Looking For Alaska

Looking For Alaska

By John Green

 

Bibliography:

Green, John. Looking For Alaska. New York: Dutton Juvenile, 2005. ISBN:  9780525475064

Summary and Critical Analysis:

Johns Green’s stunning novel Looking for Alaska is at times, hilarious, moving, sweet, harrowing, and tragic.  When Miles Halter announces to his parent’s that he wants to go to go away to boarding school at his father’s alma-mater to seek “the great perhaps” we are transported to the seemingly sheltered life of the Culver Creek School in Alabama.  Miles, who is fascinated by the last words of the famous and infamous, believes his life up to this point has been on big nothing, so he sets out to find the something, religion, philosophy, meaning in his life.

Once at Culver Creek he becomes friends with Chip “The Colonel” Martin, Takumi Hikohito, and of course the troubled, beautiful young woman who has named herself Alaska.  Miles, or Pudge, as he is known at school describes Alaska, saying “If people were precipitation, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane…”

And Alaska is a hurricane.  Determined to break all the rules, pull outlandish pranks, and dwell on her belief that her mother’s death was her fault is the center of the group of young friends, and each boy falls in love with her in some way.

Green Structures the book, not in regular chapters but in “...days before” and “…days after” the tragic event at the center of the novel, an event that will send Pudge and his friends, and their Religious Studies teacher Dr Hyde on a journey of discovery looking for the why and the meaning of that event and how it will shape them for the rest of their lives.

The pranks played on “The Eagle,” who is the Dean of Students Mr. Starnes are hilariously staged, though the escalation of the pranks begins to show the cracks in the tough exterior of Alaska and foreshadow the tragic event that sets up the second half of the book.  The first half of book builds slowly but steadily, with a great deal of character development, humor, lust, and even a controversial seen of teen sexual activity.  This sexual activity, which has been the subject of much controversy since the book’s publication, seems to me to be an argument against casual dalliances and how meaningless and degrading such encounters can be.  Contrasted with the section, just pages later, where Pudge and Alaska kiss, the scene is filled with an intimacy, closeness, and meaning that is completely absent from the more graphic sexual encounter

The second half of the book, filled with wonderful philosophical inner monologues by Miles is a meditation not on the “great perhaps” but on the great why.  When going through letters and belongings, Miles and his friends learn that the answer to that question is beyond them, and is, indeed beyond us all.

Ambiguity in fiction is often a very beautiful thing, and there is much ambiguity in this novel.  Why did the tragic even occur?  Was it purposeful of accidental?  Was there something that any of the character could have done to prevent the event from occurring?  Green does a great job of not answering these questions allowing the reader to decide for his or her self or to accept or even to rejoice in the ambiguity.  That ambiguity is, I believe, “the great perhaps” that Miles sets out to find.  That there are no easy answers, that we cannot really know someone else’s mind or soul, and that sometimes things just happen and that we are powerless to stop them is both terrifying and thrilling, and that the searching for the answers to questions that can never be answered is the stuff of which life is made.

A Note:  This book is for mature readers.  In addition to a rather graphic scene of sexual activity, there are many words that parents might find objectionable.  As librarians or teachers, it is our duty, if readers or parents can’t see these things for their literary merit that they can at least look past them to the greater core of this excellent novel.

I’ve done my best in this review to talk about the literary merit of this novel without revealing the tragic event at its center.  I believe that a complete and meaningful discussion cannot be fully engaged without that knowledge.  But that is for reflection of classroom discussion after reading the book.

I truly hope that educators and parents understand that the material they may find objectionable is essential to both the plot and the themes of the book.  Writers, librarians, and educators run the risk of denigrating the meaningful into the puerile, and that would be a great tragedy for the young people who would take great pleasure in the themes of this very fine book.

AWARDS:

Winner, 2006 Michael L. Printz Award
Finalist, 2005 Los Angeles Times Book Prize
2006 Top 10 Best Book for Young Adults
2006 Teens’ Top 10 Award
2006 Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age

Review Excerpts:

Caution! This review excerpt contains an enormous spoiler that I have avoided above.   You’ve been warned!

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up - Sixteen-year-old Miles Halter's adolescence has been one long nonevent - no challenge, no girls, no mischief, and no real friends. Seeking what Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps," he leaves Florida for a boarding school in Birmingham, AL. His roommate, Chip, is a dirt-poor genius scholarship student with a Napoleon complex who lives to one-up the school's rich preppies. Chip's best friend is Alaska Young, with whom Miles and every other male in her orbit falls instantly in love. She is literate, articulate, and beautiful, and she exhibits a reckless combination of adventurous and self-destructive behavior. She and Chip teach Miles to drink, smoke, and plot elaborate pranks. Alaska's story unfolds in all-night bull sessions, and the depth of her unhappiness becomes obvious. Green's dialogue is crisp, especially between Miles and Chip. His descriptions and Miles's inner monologues can be philosophically dense, but are well within the comprehension of sensitive teen readers. The chapters of the novel are headed by a number of days "before" and "after" what readers surmise is Alaska's suicide. These placeholders sustain the mood of possibility and foreboding, and the story moves methodically to its ambiguous climax. The language and sexual situations are aptly and realistically drawn, but sophisticated in nature. Miles's narration is alive with sweet, self-deprecating humor, and his obvious struggle to tell the story truthfully adds to his believability. Like Phineas in John Knowles's A Separate Peace(S & S, 1960), Green draws Alaska so lovingly, in self-loathing darkness as well as energetic light, that readers mourn her loss along with her friends. - Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

