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.

Down Down Down

Down Down Down

Written and Illustrated by Steve Jenkins

           

            Bibliography:

Jenkins, Steve. Down Down Down. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2009. ISBN:  978061896636

Summary and Critical Analysis:

In Steve Jenkins informational book Down Down Down, the reader is given a view of the ocean and its inhabitants from the surface to the deepest part of the ocean.  Jenkins starts with the surface of the ocean using a depth guide along the right side of each double page spread to explore the creatures, environment, and life at each level of oceanic depth.  The book is not meant to be a comprehensive look at all ocean life, but a selective look at some of the most interesting animals and ocean conditions with the goal of educating young readers about the extremely numerous life-forms that exist in the least explored area of the earth.

The illustrations are accurate without being photo-realistic as a way to introduce young readers to the general form and size of these creatures, and the conditions in which they live.  Written as a journey taken by the writer and the reader from the surface to the ocean floor, the book explores each level on the way down, each time with a depth guide in feet and meters to illustrate the level to which the journey has progressed.

From the top to the bottom the text explores the conditions that exist at each level, the animals that live there, what they eat and why they are suited to live at a specific level.  From the Surface to the Sunlit Zone to the Twilight Zone, the Dark Zone and the Abyssal Plain and interesting animals are introduced to young readers with Jenkins’ colorful illustration and descriptive and straightforward text.  The main portion of the book ends with an exploration of The Marianas Trench, the deepest part of the ocean and the start of the journey back to the surface.

The book would be educational, informative, and fun with only the first, illustrated part of the book.  However, Jenkins adds even detail and information with a more extensive look at the animals mentioned, and perspective drawings to show the size of the creatures compared to a human hand, a human body or other sea animals.  The text in this section is much more complete and informative than the text on the illustrated pages and includes feeding habits, prey, and the aspects of life in which these creatures live.  Each section takes a page from the front of the book, labels the animals with numbers and then gives an in depth description.

The book contains a short bibliography and a final chart showing how deep humans and vehicles can travel from the pearl diver who can dive 100 feet below the surface to the “Trieste” an exploratory vessel which was the first to reach the deepest part of the ocean.  Since there are no quotations or dialogue in the book, there is no list of sources nor is there an index.

The book is great way to introduce younger children to the amazing variety of life that lives in the sea and the unexplored nature of the most of the ocean.  Children will find the illustrations interesting and, at times, scary, and will be intrigued by creatures that they may never have know existed before.  Older children, who may think themselves too big for a picture book, will enjoy the more in depth information in the latter part of the book, and will be encouraged to explore the subject of ocean life more extensively.

Review Excerpts:

Goodreads:  Caldecott Honor–winning Steve Jenkins provides a top-to-bottom look at the ocean, from birds and waves to thermal vents and ooze.

Half the earth’s surface is covered by water more than a mile deep, but most of this watery world is a mystery to us. In fact, more people have stood on the surface of the moon than have visited the deepest spot in the ocean.
Come along as we travel

down,

down,

down,

from the surface to the bottom of the sea.
Along the way you can see jellyfish that flash like a neon sign, creatures with teeth so big, they can’t close their mouths, and even a squid as long as a bus, which battles to the death with a sperm whale, the largest predator on earth.
It’ll be a journey you won’t soon forget!

Amazon.com Editorial Review:  Caldecott honoree Steve Jenkins offers young readers a quietly stunning story about the world below the watery surface in Down, Down, Down: A Journey to the Bottom of the Sea. With his incredible paper collage illustrations of sea

creatures and informative text, Jenkins manages to plumbs the unfathomable depths of our oceans for the age 5-9 set in this perfect read-aloud and look closely book. Down, Down, Down captures the vastness, complexity and mysteriousness of the deep without over-simplifying the new research and astonishing discoveries. This oceanography lesson unfolds as a story in which the reader descends from the blue surface down nearly 36,000 feet (that’s seven miles down!) to the Marianas Trench, while meeting Flying Squids and Loosejaw Stoplight Fish along the way. This is an enchanting and informative choice for kids who loved the classic illustrations of Eric Carle, Lois Ehlert and Leo Lionni as pre-schoolers, but are ready to bump up to a nonfiction read. Children’s book collectors will surely want to get their hands on Down Down Down, too. --Lauren Nemroff

Cybils Award Nominee for Nonfiction Picture Books (2009)

An ALA Notable Children's Book for Middle Readers (2010)

 

Connections:

Have children draw their own pictures of the sea life shown in the book.

