  They live in a motel together and are eventually caught with a lot of meth at a McDonald's and put into jail.  Throughout this, Kristina's mom has fought for custody of Hunter and Kristina also finds out she is pregnant with Trey's child.  

My Impression

To me, this book is sadder than Crank because so much more of it involves Hunter and Kristina's inability to take care of him because of her addiction.  It is also sad watching her yearn for the attention of men more so than the attention of her son.  At this point, she is completely torn away from her family and everything else just for a drug.  Again, I would not read this book for pleasure.  I only read it this one time and probably will not again.  I just find it so sad and disheartening but it is beautifully written and so honest.  

Reviews and Awards

"Hopkins's hard-hitting free-verse novel, a sequel, picks up where Crank left off. Kristina now lives in her mother's Reno home with her baby, but constantly dreams of “getting/ high. Strung. Getting/ out of this deep well/ of monotony I'm/ slowly drowning in.” When her former connection turns her on to “glass”: “Mexican meth, as/ good as it comes. maybe 90 percent pure,” Kristina quickly loses control again. She gets kicked out of her house after her baby gets hurt on her watch, starts dealing for the Mexican Mafia (“No problem. I'll play straight/ with them. Cash and carry”) and eventually even robs her mother's house with her equally addicted boyfriend. The author expertly relays both plot points and drug facts through verse, painting Kristina's self-narrated self-destruction through clean verses (“My face is hollow-/cheeked, spiced with sores”). She again experiments with form, sometimes writing two parallel poems that can be read together or separately (sometimes these experiments seem a bit cloying, as in “Santa Is Coming,” a concrete poem in the shape of a Christmas tree). But in the end, readers will be amazed at how quickly they work their way through this thick book—and by how much they learn about crystal meth and the toll it takes, both on addicts and their families. Ages 14-up. (Aug.)" 

(2007, Aug. 13).  [Review of the book Glass].  Publisher's Weekly.  Retrieved from 

       http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-4169-4090-6.

2008 ALA Top Ten for Young Adults

Suggestions for Use

*Have teenagers go to a rehab facility and meet with a counselor about the effects of drugs 

*Create posterboards representing the effects of meth and statistics of addiction  

 Module 9/Poetry and Short Stories/July 28-August 3

Crank by Ellen Hopkins

Hopkins, E.  (2004).  Crank.  New York:  Simon and Schuster.  

Summary

This harrowing tale follows the downfall of Kristina Georgia Snow who later becomes Bree.  Kristina visits her absentee father in Reno due to a court order not knowing that he hasn't changed much from the deadbeat dad he used to be.  Kristina meets Adam on her first day there, but after a few boring days she hangs out with Adam at her dad's workplace, the bowling alley.  This is where she tries crank for the first time and after Adam's girlfriend and Kristina's dad walk in, they all do it together.  This begins Kristina's downfall.  The meth creates a persona Kristina says has always been there:  Bree.  Kristina was a straight-A, goodie two shoes junior while Bree is a drug loving, sex loving, bad girl.  Eventually Kristina goes back to her hometown and it takes her mom and stepdad a while to catch on to what is really going on.  Her grades start slipping, she is smoking now, and due to bad choices with another guy who is on crank, she is raped and becomes pregnant.  She falls in love with Chase who is also on crank but he ends up moving away to go to school at USC.  She considers an abortion but once she feels her baby move inside of her she cannot do it.  She has the baby but the monster as she calls it is too strong.  For the most part she stays sober during her pregnancy, but it is not long until she is back on crank full force.  

My Impression

This book was sad and disturbing.  It is very well written and the poetry style makes it a very quick read even though it is well over five hundred pages.  Also, she tends to put the words into shapes according to what the entry is about:  questions marks, the letter T, etc.  I would not read this book again because the content is just so heartbreaking, but it is interesting to see inside the mind of an addict.  The writing is very honest and brutal at times.  It is just so sad to watch a girl with all the promise in the world get sucked into the world of drugs and it all fades away just like that.  There are other parts that are hard to read, like when her friend Robyn tells her of a crank addict who decided to keep her baby and then went on a 3 day binge and the baby cried so much she killed it.  It's just a very heavy subject and not one I would read for enjoyment.  It's just too sad. 