 

"...Miles is a witty narrator who manages to be credible as the overlooked kid, but he's also an articulate spokesperson for the legions of teen searching for life meaning (his taste for famous last words is a believable and entertaining quirk), and the Colonel's smarts, clannish loyalties, and relentlessly methodological approach to problems make him a true original....There's a certain recursive fitness here, since this is exactly the kind of book that makes kids like Miles certain that boarding school will bring them their destiny, but perceptive readers may also realize that their own lives await the discovery of meaning even as they vicariously experience Miles' quest."  Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

 

Connections:

This is a perfect book for an open, honest, no-topic barred classroom discussion of the themes and events in the book.

Discuss the aspects of religion represented in the book and what they mean to Miles and the other characters, especially within the model of Christianity

Discuss the meaning of the two scenes of intimacy in the book and how they differ in tone, language, and meaning.  This may be a very difficult subject for some teachers and should be handled carefully.

 

Beowulf

Beowulf

By Gareth Hinds

 

Bibliography:

Hinds, Gareth. Beowulf. Somerville, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780763630225

Summary and Critical Analysis:

In Gareth Hind’s gorgeous graphic novel adaptation of Beowulf, the author allows the stunning drawings to tell the majority of the story.  The included text, based on A. J. Church’s 1904 translation, which is my favorite, is beautiful and poetic, and serves more to lay the background of the story and to delve into the deeper philosophical aspects of the story.

I struggled a bit with how to review this book.  Should it be reviewed as poetry, since it is based on an epic poem?  Should it be reviewed as fantasy or as a traditional tale in the oral tradition because it is both?  But in the end, I came to believe that the best way to review this book was as all of these genres, and of none of them.  Gareth Hind’s has created a new thing here.  It isn’t the epic poem, many editions which I have read, it has elements of the fantastic, though some interpretations of the poem contend that Beowulf and his mother were less monsters than representative of deformed humans, and it originates in the oral tradition.  However, the author has taken all of these aspects and melded them into something quite different and beautiful.

To be sure, this is not a compete retelling of the story, but is a terrific adaptation of some of the more exciting and interesting aspects of the poem.  Told in two parts, the first part with Beowulf as young man who comes the Denmark to slay Grendel and subsequently his mother, and the second part, many years later, after he has become a King rather than a warrior, and he sacrifices his own life to slay the dragon that is threatening his people and his kingdom.

The first section, illustrated in deep rich browns, blacks, blues, greens and purples tells the story of Beowulf’s coming to Denmark and his heroic struggle to slay Grendel.

“Therefore I shall carry neither sword nor coat of mail to this battle.  With the grip of my hands only will I confront this enemy, struggling with him, life for life.  But who shall live and who shall die, let it be as God shall will.”

Beowulf’s words here seem to be somewhat arrogant and boastful, but are then backed up by his actions and the tale of his 5 day swim and battle with sea creatures.  And true to his word, Beowulf does battle and mortally wound Grendel with his bare hands.  This first section of the book is an excellent example of the heroic tradition in ancient literature, where a man is either who he is because of this lineage, or because he has done great deeds that will long be remembered.  Although the tale of Beowulf’s lineage is not told in this adaptation, he is who he is because of his noble lineage and his heroic deeds. 

The battles between Beowulf and Grendel and subsequently his mother are rendered in spectacular fashion in Gareth Hinds’ illustrations.  His visually stunning, graphic, and sometimes horrendous drawings will stick with the reader long after reading the book and tell the story of the battles in a way that the poem cannot.  I simultaneously wanted to turn the pages as fast as I could to follow the action and to linger on each page to enjoy and study every frame in all of its glorious action and detail.

When Grendel and his mother have both been dispatched, and Beowulf prepares to return to his home, King Hrothgar beseeches him to heed his advice:

“Now, indeed, thou art in the pride of thy strength and the power of thy youth; but there will come of a surety sooner or later, either in sickness of the sword, fire shall consume thee or the floods swallow thee up.  Be it bite of blade or brandished spear, or odious age, or the eyes’ clear beam grown dull and leaden”

“Come in what shape it may, death will subdue even thee, thou hero of war.”

This advice from an old King to a young warrior is prophetic and figures heavily in the second section of the book.  Having combined Book 1 and Book 2 into one section above, Book 3 marks a dramatic shift in both the tone and the look of the book.  Now, Beowulf is old, and he is king.  A thief has disturbed the nest of a dragon that now threatens Beowulf’s people and kingdom.  Like the warrior he was as a young man, he sets out to kill the dragon himself, knowing this time that he will almost surely not survive the battle.