For a group project, have children work together to make an exhibit illustrating the levels of the ocean and the sea creatures that live in each section.

Have older children write a report on one chosen sea creature explaining its environment, its feeding habits, its prey, and its predators.

If located near an aquarium or university, have an expert in sea life visit the class to discuss the ocean and its impact on the rest of the planet, including the effects of Global Climate Change.

 

 

 

 

The Extraordinary Mark Twain

The Extraordinary Mark Twain

(According to Susy)

By Barbara Kerley; Illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham

 

 

          Bibliography:  Kerley, Barbara, and illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham. The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Susy). New York: Scholastic Press, 2010.  ISBN:  9780545125086

Summary and Critical Analysis:

“It troubles me that so few people know Papa, I mean really know him” wrote Susy Clemens about her father Samuel, better known by his pen name Mark Twain.  These words were written in a biography of her father that Susy Clemens wrote when she was 13 years old.  In Barbara Kerley’s “The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Susy), the author, along with the illustrator Edwin Fotheringham allow the reader to see inside the life of the Clemens family through the eyes of the young Susy.  The award winning author and illustrator combine their efforts to create a visually appealing, humorous, and personal look at the very public figure of Mark Twain.

Written in story form, the book, using text, images, and fold-out Journal entries with Susy’s writing tells the story of a young girl’s view of her very famous father and her frustration that so many knew the real man that she knew and loved.  Kerley is very effective at using Susy’s words along with Fotheringham’s illustrations to show what life was like for the young daughter and her family. 

Clearly organized in a chronological fashion, and using Susy’s own words to tell the story, Kerley allows the reader to see Mark Twain the father, husband, and friend.  Fotheringham’s illustrations are beautiful and perfectly tied to the text.  A great example of the way the illustrations help to tell the story occurs early on in a two page illustration of the Twain home with the façade stripped away so that we, the reader, can see directly into the house and see the subject of Susy’s writing in many different situations from bathing, pontificating, resting and conversing with the cat as a haughty looking couple passes by.  Along with Kerley’s descriptive prose, this page is one of the finest in the book and gives the reader an idea of what it must have been like to live with such an energetic, intelligent and creative man. 

Wanting to show a full picture of her father, Susy wrote not only about his abundant humorous side, but also of his serious and morose sides, with Kerley noting “But sometimes Pap had to suffer when, as he put it, some ‘mentally dead people brought their corpses with them for a long visit.”   Though indicative of an aversion to unwanted intrusion, is still, in its way, humorous.  Susy also wrote of her father’s love for Quarry Farm where her mother’s sister lived and where her father could have peace and quiet.

Throughout the outstanding illustrations runs a theme of the physical impact of words.  Curly lines emit from mouths, pens, pages, and other places indicting the importance of language and ideas and their impact on, and importance to, the Clemens family.

The story ends noting that “Susy’s observations were so ‘clear and nicely shaded’ that twenty years later when he published his autobiography, he included his favorite passages from Susy’s notebook.”

Kerley includes an “Author’s Note” after the main story, divided into sections titled “Papa” and “Susy” which tell us more about the father Samuel Clemens, the writer Mark Twain and the life and tragic death of Susy at age 24.  Also included is a page titled “Writing an Extraordinary Biography (According to Barbara Kerley) which lays out the way to write an excellent biography using Susy’s work and habits as its basis.   It includes tips including “Whenever possible, use primary sources – things written by people who actually know or knew your subject.  Think of primary sources as eyewitness accounts.

The final page of the book is a short selected time line of Mark Twin’s life and the inside back cover contains the Sources list which documents each line of dialogue and each quotation. 

