MG & YA Summaries Part III

Paper Towns

Green, J., (2017). Paper Towns (Kindle Edition) Retrieved on July 10, 2018

This story by the recommended author John Green was a great mystery novel. I had the feeling the main character would find his damsel in distress, but I’m kind of sad that it did not have a fairytale ending. It was very interesting to read how Green incorporated Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass into the story.

In this story Quentin, a.k.a. “Q” is a senior nerd. It is close to the end of the school year when his lifetime crush and next door neighbor Margo decides to take Q out in the middle of the night and help her avenge her “friends” who have wronged her. Q had to let go of his fear in order to break and enter Margo’s friends’ houses and throw dead fish in them. The following day Margo run away and it is up to Q to figure out where she went or if she is still alive. Will Q face his fears and be ready for the possibility of finding Margo alive or dead?

Q rallies his two best friends Ben and Radar to help him solve the mystery of Margo’s disappearance. Both his friends help as much as they could by they are distracted by prom, parties, and graduation. Q keeps his focus and follows the clues that Margo left for him. Eventually, he does track Margo down, but she is upset to be found. Margo and Q talk about their attraction to one another but realize their lives paths are going in different directions.

At the beginning of the story, Q is a really smart young man accepted to a great University, but he lacks confidence and his fear shows every time he embarks on a new journey. Over the course of his adventure with Margo and later as he played detective he came into his own and faced his fear of dark places, rats, abandoned buildings, and death. He had the confidence an courage to stand up to bullies and defend some freshmen who got their bikes run over. He used his resources to piece together clues, and he was ready to embark on a journey to reach Margo in time before she left the place where she would “wait” for him.

I like how Mr. Green shows several characters turn the page into adulthood. For Margo, it was burying her diary of adventures that she had kept since she was 10. For Ben and Radar it was prom, and for the hero of the story, Q it was when he understood Leaves of Grass and he learned that to understand a person we must look past the “idea” of them. We can see the real person through their “cracks.”

Mr. Green provides discussion questions at the end o the chapter that can be used to talk about suicide, running away, planning, 18 as a milestone, senior year milestones, college, facing your fears, and people perceptions of you.

Other books by John Green include: Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and The Fault in Our Stars.

Persepolis: The Story of A Childhood

Satrapi, M. (2003). The Complete Persepolis. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

Marjane’s memoir of herself as a 10-year old child is written in the graphic novel format. I enjoyed viewing the images as I know how translations don’t always conjure up the images the author intended in their original language.

We get to see a strong-willed child who does not understand the changes in her war-torn country. All of a sudden she finds herself having to wear a veil and at first kids don’t know what to do with it. They use them as toys. Marjane and her family lose their western customs such as dress, leisure, and travel after the exile of the Shah and the imposed religious regime. Marjane tries to find heroes and comfort in her understanding of religion.

She is happy to learn about the heroes in the family like uncle Anoosh who started the revolution but then fled the country to RUSSIA. On his attempt to return he was imprisoned for 9 years. This made him a hero in the eyes of Marjane. When the revolutionaries became enemies of the Republic Anoosh was rearrested and later executed.

We also see 12-year-old Marjane beginning to take an interest in boys. Her parents help her to understand that they have to smuggle in the posters and the hip clothes she likes to wear from Turkey since the borders have been closed. She becomes more vocal and sticks up for herself and her friends at school and accidentally punches the principal after refusing to give up her bracelet. She learns that hard way not to wear her hip clothes in the street and she is almost taken away by the female police. Her family continues to try to have a normal life from like having parties even though they are forgiven and their friends have been killed as a result of continuing the Western lifestyle.

When Marjane is expelled from her second school for speaking against the lies being told to her by her teacher, It is the explained to Marjane that the army gets around killing virgin girls by having the soldiers marry them. After raping the girls they are executed. Marjane learns that she has to succumb to the authority when she is in public. Her parents realize that Marjane may get herself killed if she continues to live in Teran, so her parents decide to send Marjane to a French school abroad.