This section drawn in shades of grey, slate, black and white is much starker than the first section of the book as if befitting the tone of the tale.  However, this time he doesn’t have to fight alone.  Having earned the devotion and love of his soldiers through being a good and decent king, they follow him into the battle despite his protestations.  But their actions are not enough to save Beowulf, who, even though he slays the dragon is bitten and mortally wounded.  Stark as they are, the battle scenes in this section are no less exhilarating. 

When Beowulf lay dying, he asks that the treasure they have won from the dragon be brought out so that he can see them.

“With better contentment shall I depart, knowing how great are the riches I have won.”

Here, Beowulf knows that even though he has saved his people from the dragon that his death may well lead to their annihilation at the hands of enemies long stayed by the legend and power of Beowulf.  He asks his people to build a great barrow to mark his greatness.  They honor him in this way, burying inside the barrow the treasure won from the dragon.

“And in its vault they heaped the hoard – glittering spoils they had taken from the worms lair – trusting it to the ground, gold in the earth useless to men of yore as it was”

The final illustration, of the barrow brought down by time and the elements, is a testament to the vastness of time and the shortness of life in relation to that vastness, that even the barrow built to honor the greatest of heroes or warriors will one day crumble and fall.

Gareth Hinds had created a beautiful book, assembling the essence of the poem, and highlighting that essence with illustrations that both shock and move the reader.  His Beowulf is a work of art in the best tradition of heroic tales.

Review Excerpts:

From School Library Journal

Grade 10 Up–This epic tale is exceptionally well suited to the episodic telling necessary for a successful graphic novel, as the warrior-hero fights Grendel, Grendel's mother, and, ultimately, the dragon that claims his life, and (in true comic-book fashion) each challenge is significantly more difficult and violent than the one before. Although greatly abridged and edited, the text maintains a consistent rhythm and overall feel appropriate for the poetic nature of the story. Dialogue and narration are presented in identical text boxes, but astute readers will be able to decipher from the images which character is speaking. Each specific event is complemented by illustrations that effectively convey the atmosphere–historical details are paired with sketchy, ethereal drawings, the violent battle scenes are darkly tinted with red, and the end of Beowulf's life is indicated by gray, colorless imagery. Hinds’ version will make this epic story available to a whole new group of readers. This book is likely to be especially popular when the Beowulf movie, directed by Robert Zemeckis, is released in November 2007.–Heather M. Campbell, Philip S. Miller Library, Castle Rock, CO
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

 

From Booklist

Candlewick's first foray into the graphic novel format proves an odd blend of ancient history and modern action. It's an epic poem seen as a video game. Beowulf, written circa 800 CE, is the story of a warrior-hero charged with dispatching the marauding monster Grendel and its terrible mother. An action epic in any form, this abridged translation is no exception, and it retains the original's dominant themes, including what warriors, and fathers, leave behind for future generations. The original's poetry has become prose narration, loaded with portent and melancholy even amid images of bloody (very bloody) battles between sword and claw. Hind's watercolor art is thick with atmosphere and grand in its conception of vast halls and shadowed caves, but the line work is somewhat amateurish. The book makes a gorgeous whole, though; the long, wordless battles reproduced on glossy, high-quality paper are particularly noteworthy. It all feels a bit like dressing a Lethal Weapon movie up like a Shakespearean drama, but this offering will have high appeal for many, particularly fans of video games and action movies. Jesse Karp
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved.

 

Connections:

Have students choose their own literary story and adapt it into a short graphic novel.  Discuss how illustrations can create the same poetic imagery as words and how authors choose to adapt literature of this time.

Discuss the Heroic tradition and the ways in which it does or does not apply to our literature and our world today.

Choose a short section of the Church translation that is recreated in the book.  Have students read the selection and compare it to the graphic novel.

Have older students read The A.J Church translation or a translation of your choice in its entirety and discuss.

The Graveyard Book

The Graveyard Book

By Neil Gaiman

Illustrated by Dave McKean

 

Bibliography:

Gaiman, Neil, illustrated by McKean, Dave. The Graveyard Book. New York, New York: Harper Collins Children's Books, 2008.  ISBN:  9780060530921

Summary and Critical Analysis:

In Neil Gaiman’s allegorical story, The Graveyard Book, a mother, father, and little girl are murdered by “the man Jack” while his actual target, an 18 month old boy, whose name the reader never learns toddles down the stairs, out the front door and toward a very old cemetery.  There, the young boy is taken in by the ghostly inhabitants of the graveyard, raised by the ghosts of couple who had been childless in life, and protected by pale, cold-skinned “man” named Silas.  From this horrifying beginning emerges a book brimming with the fascinating characters that inhabit the graveyard, and for time, those who live outside of its walls.  Silas is, of course, a vampire, though that is never explicitly stated in the book and he promises to protect the boy, who the graveyard’s inhabitants name Nobody Owens, because nobody owns him. 