Review Excerpts:

Booklist - Two texts run though this unusual book. The first is Kerley’s account of Samuel Clemens’ 13-year-old daughter, Susy, who decides to write her father’s biography in her journal. The second is a series of excerpts from that actual biography, neatly printed in script like font with Susy’s misspellings intact. These entries appear on smaller, folded pages, each marked “JOURNAL,” that are tipped into the gutters of this large-format picture book’s double-page spreads. Though a story about someone writing a book sounds a bit static—and it sometimes is—Kerley manages to bring Susy and her famous father to life using plenty of household anecdotes. With a restrained palette and a fine sense of line, Fotheringham’s stylized, digital illustrations are wonderfully freewheeling, sometimes comical, and as eccentric as Susy’s subject.

School Library Journal - Starred Review. Grade 3–6—Kerley and Fotheringham again craft a masterfully perceptive and largely visual biography, this time about the iconic 19th-century American writer. In pursuit of truth, Susy Clemens, age 13, vows to set the record straight about her beloved (and misunderstood) father and becomes his secret biographer. Kerley uses Susy's manuscript and snippets of wisdom and mirth from Twain's copious oeuvre as fodder for her story. The child's journal entries, reproduced in flowing handwritten, smaller folio inserts, add a dynamic and lovely pacing to the narrative, which includes little-known facts about Twain's work. The text flawlessly segues into Susy's carefully recorded, sometimes misspelled, details of his character, intimate life, and work routine during his most prolific years. Digitally enhanced illustrations, colored with a Victorian palette and including dynamic, inventive perspectives, tell volumes about the subject by way of Fotheringham's technique of drawing lines that represent Twain's impatience, mirth, smoking habit, love for family and cats, storytelling, pool-playing, and truth-pondering.

Awards:

Awards for Mark Twain:

2010 CYBILS Nonfiction Picture Book Award

Best Children’s Books 2010 -- Publishers Weekly

Best Books 2010 -- School Library Journal

Best Books for Children and Teens 2010 -- Kirkus Reviews

Best of 2010: Books for Young Readers -- Washington Post

A Junior Library Guild selection

100 Titles for Reading and Sharing -- New York Public Library

Eureka! Nonfiction Children’s Books Gold Award, California Reading Association

Winner of the Oregon Spirit Book Award for Nonfiction -- OCTE

Oregon Book Award Finalist

NCTE Orbis Pictus Recommended Book

Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People

Notable Children’s Book in the English Language Arts

CCBC Choices 2011

Best Children’s Books of the Year -- Bank Street College of Education

Texas Bluebonnet Award nominee

Utah Beehive Book Award nominee

Keystone to Reading Book Award nominee

Children’s Crown Award nominee

 

Connections:

Have students write their own biography of someone they know using firsthand accounts.

Read excerpts from some of Twains works such as Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and The Prince and the Pauper, discuss parallels between Twain’s life and his books.

Discuss the basics of excellent biographical writing skills such as using first hand sources, double checking facts, etc.

Discuss the life and early death of Susy Clemens and the effect of her death on Twain.

Discuss the significance of the illustrations and how they enhance and reinforce the writing.

Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler's Shadow

Hitler Youth

Growing Up In Hitler’s Shadow

By Susan Campbell Bartoletti

 

Bibliography: 

Campbell Bartoletti, Susan. Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler's Shadow. New York, New York: Scholastic Nonfiction, 2005.  ISBN:  0439862736

Summary and Critical Analysis:

Written for an audience of those 12 years and older, this book will be an excellent and chilling introduction to the ways that “Hitler Youth” or “Hitlerjugend” helped to lay the foundation for the horrors that were to follow in Nazi controlled Germany.  Hitlerjugend began as a patriotic group of idealistic young people who wanted to serve their nation and the new leader they saw as the salvation of a Germany still suffering the after effects of World War I and the Treaty of Versailles.  High unemployment, poverty, and a nation defeated and humiliated by their loss in World War I all led to the rise of both Hitler, and through him, to the foundation and rise of the Hitler Youth.

Told through oral histories, first-hand accounts, photographs, newspaper articles, and other archival material, and anchoring her story in the real life stories of both Hitler Youth members, dissidents and victims, Campbell Bartoletti tells the true story of the way that the youth of Germany impacted the Nazi movement, the toll that membership took on its members, and the dawning realization on both members and dissidents alike of the nature of the true horror of Hitler’s reign of terror.