Reviews and Awards

"Hypnotic and jagged free verse wrenchingly chronicles 16-year-old Kristina’s addiction to crank. Kristina’s daring alter ego, Bree, emerges when “gentle clouds of monotony” smother Kristina’s life—when there’s nothing to do and no one to connect with. Visiting her neglectful and druggy father for the first time in years, Bree meets a boy and snorts crank (methamphetamine). The rush is irresistible and she’s hooked, despite a horrible crank-related incident with the boy’s other girlfriend. Back home with her mother, Kristina feels both ignored and smothered, needing more drugs and more boys—in that order. One boy is wonderful and one’s a rapist, but it’s crank holding Bree up at this point. The author’s sharp verse plays with spacing on the page, sometimes providing two alternate readings. In a too brief wrap-up, Kristina keeps her baby (a product of rape) while Hopkins—realistically—offers no real conclusion. Powerful and unsettling. (author’s note) (Fiction. YA)"

(2010, May 20).  [Review of the book Crank].  Kirkus Reviews.  Retrieved from 

      https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ellen-hopkins/crank/.

New York Times' Bestseller

2005 Quills Award Nominee

2005 PSLA Top Ten for Teens

2006 Kentucky Bluegrass Award

2006 Gateway Reader Award Winner

Suggestions for Use

*Have a drug enforcement officer come in as a guest speaker to the library

*Have a former drug addict talk to teenagers about their life before and after   

  

 Module 8/Mystery and Series Books/July 21-July 27

 

The Boxcar Children Series by Gertrude Chandler Warner

 

Warner, G.C. (1942).  The boxcar children.  Morton Grove, Illinois:  Albert Whitman & 

    Company.  

 

Summary

This series follows the mysteries and adventures of four young children:  Henry, Jessie, Violet and Bennie Alden.  They are orphans and were being taken care of by their grandfather.  They felt like he was mean and angry so they ran away from him and took residence in a boxcar where they found the means to get their own food.  However, soon they realize something has to change or they will starve so Henry gets a job with Dr. Moore.  Through him and Dr. Moore's mother, Henry earns enough money and gets enough food from Mrs. Moore's garden to keep the family fed and taken care of.  Dr. Moore has done his own research though and realizes whose grandchildren the children are and gets them back with their grandfather.  The series goes on for many books, each book containing a different mystery.  The children always stick together though and take care of each other.  In each mystery, the children solve it themselves.  

 

My Impression

I love the Boxcar Children series, both the old and the newer versions.  They are simple and very down to earth and wholesome.  I like that the children solve the mysteries themselves because I believe that is an attraction for children who are reading the books.  I also like that they have a dog too.  Each mystery is unique and different so I didn't feel like I was reading the same thing over and over again.  I also love the diversity of the children and even though they are siblings they all take on a different role and have a different personality.  

 

Reviews and Awards

"If there is a shining example of a book considered a classic in spite of the fact that it has garnered no awards, my vote would go for Warner’s ultimate kids-living-on-their-own story. When I was a child I spent a frightening amount of time writing stories about independent children who were orphaned by various horrible means. Looking back, I suspect that my influence at the time had to be Ms. Warner. Yet you will not find her books mentioned in Louise Seaman Bechtel’s Books in Search of Children, Anita Silvey’s Children’s Books and Their Creators or even The Essential Guide to Children’s Books and Their Creators.  Minders of Make-Believe by Leonard Marcus makes no mention of it nor does Gertrude Chandler Warner have an entry in the 1971 edition of The Who’s Who of Children’s Literature, compiled and edited by Brian Doyle.  Finally, pick up a copy of your New York Times Parent’s Guide to the Best Books for Children by Eden Ross Lipson.  Nope.  Not there either.  Heck, nobody even sent me a quote of the reason they liked this book.  The reasons for this are manifold but one problem may be the fact that you are dealing with the titular book in what would later become a series.  Many is the library system that carries the Boxcar Children series but not that many kids know that the series had a single book begin it all that acted as a starting point.  The plot as described by Wikipedia says: “Originally published in 1924 by Rand McNally and reissued in 1942, the novel The Boxcar Children, tells the story of four orphaned children, Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny. They get permission to stay overnight at a bakery but run away when they hear the baker’s wife say she will keep the older three and send the youngest, Benny, to an orphanage. They create a home for themselves in an abandoned boxcar in the forest. They fear their legal guardian, their grandfather, believing him to be cruel. They enjoy their freedom, but need to seek help when Violet becomes ill. They eventually meet their grandfather, James Alden, who is a kind and wealthy man. The children agree to live with him. James moves the beloved boxcar to his backyard so the children can use it as a playhouse. In the subsequent books, the children encounter many adventures and mysteries in their neighborhood or at the locations they visit with their grandfather.”  Who defends it?  Well me, for one. I have vivid memories of the book, having had it read to me in school.  Cleaning the silverware.  Hiding from the authorities.  It was simultaneously gripping and comforting all at once.  Add to that the fact that it’s not every book that lasts from 1924 onwards.  Lest you forget, a prequel to the series as written by Patricia MacLachlan called The Boxcar Children Beginning is due out this coming September."
(2012, May 15).  [Review of the series The boxcar children].  School Library Journal.  Retrieved
     from http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2012/05/15/top-100-childrens-novels-poll-99-
     the-boxcar-children-by-gertrude-chandler-warner/.