As are most great books for children, this book is a coming of age story.  Nobody, or Bod, as he comes to be known is loved and cared for, taught and fed, and given free run of the graveyard which allows him to see it in a way that no other living person can.  But he is sheltered from the outside world, since Silas knows that “the man Jack” tried to kill him and wants to kill still.  His main venture outside of the graveyard is a failed attempt to attend school without being noticed, since he can fade away in way taught to him so that even his teachers don’t remember him when he’s not there.  However, when he tries to stop a pair of bullies, he draws too much attention to himself and has to retreat to the safety of his graveyard home.

Bod is a character with whom children will clearly identify.  He must stay in the graveyard much of the time but he has the freedom to explore at will, to wander and meet his fellow ghostly inhabitants without fear.  Children will identify with this and think of their own lives where they are protected and free at home, but are told, truthfully, that the outside world can be a dangerous place.  He is also a very sympathetic character, since the reader meets him as his real family is being murdered and as he unknowingly finds refuge in the graveyard and finds new parents who will love and care for him, even though their lives have long since passed.

Within the confines of ghosts, vampires, werewolves, a witch, and assorted other colorful character, the plot is quite believable, and the sense of danger that hangs over Bod, in the form of “the man Jack” makes the book a delightful page turner full of adventures both small, such as going into the unconsecrated section of the graveyard and meeting the young witch Liza; and big such as his adventure through the ghoul gate, and his rescue by Mrs. Lupescu, his sometime protector and teacher, who happens to be a werewolf, or a “Hound of God” as she refers to herself.  Adults will recognize the true nature of Mrs. Lupescu through her lupine-like name as a werewolf, but children will find her a stern character and be thrilled when the reality of her becomes clear.

The Graveyard is a character unto itself.  It is home, school, playground, and world to young Bod, and a place where he feels pinned in to the older Bod.  The details of the graveyard are fascinating, and the humorous characters that inhabit it are, like the living, at turns interesting, pompous, ethereal, bombastic, and kind.  The descriptions of the tombstones, some worn to nothing more than a rock, some elaborately carved some with statuary; intact or broken is a treat.  The stones are as interesting as the formerly living people who inhabit them, for they represent those people to the outside, living world now.  The chapel where Silas “lives” and teaches Bod, the ancient graves buried deep under the ground, the caretaker’s shack are all vividly drawn in Gaiman’s prose, and in McKean’s very good, though sparse pencil drawings. 

Dave McKean’s black and white illustrations, while well done, and well placed throughout the book, could not compare to the graveyard of the mind that I saw while reading and I found them to be a nice but rather unnecessary addition to the story.  I saw them more as decorative, like the gravestones, than elucidating, and the book would not have been lacking without them.  Gaiman does such a great job of painting mind pictures, that the illustrations seemed superfluous.

 The themes of the book are about family, love, acceptance, and finally about growing up and leaving all of those wonderful things to go off and see the world.  The graveyard is a home from which a now mature, but still young Bod must depart in order to experience the world and life that is in store for him.  Older child readers will recognize this as they, too, are anxious, excited, and scared to venture out into the world as they grow up.

The bittersweet ending, after “the man Jack” and all of the “Jacks” have been dispensed, is one that will touch the heart of the reader.  As his ghostly mother cries and bids him the best in life, Bod is filled with sadness at leaving and excitement and being able to “go down every path.”  But venture into the world he does, and as he goes “There is a passport in his bag, money in his pocket. There was smile dancing on his lips, although it was a wary smile, for the world is a bigger place than a little graveyard on a hill; and there would be dangers in it, and mysteries, new friends to make, old friends to rediscover, mistakes to made and many paths to be walked before he would finally, return to the graveyard or ride with the Lady on the broad back of her great grey stallion.  But between now and then, there was Life; and Bod walked into it with his eyes and his heart wide open.” 

And so this is true for all of us.  Between childhood and the end, there is Life.  Every child should enter that life as Bod did with “his eyes and his heart wide open.”  This was the very best of the books I have read in this class and like Bod’s mother, the ending brought a tear to my eye as well.  Set in a graveyard the story is filled with life, family, and love that protect Bod until he can protect himself.  The allegory is a lovely one.