At first, Marjane just repeated what the adults around her said, not really understanding the reality of the revolution or its implications. It wasn’t until her friends left, and those close to her and her friends died fighting in the war or were executed, that she understood the atrocities of war. The death of her uncle marks the loss of innocence and transforms to the eviction of the God she once relied on out of her life.

Teachers can use The Persepolis as a springboard talk about identity, independence, standing up for your beliefs, the death of loved ones, murder, and imprisonment. They can compare and contrast with the Diary of Anne Frank.

Satrapi wrote four books before it was compiled in The Complete Persepolis. This chronical her life in a war-torn country and her understanding of humanity seeing its atrocities.

Lost Boy, Lost Girl: Escaping Civil War in Sudan

Dau, J. (2010). Lost Boy, Lost Girl: Escaping Civil War in Sudan (Kindle Edition). Retrieved on July 12, 2018, from www.amazon.com

In this autobiographical story, John and Martha recount their loss of family, culture and traditions as they grow up as refugees escaping war. Both Martha’s family begins to move toward Ethiopia when they learn o f the war, along the way Martha and her younger sister Tabitha are separated from their parents. The girls are taken in by a foster family. John barely escapes the burning of his village and begins to move with his uncle Abraham towards Ethiopia. The journey along the desert is treacherous. There are several times when there is no food and his body aches from all the walking that he thinks he will perish. When he doesn’t he continues to move forward. Martha has a similar experience. At one the camps where they stay she suffers from cholera. She lays down thinking she will die, but when people begin to move because the army is shooting at them, she is amazed at her ability to keep moving toward safety.

Martha and John end up at a refugee camp in Kenya where they go to school for the first time. They pick up a third language, English. When the US accepts Sudanese refugees, they apply and get accepted. They move to America. Martha continues her schooling in high school, John works several jobs. They get married the traditional Sudanese way as well as the American way. They begin their family and are reconnected with their parents. John flies his mother and younger sister to Syracuse New York, to live with them. Martha meets her parents in Sydney Australia.

At the beginning Martha was scared of the war, but knew she had to be brave and care for her 3-year-old sister as best she could. She flourished into a strong young woman who kept as many of her customs in dating, socialization and dating as she could.

John knew he had come from a tribe of strong men, and was placed in charge of a group of 1200 boys at 13-year-old. He cared fro these boys well into his mid 20s during their stay in Ethiopia until their escape to Kenya and in the refugee camps there. Once learned of the value in education he learned all he could until he was able to attend university in New York. He began campaigns to help out the Lost Boys still living Africa. The book doesn’t say much about it, but I would like to believe that he returned to Sudan and continues to take care of his people there.

I like this story survival and giving back. It reminds my of my cousins that travel to the US or Canada to earn money and always return to Mexico with their families. The Persepolis would be a good companion book. As Marjane also grows up through revolution and war in Iran. Teachers can help students draw comparisons and contrasts in each.

John Dau has also co-written God Grew Tired of Us The Heartbreaking, Inspiring Story of US.

Darth Vader and Son

Brown, J., (2012). Darth Vader and Son (Kindle Edition). Retrieved on July 12, 2018, from www. amazon.com.

The book Vader and Son was selected from the Quick Picks list. It was a quick read. It is good for reluctant readers as it is a topic that is familiar to most who are familiar with the Star Wars series. Its humor is reminiscent of what a reader would see in the newspaper comic strips such as Garfield or Dennis the Menace.

There isn’t much of a plot. In this book, Darth Vader struggles to parent young Luke Skywalker. It is narrated from a point of view of what it would have been like if Darth Vader was a single parent and had to care for his son.

This would definitely be a graphic novel and quick read. I would recommend to teachers to introduce to their reluctant readers.

Other books by Jeffery Brown are Darth Vader and Friends, Jedi Academy: The Trilogy Set and Lucy & Andy: Neanderthal.

Hole in My Life

Gantos, J. (2002). Hole in My Life (Kindle Edition). Retrieved on July 12, 2018, from www.amazon.com.