2011-2012 Children's Crown Gallery Nominee

Suggestions for Use
*Have a mini-mystery at the library for children to uncover
*Take children to a train museum to see what a real boxcar looks like 
 

  

 Module 8/Mystery and Series Books/July 21-July 27

Junie B. Jones series by Barbara Park

Park, B.  (2002).  Junie B., first grader at last! United States:  Random House.  

Summary
Junie B. Jones is a funny and outspoken kindergartener (then first grader) who has one adventure after the other.  I read several Junie B. books, ranging from both years of school.  The reader can expect a funny and interesting ride as she drives her parents crazy as well as her teachers and gets into arguments with Lucille, who is a very rich girl in Junie B.'s grade.  Her best friend in kindergarten is Grace (Junie B. calls her "That Grace") but in first grade they start to make new friends.  Grace is very athletic and Junie B. is most definitely not.  Junie B. parents try to be very patient with her but do tend to lose that patience when Junie B. will not cooperate.  The language used is that of a five to six year old, including grammatical errors and complete honesty when sometimes adults don't want kids to be honest.  These books are perfect for both girls and boys because Junie B. is quite a tomboy and hilarious so boys would enjoy the books just as well. 

My Impression
I literally laugh out loud when reading Junie B. books.  I have tried to buy the entire set.  I am only missing a few.  They are quick reads, usually under 30 minutes for an entire book.  As I said, they are laugh out loud funny and each character is quirky and interesting in their own right.  Park's writing is witty and clever and it makes the books just as enjoyable for adults as well.  I had so much fun reading them to my son and I was laughing the entire time.  She is just such a funny kid and I love her thought process.  

Reviews and Awards
" In the ``First Stepping Stone'' series, a genuinely funny, easily read story. Junie didn't like riding the bus to her first day of kindergarten, so when it's time to go home she hides in a supply closet until everyone but the janitor has left. She has a fine time exploring the contents of her teacher's desk, the school library, and the nurse's office--until she has to go to the bathroom and finds it locked. Only when Junie calls 911 to report this emergency is she located by the frantic adults who've been searching for her. Junie's abrupt, ungrammatical narration sounds just like the feisty young lady seen in the b&w drawings, with droopy socks, wispy hair, and spit-shined (literally--she licks them) shoes. Kids may need some persuading to read about a younger child, but they're sure to enjoy the understated humor. (Fiction. 6-9)"
(2010, May 20).  [Review of the book Junie B. Jones and the stupid smelly bus].   Kirkus 
     Reviews.  Retrieved from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/barbara-park/junie
     b-jonesand-the-stupid-smelly-bus/.

"One of the initial titles released under the First Stepping Stone imprint, chapter books aimed at newly independent readers and arranged in series, Park's ( Skinnybones ) jolly caper is the first installment to feature Junie B., a feisty almost-six-year-old who is not at all happy about riding the bus on the first day of kindergarten. In fact, she doesn't like a single thing about this vehicle: not the kids who get on it (``Loud kids. And some of them were the kind who look like meanies''); not the door (``If it closes on you by accident, it will cut you in half, and you will make a squishy sound''); and not the black smoke it emits (``It's called bus breath, I think''). Other equally candid, on-target perceptions fill Junie B.'s first-person narrative, which is peppered with reader-involving questions (``Only guess what?''; `` 'Cause guess why?'') that help to propel the story at a whiz-bang pace. When a classmate tells Junie B. that kids will pour chocolate milk on her head on the way home, the spunky child finds a way to avoid the dreaded bus. Park convinces beginning readers that Junie B.-- and reading--are lots of fun. Ages 6-9. (Aug.)"  
(1992, July 27).  [Review of the book Junie B. Jones and the stupid smelly bus].  Publisher's 
     Weekly.  Retrieved from http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-679-82642-2.

New York Time's Bestseller
Children's Choice Awards

Suggestions for Use
*Children can tell stories about mischief they have gotten into
*Have a storyteller come in to read the books to children.  This is a great series to do that with.