 

Review Excerpts:

From School Library Journal

Grade 5–8—Somewhere in contemporary Britain, "the man Jack" uses his razor-sharp knife to murder a family, but the youngest, a toddler, slips away. The boy ends up in a graveyard, where the ghostly inhabitants adopt him to keep him safe. Nobody Owens, so named because he "looks like nobody but himself," grows up among a multigenerational cast of characters from different historical periods that includes matronly Mistress Owens; ancient Roman Caius Pompeius; an opinionated young witch; a melodramatic hack poet; and Bod's beloved mentor and guardian, Silas, who is neither living nor dead and has secrets of his own. As he grows up, Bod has a series of adventures, both in and out of the graveyard, and the threat of the man Jack who continues to hunt for him is ever present. Bod's love for his graveyard family and vice versa provide the emotional center, amid suspense, spot-on humor, and delightful scene-setting. The child Bod's behavior is occasionally too precocious to be believed, and a series of puns on the name Jack render the villain a bit less frightening than he should be, though only momentarily. Aside from these small flaws, however, Gaiman has created a rich, surprising, and sometimes disturbing tale of dreams, ghouls, murderers, trickery, and family.—Megan Honig, New York Public Library

From Booklist

*Starred Review* While a highly motivated killer murders his family, a baby, ignorant of the horrific goings-on but bent on independence, pulls himself out of his crib and toddles out of the house and into the night. This is most unfortunate for the killer, since the baby was his prime target. Finding his way through the barred fence of an ancient graveyard, the baby is discovered by Mr. and Mrs. Owens, a stable and caring couple with no children of their own—and who just happen to be dead. After much debate with the graveyard’s rather opinionated denizens, it is decided that the Owenses will take in the child. Under their care and the sponsorship of the mysterious Silas, the baby is named “Nobody” and raised among the dead to protect him from the killer, who relentlessly pursues him. This is an utterly captivating tale that is cleverly told through an entertaining cast of ghostly characters. There is plenty of darkness, but the novel’s ultimate message is strong and life affirming. Although marketed to the younger YA set, this is a rich story with broad appeal and is highly recommended for teens of all ages. Grades 6-10. --Holly Koelling

Awards:

Newbery Medal 2009

Hugo Award for Best Novel 2009

Locus Award for Best Young Adult Novel 2009

Carnegie Medal 2010

Connections:

This book provides an excellent opportunity to discuss with young readers their fears about growing up and going out on their own whether to college or into the working world.

Discuss the different time periods represented by the different ghosts and the history that these ghosts represent.

Have younger children build a diorama of the graveyard, including the chapel and notable tombstones.

Have older children write about the “Jack of All Trades” group and what it might represent or symbolize in the novel.

 

 

 

Water Street

Water Street

By Patricia Reilly Giff

 

 

Bibliography:

Reilly Giff, Patricia. Water Street. New York: Yearling, 2006.  ISBN:  978-0440419211

Plot Summary and Critical Analysis:

Water Street by Patricia Reilly Giff is a coming of age tale set in 1875 Brooklyn against the backdrop of the construction of The Brooklyn Bridge.  Bird Mallon, a young girl who wants to become a healer/midwife like her mother is excited that there is a vacant apartment upstairs in her building and she hopes that another girl will move in and be her friend.

Instead Thomas Neary and his constantly drunk father move into the apartment with a view of the rising towers of the bridge being built to connect Brooklyn to Manhattan previously connected only by a Ferry that would get stuck in the frozen water of the East River during winter.  Bird’s father works at the construction site, as did her brother Hughie, until Hughie became ill with Caisson disease, or decompression sickness, from working deep underwater on the bridge caissons.

Thomas, a boy without a mother, who has moved frequently because his father is often drunk and can’t hold a job wants to write.  That’s all he wants.  Everything else pales compared to his desire to create new places and situation to which he can escape.  Though Bird wished for a girl to move in, she and Thomas become great friends as he shows her the job of reading and she shows him the joy of family, even when it’s messy and complicated. 

Thomas, Bird, and the other characters are vividly drawn, each with his or her own problems, hopes and desires.  Bird’s sister Annie believes that she is plain and will never find happiness and start a family of her own, her brother Hughie, who can no longer work, is angry and participates in illegal fight matches, and her mother Nory, the healer is training Bird to be a healer one day herself.

All of the characters are relatable and their problems: self-esteem, economic anger, poverty, and just growing up will resonate with children reading the book.  Their problems are not unique to the place and time of the setting of the book, but they are made more urgent because of the time and place.

The history in book is presented accurately as Thomas and Bird discuss the bridge and how it came into being.  Their conversations contain actual facts about the bridge and its construction.  Water Street and Brooklyn become a separate character in the book with Giff’s vivid descriptions of the sounds, sights and smells of the street having a life of their own outside of Thomas and Bird and her family.

The setting and historical information are integrated seamlessly into the book and serve to move the story along, never overwhelming the reader or the story itself.  The characters live in this time and place, but the story is about the people rather than the location and time period.

The story reflects the attitudes and thoughts of the time.  Poverty is seen as a given, especially among immigrant families such as Bird’s and yet poverty is never allowed to overwhelm the love and concern that the family has for each other and comes to have for Thomas.  Bird is industrious, works very hard at her mother’s side caring for the sick until she sees something disturbing and fears she’ll never be able to be brave enough to confront the suffering of others and to be of help.  Thomas longs for a family and doesn’t know why he doesn’t have a mother until late in the story, a revelation that changes Thomas’ attitude about his father, his mother, and his relationship with the Mallon family.