This autobiographical novel of Jacks coming of age weaves so many books and authors into his story.

In his story, he explains that as he encounters new people and new situations he attempts to carve himself out of their lives by not leaving a trace of him behind him, except he does. I think the hole in his life is a metaphor for the hard time he served in prison at a tender age.

Jack starts his story as a 19-year-old high school junior with some independence. His father owns a construction company and he is able to work and earn spending money. He has his own car and by senior year his dad moved his company to Puerto Rico, but Jack chose to live independently in Florida to finish H.S. Jack goes on drinking binges, but still shows up for work. He graduates H.S., but not with very good grades. He wants to go to college to learn the craft of writing but decides there aren’t any good ones in Florida. After high school the little money he has he uses it to go explore famous writers/novelist/journalist homes in Florida before he meets back up with his family in St. Croix. He is given the opportunity to make some fast money by transporting Hash to New York. He thinks about going to a good college with that money in New York, yet he knows it is illegal and if caught could go to prison. He must decide whether or not to take the 6-week long trip.

Jack accepts the offer. He learns how to set sail with his new skipper, but they never really learn to land, which was an omen that he would perhaps never land in college. The whole journey he was scared someone was spying on them. Surprisingly they made it to New York and sold the kilos of hash, but there was a snitch and the FBI had collected evidence against the crew. Jack served time for smuggling. After going before the parole board several times, he was not released until there was a change in administration. He did get to go to college in New York and learned the craft of writing.

In the beginning, Jack remembers being scared of drugs, but since his friends introduced weed, he gets comfortable smoking it. By the end of the book he was too comfortable with it, that he smuggled it into the U.S. He didn’t think much of it until his crew was arrested for smuggling. It was not until the wife of Lucas, one of the crew members, made him think about all the lives affected by the drug that he realized how much damage he had done to the buyers.

Teachers can use this book to compare and contrast as white kid’s experience in jail vs black kids experience in jail with the book Monster by Walter Dean Meyers. In Monster, Steve, the black kid avoided going to jail by telling a lie. Meanwhile, Jack could not tell any lies because they prosecutor had a solid case of his involvement. Both Jack and Steve are aware of the dangers of living in jail such as violence and rape and they both try not show any weakness. Both Steve and Jack are writers, but Jack is more well read and had actually read several books about people who had been imprisoned and was able to learn from their experiences.

This book is great to talk about issues such as drugs, aging teens in high school, peer pressure, college, poverty, other books by authors who have made names for themselves.

Other books by Jack Gantos include Jacks’ New Power: Stories from a Caribbean Year, Jack’s Black Book and Heads or Tails: Stories from the Sixth Grade.

Alex + Ada

Luna, J. & Vaughn, S., (2014). Alex + Ada (Kindle Edition). Retrieved on July 12, 2018, from www.amazon.com

Alex + Ada was selected from the Great Graphic Novels for Teens list. I really enjoyed the graphics. Some of the pages are just plain art, it is something I could see hanging in a gallery. I like the science fiction aspect of artificial intelligent androids/humanoids. I like the idea that someday we will be able to have virtual screens that pop up instead of physical computers. I am kind of leery of having digital implants that allow a person to queue up lights, turn on your car, open up maps, or watch a movie without you ever having to use your hands. It sounds cool, but I don’t know if I’d want it attached to my brain.

In this story, Alex is depressed over the loss of his girlfriend. His grandmother decides to give him an android for his birthday. Alex is embarrassed by it and attempts to return it, but ends up keeping it. He reluctantly shows it off to his friends who ask the artificially intelligent robot many questions. Alex is perplexed that the android, who he finally names Ada, does not have the ability to make her own choices or give opinions. However, he knows from news stories that some robots are capable of it. He learns those all androids have “sentient” the ability to have free will, but because of laws, the company has disabled this feature. Alex finds a help group that knows how to turn on robots to free will and he must decide if he should abide by the law and keep his android the way it is, or if he will allow the android have free will, knowing that there is a chance that the android will not want to stay with Alex.