“THIS IS NOT A BOOK ABOUT ADOLPH HITLER.  This book is about the children and teenagers who followed Hitler and the National Socialist (Nazi) Party during the years 1933 to 1945.”  These sentences, in the Foreword of the book, lay out the focus and purpose of the book and the author sticks to this focus in a very meticulous way.  This story is about the youth of Germany.  The years covered are the years of Hitler’s reign and the clear concise prose and carefully selected photographs present the reader with a complete yet very clear picture of the realities of German life, the reasons for the rise of Hitler Youth, and the stories of the individuals who were driven to join by patriotism or nationalism, those who were adverse to joining and those who were the eventual victims of the both the Third Reich and the Hitler Youth.

Perhaps the biggest contrasts in the effects of the Hitler Youth are the experiences of Sophie Scholl and her family and the experiences of Alfons Heck.  Scholl and her family, originally Hitler Youth members quickly became disenchanted with the rigors and strictly enforced conformity of the group.  Alfons Heck, other the other end of the spectrum, was a loyal and active member of the group from the time he was old enough to join and was in complete agreement with the goals and structure of both Hitler and his youth.

The choices that these two young people made led them to very different ends.  Sophie, who became an anti-Hitler dissident and was beheaded in 1943 for disseminating anti-Hitler information and Alfons who remained loyal to Hitler and the Hitler Youth until the very end of the war, was sent for De-Nazification where he learned, fully, the extent of the horror he had helped to bring upon millions of people.  The story of these two young people serve as an excellent example of the fact that the choices one makes as a child or youth can adversely affect the rest of the lives and the lives of others.

The book is extensively researched and meticulously documented.  Each line of dialogue and each quotation used are credited at the end of the book in a section named “Quote Sources.”  In addition, there is an extensive bibliography, organized by the name of the person covered in the book which documents each and every fact.  The comprehensive index is extremely useful for finding specific instances of names and events contained in the text and the black and white photographs in the book are credited and sourced in captions on the page alongside each photograph. 

Campbell Bartoletti has created a masterwork of non-fiction writing.  She tells her story in a very straightforward, non-judgmental way that will allow young to readers to understand, and even empathize with the beginnings of the Hitler youth, and then, in a very straightforward manner follows the organization through its evolution from patriotic youth group to a group dedicated to preparing for war and finally to a group that was all encompassing, unforgiving, and complicit in the horrors of the Third Reich.

There is sentiment here, but never sentimentality.  The author uses facts to tell this story understanding that the facts themselves will evoke the emotions experienced by the real human beings discussed in the text and in the reader.  This is as fine of an example of youth informational writing or non-fiction as I have ever encountered. 

Review Excerpts:

Kirkus Reviews editorial review:  Formed in 1926, the Hitler Youth involved seven million boys and girls by 1939 and was instrumental in Hitler's rise to power. Bartoletti makes it clear what appealed to youth: "Excitement, adventure, and new heroes to worship," hope, power, and the "opportunity to rebel against parents, teachers, clergy, and other authority figures." She covers Hitler Youth, the resistance movement among young people and the de-Nazification process after the war in this study of Hitler's horrifying 12 years and the courageous moral stance of those who resisted. Case studies of actual participants root the work in specifics, and clear prose, thorough documentation and an attractive format with well-chosen archival photographs make this nonfiction writing at its best. Essential for WWII collections as well as teaching units on conformity, peer pressure and resistance. Superb. 

goodreads:  This book explores the riveting and chilling story of Nazi Germany’s powerful Hitler Youth groups. By the time Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, 3.5 million children belonged to the Hitler Youth. It would become the largest youth group in history. Susan Campbell Bartoletti explores how Hitler gained the loyalty, trust, and passion of so many of Germany's young people. I liked this book so much because it was incredibly detailed, but not text heavy. I have always been interested in Nazi Germany in WWII, but have only ever explored the Jews in the concentration camps. This was interesting because it is about the children in Nazi Germany. I had no idea they were such a powerful group. This book would be great to use in my classroom, because when the students read it they will be better able to relate, because it is about kids just like them. This book gave me chills and I couldn't put it down when I was reading it. The black and white pictures add to the text and make it very real.