As the year covered in the story comes to an end, Thomas has grown and prospered at his new school and has become the Valedictorian, while Bird has confronted her fears and realizes that she can be a healer and help ease the suffering of others.   Giff weaves all of these changes into a lovely little look at the lives of two families, one whole, one broken, who come together over the love of their children, and as is the dream of every immigrant family, both Thomas and Bird grow up to have greater opportunities than did their parents because their parents were willing to sacrifice for them to have those opportunities.

Perhaps everything is wrapped up package that is slightly too tidy, and yet still resonates with emotion.  More than the story of Thomas and Bird, more than the story of Water Street, more than the story of the building of the bridge, this is a story about the immigrant experience in America with all of its opportunities and obstacles, and is wonderfully drawn by Ms Griff.

Review Excerpts:

This heartwarming novel continues the saga begun in Nory Ryans Song (Delacorte, 2000) and Maggies Door (Random, 2003). With the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge as background, the story is told from the alternating perspectives of Bridget (Bird) Mallon and Thomas Neary, from the time that they are nearly 13 until they are 14. Bird is the youngest child of Nory and Sean Mallon, who came from Ireland to Brooklyn to escape the poverty and hopelessness of the potato famine. Thomas moves with his father into the tenement where the Mallons live. Mr. Neary spends most of his time at a neighborhood pub, and where the boy’s mother is remains a mystery for much of the book. A strong friendship develops between the young teens. The creation of the bridge looms as a dream that parallels the dreams of the characters. Bird, a bright, sensitive girl, wants to follow in her mother’s path and become a healer, but she discovers that the road is not without obstacles. Thomas dreams of becoming a writer and of having a family like the Mallons. Though the plot is somewhat predictable and the likable characters are a bit stereotyped, Giff masterfully integrates the historical material and presents a vivid picture of the immigrant struggle in the 1870s. – School Library Journal

Continuing the Irish American immigration story begun in Nory Ryan's Song (2000) and Maggie's Door (2003), Giff's new novel, set in 1875, is about the next generation. Nory and Sean's daughter, Bridget ("Bird"), 13, befriends a lonely boy, Thomas, who lives upstairs with his father in Brooklyn. From their tenement windows they can see the building of the bridge and the structure's great towers. Bird's dad has a job there, and the construction is both fact and metaphor. Bird would like to be a nurse-midwife like Mama, but the work is sometimes hard and scary. The story is told from the alternating viewpoints of Bird and Thomas; Bird's loving family takes Thomas in, and the two young people help each other at school and on the street. The happily-ever-after ending never denies the harsh struggle; the memory of what drove them from the Old Country is always there, as is the mantra "We have to better ourselves." A poignant immigration story of friendship, work, and the meaning of home. – Booklist

Connections:

Have student’s discuss the American Immigrant experience, especially the Irish-American immigrant experience and the Potato Famine in Ireland.

Have student’s build a scale model of the Brooklyn Bridge with its grand towers and long spans.

Read and discuss midwifery, or healing, as practiced by Bird’s mother Nory.  What was the purpose of such healers and why did immigrants often use them instead of physicians.

Discuss the process of writing and have students write their own short stories set in the past, making sure to emphasize accuracy, research, and story above all else.

Dead End in Norvelt

Dead End in Norvelt

By Jack Gantos

 

 

Bibliography:

Gantos, Jack. Dead End in Norvelt. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2011.  ISBN:  978-037437993

Summary and Critical Analysis:

Jack Gantos’ Dead End in Norvelt is the touching and laugh-out-loud funny story of a boy named Jack Gantos growing up in the small town of Norvelt, Pennsylvania.  Norvelt, a real town founded during the New Deal as a place for displaced workers to be able to have their own home and land to farm, is the place where the author grew up, and by giving the protagonist his name, he creates a world that, although fictional, evokes a sense of a real slice-of-life.  The story is set in the summer of 1962, as the original members of the social experiment that was Norvelt are quickly dying off and most of the ideals of the town have been discarded.  Using history as theme and backdrop, the author creates a world where things are rapidly changing, a theme that surely resonates today.

The original settlers of Norvelt are dying, and with them, so is the town and the ideals on which it was founded.  Jack has constant nosebleeds, but can’t get the problem fixed because the doctor wants money now instead of working for trade like was the practice for so long after the town was founded.  Jack’s mother laments this, but wants to stay while his father wants nothing more than to move away to Florida and to a new life and, representatively, the future.  At the same time, Jack’s father, an eccentric like many in the town, insists on building a bomb shelter to protect the family from feared Russian bombs, and builds an airplane so that they family can escape if a never-coming Russian invasion were to happen.

But the heart of the book is the relationship that develops between young Jack and old Mrs. Volcker.  "Grounded for life," Jack’s only outlet is to help Mrs. Volcker write obituaries for the town’s original residents as they die off one by one.  Mrs. Volcker always adds in a history lesson to each obituary, always reminding the reader about the sacrifices and fights that those who came before had to pursue in the name of progress and equality.  These historical lessons are supplemented by the books that Mrs. Volcker loans Jack for helping her write the obituaries.  However, the historical facts only add to the story and to the sense that history passing Norvelt by.  The reader is not overwhelmed with facts, but is shown how the past affects the future.