Alex decides to open up Ada’s free will. Initially, there is a struggle but after the process of liberating her, Alex is happy that Ada decides to stay with him. Alex is even happier that Ada gives her own opinion of the sunrise on the closing page.

In the beginning, Alex wants nothing to do with androids and is embarrassed to be gifted one and is ready to return it back to the company. By the end of the story, he has gotten used to the idea that it could be beneficial to have one around that is, of course, liberated to think and act freely.

I would recommend to teachers that this is a good novel to show students how to draw a basic plot in a story. This novel is not deep and the main character does not learn a whole lot about himself or life. It would be a read to recommend at the beginning of the course.

Alex + Ada is a series with 5 books.

Still Life With Tornado

King, A.S., (2017). Still Life With Tornado (Kindle Edition) Retrieved 7/7/2018 from www.amazon.com

It amazes me how the author was able to go from flashbacks to present and was so easy to follow. I also like how she narrated from the point of view of the mother and the main character 16-year-old Sarah. I would have liked to have her the point of views of the father and the son as well. I think there is a lot that is unexplored there.

In this story, 16-year-old Sarah lives in the present. She lost her brother when she was 10-year-old after her father asked him to never come back and since he was already in college, he kept his father’s wish. This is not what sets of her existential crisis. All her life she was nurtured as an artist, having her original ideas and perspective of the world. When she witnessed her art teacher making out with one of her friends who would later win an art show competition she kept quiet. She created an original A+ art piece as a sophomore and the seniors were jealous of her. Her art teacher said her piece could win. However, her piece was missing at the art show and on Monday morning she found it broken at the bottom of the trashcan of the Art teacher’s desk. No one would fess up to the act and as a matter of fact, shunned her. This caused her to drop-out of school. This is when she began to see the 10, 23, and 40-year-old versions of herself. There were 4 Sarahs and her family was able to tell who she was. Her parents try to get her to go back to school, but she is stuck trying to remember 10-year-old Sarah on a trip to Cancun, Mexico and why that was the last time she ever saw her brother again. Will she be able to come to grips with that tragic night?

Eventually, she calls her brother, Bruce, who had left her his phone number on her social network before she deleted her account. When her brother comes back after 6-year-hiatus, she learns that her life is a lie made up from “ruins” that made up of Bruces’ broken life. Bruce explains whom their father would beat up his mother at least once a month and how he would get beat daily. When Sarah was born their parents made a truce to never hit Sarah. Bruce helps his mother move forward with getting a divorce and kicking her abusive husband out of the house, so she could begin her own road toward healing. Meanwhile, Sarah comes to terms with her father’s anger.

For me, this book reminds me of Dunkin’s mental illness in Lily and Dunkin. I like hearing the perspective of a person with multiple personality disorder. It is interesting to observe the world from their point of view.

Ms. King integrates the metaphor of an umbrella to shield Sarah from all the “bullshit” that life could throw at her such as fake friends, domestic violence, etc. Ms. King's play on words with the assonance of the character of Bruce or bruise and Chet or Shit also help understand these characters a bit more. The repetition of the of her messages throughout the book is effective. At first they are introduced as if Sarah has heard them for the first time, but in the end, she understands “divorce,” “tornadoes,” “sleeping girl,” “The absence of violence is not love,” and “I live in ruins.” The repetition of these phrases throughout the novel helps us understand how Sarah was living in a fantasy created by parents who wanted to protect her from their broken home and give her the opportunity to live domestic violence free that her brother never got to live. Sarah finally sees this when her first original artwork, a ceramic owl, is broken by her father who is enraged tears the living room and kitchen apart.

This is a great book to bring up topics with students about Domestic Violence, mental illness (multiple personality disorder/schizophrenia), poverty, bullying, dropping out, suicide, and anger management.

Other books by A.S. King are The Dust of 100 Dogs and Please Ignore Vera Dietz. Books recommended by the publisher with similar themes are Schizo by Nic Sheff, and The first Time she Drowned by Kerry Kletter.