Newbery Honor Book – 2006

Orbis Pictus Award Honor Book – 2006

Parents Choice Award Winner – 2006

Carolyn W. Field Award, awarded annually by the Youth Services Division of the Pennsylvania Library Association Winner – 2006

Connections:

Discuss conformity, peer-pressure, and the natural desire to fit in as it relates to this book.

Have students do a further study of one of the people in the book such as Sophie Scholl.

Discuss whether a situation like the one explored could happen again.  Could it happen in the US?

Have students discuss The Treaty of Versailles and its consequences.

 

 

 

one of those hideous books where the mother dies

one of those hideous books where the mother dies

by Sonya Sones

 

Bibliography

Sones, Sonya. one of those hideous books where the mother dies. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. ISBN: 9781416907886

Plot Summary and Critical Analysis

Sonya Sones one of those hideous books where the mother dies is a novel for young readers that is written in verse.  I have read plays, short stories, and even restaurant menus written using verse, but this is the first time that I have encountered a novel written almost entirely using poetry.   I found it to be a very effective way to tell this somewhat simple, yet fantastic tale.

Written almost entirely in free, or blank, verse, the story takes us along with Ruby as she leaves her home and the only family she has ever known, her Aunt Duffy to live with her father in Los Angeles after the death of her mother.  Ruby’s quick wit and insecurity is apparent from the beginning and becomes very clear in the poem I love to Read which takes place as she’s on the plane to California

But my life better not turn out

To be like one of those hideous books

Where the mother dies

And so the girl has to

Go live with her absentee father

And he turns to be

An alcoholic heroin addict

Who brutally beats her

And sexually molests her

Thereby causing her to become

A bulimic ax murderer

Ruby, in the sarcastic way that she handles the stress of unfamiliar and frightening situations, shows a crackerjack sense of humor and the insecurity, fear and doubt that it hides.

The plot of novel is somewhat fantastic.  Though simple in concept, the fact that Ruby goes from living with her mother to live with her father, whom she doesn’t remember ever meeting, who happens to be a very famous movie star is the stuff of which fantasies are made.  It is to Ms Sone’s credit that she keeps the story grounded in the feelings and emotions of her characters.

Ruby’s been told by her mother nothing more than that her father left her before Ruby was born, but Ruby knows, through her Aunt Duffy’s actions who her father really is and every year Aunt Ruby would surreptitiously take Ruby to one of her father’s movies.  On the first such trip as young child, Ruby believes that she is actually going to meet her father and when she sees that he is only on the screen she runs out of the theater in tears.  Comforted by her beloved Aunt Duffy she returns to the theater and watched the movie and her father becomes, to her, the characters that he plays.

Also troubling Ruby’s emotions is the fact that she has to leave her best friend and her first real boyfriend behind as she moves to California.  Her emails to these two, and to her deceased mother, are some of the few non-verse parts of the book give the reader a glimpse into the Ruby that often times seems to hide behind the poems.  In the poems, though she seems to strive for honesty, the character of Ruby can hide behind wordplay, metaphor, and structure, where the real Ruby doesn’t have those things.  She is most real in these passages, which is not to say that the poems don’t reveal a great deal about her.

The story bounces back and forth between her old home and her new, as Ruby continues to hold onto the past, onto her old boyfriend and her best friend, and continues to resent the fact that she has to live with the father she never knew.  It is in the middle to late passages that we start to see the real Ruby emerge as she meets one disappointment after another, and equally ignores one opportunity after another.  In these poems, Ruby loses her best friend and boyfriend when they “betray” Ruby and become a couple, moving on in a way which Ruby is still unable.

It is only through this event that Ruby is able to begin, reluctantly, to accept that the life she is now living is her new life.  The poems are quite effective at conveying the changing of emotions and acceptance of life.  Although the betrayal, causes her to lash out at her father, who has been trying so hard to bond with her, she soon begins to realize that he does love her, but still her animosity doesn’t go away.  Bit by bit and poem by poem in this late section of the book we can see Ruby’s façade start to crack.