A great deal happens in this novel, and to try and recap the plot would be a disservice to the brilliant way that the author is able to parallel current events with historical events.  It’s not giving too much away to say that the book involves the passing of an era, and of the people of that era, and that, the gore of Jack’s incessant nosebleeds included, there is something sinister going on in town which our protagonist discovers through the course of the book.

In a New York Times Review of the book, the reviewer states that “Jack Gantos has a way with boys, or a good memory of being one.”  He also has a memory and sense of history and the joys its discovery can have for a young person, as shown in Jacks fascination with the books of history he reads from Mrs. Volcker’s bookshelf.  The author’s style is straightforward, breezy, and, at times just plain funny, even when dealing with the more serious aspects of the story.  His use of “fake cussing” by the kids in the book with phrases such as “Cheese-us-Crust,” or “Cheesus,” or even “good grief” sound right for the time and for the characters.  Gantos uses humor, history, political philosophy, a realistic portrayal of kids, and a more caricatured view of adults to weave together an engaging, enlightening, and thoroughly enjoyable story that is, when deeply examined, a very political tale.

Although the book does not cite sources, Jack does read books given to him by Mrs. Volcker, and mentions the Landmark Book Series of histories of famous events and people that began publishing in the 1950s and is still publishing books today.  One of the books he reads from Mrs. Volcker’s home is a book titled “Lost Worlds” that appears to be “The Horizon Book of Lost Worlds” by Marshall B. Davidson, a popular history book published in 1962.  In addition, the information the author provides about Norvelt, its founding and decline are well documented in other sources.

The author best sums up the theme of the book on the penultimate page when Jack and his father are dropping water balloons on people from his father’s newly built airplane and Jack remembers what it felt like when he accidentally fired his father’s rifle at the first of the book.  He remembers how scary it must have been to his mother.  He writes: “Only then I had no idea how frightening it would be if I had shot someone or just scared someone.  Now I know exactly what I was doing.  The reason you remind yourself of the stupid stuff you’ve done in the past is so you don’t do it again.  That is what Mrs. Volcker had been teaching us all these years.” 

Review Excerpts:

Gantos has a relaxed style and writes very enjoyably, peppering the pages with good jokes and eccentric characters, but it soon becomes clear that this isn't simply his reminiscence of a charming childhood; the real hero of the novel isn't Jack himself, but his home town and its values. Norvelt was a New Deal town built by the US government to house poor families and named after Eleanor Roosevelt, described by Miss Volker as "the greatest American woman who has ever lived".

Miss Volker explains the inspiration behind the town: "Jefferson believed that every American should have a house on a large enough piece of fertile property so that during hard times, when money was difficult to come by, a man and woman could always grow crops and have enough food to feed their family. Jefferson believed that the farmer was the key to America and that a well-run family farm was a model for a well-run government. Mrs. Roosevelt felt the same. And we in Norvelt keep that belief alive."

…Dead End in Norvelt is a defiantly political novel that delivers some simple moral messages: question the stories that you're told at school or in the media; "if you don't know your history you won't know the difference between truth and wishful thinking"; and, most importantly, don't forget the narratives of American life that have been neglected or deliberately buried by the dominant culture. 

The Guardian:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/29/dead-end-in-norvelt-jack-gantos-review

 

DEAD END IN NORVELT (reviewed on August 15, 2011)

An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”

The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.

Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones.

Kirkus Reviews:  http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jack-gantos/dead-end-norvelt/#review

2012 Newbery Award
2012 Scott O'Dell Award 

Connections:

Study the real Norvelt and other New Deal communities that were founded during the depression.  What was there purpose?  Were they successful?

Study the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War and its effects on people of the US and the way it shaped a generation.

Have students build their own model airplanes and discuss the reasons Jack’s father felt like the needed it. 

Discuss Eleanor Roosevelt and her influence on her husband and the cultural and political climate of the country during the depression and New Deal.

Discuss Mrs. Volcker’s idea that American history doesn’t adequately cover those who fought for progressive causes and for workers.

 

 

Breaking Stalin's Nose

Breaking Stalin’s Nose

Written by Eugene Yelchin

Narrated by Mark Turetsky

 

Bibliography:

Yelchin, Eugene. Breaking Stalin's Nose. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2011.

Audible Audio Edition:  Yelchin, Eugene, and Mark Turetsky. Breaking Stalin’s Nose Audio Edition. Prince Frederick, MD: Recorded Books, 2012.