By bonding first with Max, her father’s assistant, she is able to grow somewhat closer to her father.  But it takes a dream, followed by an earthquake for the real truth about her father to be revealed.  In the aftermath of her breakup, and her growing fondness of her father, Ruby dreams that her mother calls her and they just chat about little things until her dream mother tells her to get out of the house.  Half-dreaming, half-awake Ruby does walk out of the house and finds herself standing in front the a tree where a young boy and recently been killed in an accident.  Soon her father follows her out and finds her there and holds as, for the first time in a long time, Ruby’s tears begin to flow and she feels tremor run through them.  Now, Ruby fully awake realized that an earthquake is occurring and she and her father hold fast to one another.  Soon, Max come out, see that they are safe and dissolves into tears and hugs them both as they all begin to cry.

The closeness of the moment, beautifully portrayed in the poetry allows her father to tell her the whole truth about himself and his relationship with her mother.  The secret is not really a surprise to the reader who will have figured it out about halfway through the book, but it’s a revelation to Ruby who has been too wrapped up in her own feelings to see what was in front of her.

Ms Sones closes the novel with a lovely poem of resolution for Ruby:

I’m lying in the grass,

In the middle Dad’s palm forest,

With my arms cradling my head,

Staring up at the graceful trees

The fronds are fringed with fiery red,

Bobbing and dancing in the soft breeze,

Swishing and swaying

Like headless hula girls.

It’s funny.

I can remember hating palm trees.

I can even remember hating Coolifornia.

I just can’t remember

 

Why.

Ms Sones takes Ruby and the reader on a journey of self-discovery and self-realization that is both moving and affective.  A lot of reality, a little fantasy, and a realization that things aren’t always what they seem are the rewards for taking the journey.  The use of verse to tell the story, at first, added a sense of unreality to the story during my reading.  As the book progressed and the poetry became more complicated and intimate, the poems had the opposite effect.  I felt, by the end as if I were in Ruby’s mind, rather than just an observer. 

Review Excerpts

Amazon.com Editorial Review: Ruby has turned her grief into anger at her father: because he divorced her mother before she was born, because she has had to leave her best friend Lizzie and her boyfriend Ray to come to Los Angeles to live with him, and because he is Whip Logan, a very famous and rich movie star. She turns a cold shoulder to all his gentle and persistent attempts to relate to her, sneers at the glamour of his Beverly Hills mansion and famous friends, and spends most of her time writing desperate emails to Lizzie and Ray, and her dead mother, from her Dream Bedroom. The friendship of Max, Whip's live-in assistant/personal trainer, is some comfort, and Ruby has a harder and harder time keeping her sneer as Whip ups the ante, from rides in his classic vintage cars, to shopping trips for anything she wants, to weekends in Las Vegas and Catalina and a party where Eminem is the guest of honor. But an earthquake leads to a surprising revelation that changes everything for Ruby, in an enormously satisfying ending.

School Library Journal:  In one- to two-page breezy poetic prose-style entries, 15-year-old Ruby Milliken describes her flight from Boston to California and her gradual adjustment to life with her estranged movie-star father following her mother's death. E-mails to her best friend, her boyfriend, and her mother ("in heaven") and outpourings of her innermost thoughts display her overwhelming unhappiness and feelings of isolation, loss, and grief ("…most days,/I wander around Lakewood feeling invisible./Like I'm just a speck of dust/floating in the air/that can only be seen/when a shaft of light hits it"). Ruby's affable personality is evident in her humorous quips and clever wordplays. Her depth of character is revealed through her honest admissions, poignant revelations, and sensitive insights. This is not just another one of those gimmicky novels written in poetry. It's solid and well written, and Sones has a lot to say about the importance of carefully assessing people and situations and about opening the door to one's own happiness. Despite several predictable particulars of plot, Ruby's story is gripping, enjoyable, and memorable.

Connections

Use this book to discuss types of literature written in verse, such as the plays of Shakespeare.

Ask readers how they would feel if they had to move across the country and leave all of their friends behind

Use the book to discuss deeper issues of parental loss.  Since this book if for children 12 and up, I believe a discussion about death and its meaning would be appropriate.

As with all poetry or verse, have students read some of their favorite passages aloud.

Ask the readers what they think of Ruby.  Do they indentify with her or do they think she’s spoiled and whiny.

Use the story as part of a larger discussion of poetry and its different forms and uses.