Summary and Critical Analysis:

Sasha Zaichik is growing up in Soviet-Era Moscow while Josef Stalin is the leader of the Soviet Union.  He and his father share the largest space in a communal building that also houses several other families.  Sasha’s father is a member of the Soviet Secret Police and is feared by his neighbors.  This fear is misinterpreted by Sasha as respect.  Sasha is true believer in Communism and the book opens with him writing a letter to Stalin, telling of his admiration for the tyrant, and his desire to be Young Pioneer, the youth arm of the Communist party.  Sasha’s naiveté regarding his country and his father’s place in the hierarchy of the party is due to his age and his lack of knowledge about other countries and places.  But his world is turned upside down when his father is arrested, his aunt won’t take him in for fear of being arrested, and he accidently breaks the nose of statue of Stalin at his school. 

Bordering on satire, the things that happen in this book are not good things, and yet, not until the very end is Sasha’s faith in Communism and his country shaken.  He believes his father’s arrest to be an obvious mistake that Stalin will surely remedy when he finds out.  Sasha is a very relatable protagonist, a young boy who loves his country and believes in the things he’s been taught.  He believes in Communism because he has been taught to believe in Communism and knows no other way of life.  Children will be able to relate to this.  It’s interesting to note that in recent “Mock Elections” in schools across the country, the way that children voted mirrored the way their parents voted in the actual election in nearly every area of the country.  This is the place from which Sasha derives his beliefs, from his father, the man he respects most in the world.

Moscow, which is vividly described in the book, is to Sasha the ideal city, run and built by Communism.  Yelchin’s description of the giant statue of Stalin that Sasha can see from the window of his apartment is chilling to a reader today, yet would seem regal and majestic to a child at the time.  Also quite accurate is his description of the communal apartment where he and his father live.  They have the largest apartment because his father is a member of the Secret Police, which brings to mind the saying that, in Communism, everyone is equal, some are just more equal than others.  Similarly, the scenes located in Sasha’s schools are an excellent example of indoctrination instead of education that was the norm in Soviet era Russia.

The themes in the book are specific to the time and place and yet remain relevant today.  Unquestioned patriotism or nationalism is shown to be a very dangerous thing in Sasha’s world just as it is at any time, even in our own time.  There is a universal theme here about the absurdity of a system that operates in secret yet claims to be of and for the people, and where even the most dedicated to the cause, such as Sasha’s teacher, can become victims of the systems they serve.  Also held up for contempt is the tyranny of the majority both in his school and in the nation.

The book is fiction, and we meet no actual people from the Soviet era though the specter of Stalin looms large over the story.  The time, place, and setting are all true to the situation that existed during this time as noted in the author’s after note, where he describes his own experiences in Soviet Russia.

Special Note:

This book is the first book that I have “read” by listening to the unabridged audio book.  I enjoyed the experience and the particulars of the story are still bright in my mind.  Mark Turetsky’s narration is quite good, if a bit calm for the nature of the situations described.  Voices are differentiated, but only slightly.  This is an audio book, but not a dramatic recreation of the book so the narration was appropriate.

I am left a bit uneasy about the situation.  Perhaps that’s because I’m so used to referring back to pages in the book to find quotations to emphasize points made in a review, something which I found almost impossible to do with this audio book.  And though I know the story, and I’ve heard the book read aloud, I still don’t feel as if I’ve actually read the book.

 

Review Excerpts:

Kirkus Reviews:  It’s the readiness of the group to create outsiders—bad ones, “unreliables,” “wreckers”—by instilling fear in everyone that chills. Not many books for such a young audience address the Stalinist era, when, between 1923 and 1953, leaving a legacy of fear for future generations. Joseph Stalin’s State Security was responsible for exiling, executing or imprisoning 20 million people. Sasha is 10 years old and is devoted to Stalin, even writing adoring letters to Comrade Stalin expressing his eagerness at becoming a Young Pioneer. But his mother has died mysteriously, his father has been imprisoned and Sasha finds he has important moral choices to make. Yelchin’s graphite illustrations are an effective complement to his prose, which unfurls in Sasha’s steady, first-person voice, and together they tell an important tale.

A story just as relevant in our world, “where innocent people face persecution and death for making a choice about what they believe to be right,” as that of Yelchin’s childhood.  August 1, 2012.

 

goodreads review:  Sasha Zaichik has known the laws of the Soviet Young Pioneers since the age of six:
The Young Pioneer is devoted to Comrade Stalin, the Communist Party, and Communism.

A Young Pioneer is a reliable comrade and always acts according to conscience.
A Young Pioneer has a right to criticize shortcomings.
But now that it is finally time to join the Young Pioneers, the day Sasha has awaited for so long, everything seems to go awry. He breaks a classmate's glasses with a snowball. He accidentally damages a bust of Stalin in the school hallway. And worst of all, his father, the best Communist he knows, was arrested just last night.

This moving story of a ten-year-old boy's world shattering is masterful in its simplicity, powerful in its message, and heartbreaking in its plausibility.  

 Connections:

Have students study the way that Soviet Citizens lived in communal living arrangement such as the one where Sasha and his father lived.

Discuss the “tyranny of the majority” and what that term means and how democracies can prevent it.

Have students study Moscow using Google Maps so that they can see some of the places in the book such as The Kremlin.

Have students write a report on Josef Stalin and his reign of terror.