Because I'm sure you are all really interested in what I've been reading during SSR, and in the state of YA fiction in general, I here provide an update. You're welcome!
Exit Here - I have to recommend this one just because of how hysterically bad it is. Think American Psycho-style brand consiousness meets Valley of the Dolls, only with rich scenesters from Michigan. AWESOME. The death toll is amazing, a mix of murders, suicides, car crashes, etc, plus two in jail and one HIV-pos diagnoisis, all while really, really high.
Elsewhere- I read this one last night and really liked it. It's Lovely Bones for the YA set, which works out a lot better since that book was crazily overrated fluff anyhow. This one has super-charming characters and less pretension. Pay no attention to the Amazon.com editorial review which says it's written in the second person - it's third.
Dairy Queen - Charming, charming, charming. This author has a really strong voice and reads like a teenager, which rarely happens in YA writing. I am pushing this one on my kids like crazy.
Born to Rock - Gordon Korman is one of those rare BOY writers who doesn't write sports or violence, just straight-up fiction. This one is about a young republican who learns that his biological father is a Jello Biafra type, and ends up a roadie on his reunion tour. It's fun but slight.
Skin - An anorexia book where the anorexic actually dies. Unheard-of! The eating disorder plotline is really good, narrated by the little brother who feels betrayed and lost in the world, but about 20% of the novel is given over to the shrill screaming of the parents, which I could have done without.
Sold - A verse novel about a Nepali girl sold into prostituion in India. I'm pushing this one hard, too - my kids have very little idea what happens in the world outside the Americas, good and bad.
Scrambled Eggs at Midnight - Good but not great despite the Jesus/Fat Camp v. RenFaire backdrop. The current printing has a couple of typos in it which always yanks me right out of the narrative. I like this trend of male and female authors alternating boy/girl chapters, though Nick and Norah does it better.
How I Live Now - Dystopic near-future romance - think pastoral 1984 plus, I don't know, The Royal Tenenbaums. I dug it.
Endgame - This one's a school shooting novel that takes you up to the event with the shooter himself. It's pretty brutal. The problem is the audience, as the protagonist is this sensitive dorky picked-on kid, and the ones who want shooter books aren't down with that, and vice-versa. I dunno. Hopefully it will find its niche.
Grafitti Girl - Completely unremarkable except that it takes place in a thinly-disguised version of my hometown. The author must be a hometown girl, and her resentment of the very real class divide comes through in occasionally hilarious ways, like when the protagonist attends a graf party at a three-story home in the rich part of town. Three stories! No joke.
Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist - This books is all, FUCK FUCK FUCK! ORAL SEX! PUNK ROCK! so of course I loved it. Our rocker girls are really into it - every single copy of mine has gone mysteriously missing. Insant classic!
Rash - Pete Hautman is always great, but this one is a social satire, and I'm worried about my *very literal* students not getting it at all.
King Dork - This one is currently making the rounds with my friends. The last book I handed around this way was High Fidelity - what is it about music/misanthrope novels? Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. Although, I think there's a reason I'm pushing it on my contemporaries rather than my kids - it's one of those "looking back at being a teen"-style books, more than it is a book for teens.
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - You've probably seen this one at Starbucks. I read it thinking I'd have my 10th graders do a unit on contemporary world memoir, and it turned out to be just about a perfect fit. The first half is harrowing enough as the boys try to flee the war; when they become a part of it, it's a whole other thing altogether.
They Poured Fire On Us From The Sky - Holy God, what a book this is. I'm including it in the same unit, and I'm really hoping the kids give it a chance at it's not a small book, but it packs a punch.
Slave - Also a part of this memoir unit. I had to put this one aside - I can't quite get myself to believe it. Not that people are still sold into slavery, but just this particular family, this particular situation - it's like A Child Called It: African Edition. I don't know what this says about me, but I'm pretty sure it's not good. There's just something off about the author's voice, though, and it pushes me away.
A partial list of things I'm in the middle of: The Book Thief, We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, and Mayflower. All of these have been put aside because they're too good and/or too involved to be read with one eye trained on those boys in the back who keep trying to play checkers during SSR. I mean...checkers? Really?
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3 comments:
drat it!
now, i have a huge list of books to read.
I had been planning a unit with A Long Way Gone combined with What is the What? by Dave Eggers. One's Sierra Leone, one Sudan, but my kids were also kind of uninformed.
As for YA, the BEST thing I have read in a long time is Good Girls by Laura Ruby. It has to do with cyber bullying and sex. Inside there were almost guides to the first "first" and gyno visit. Were it not explicit (though not tackily...just accurately), I would make all my girls read it.
Right, these books would combine Sudan and Sierra Leone too. I'd like to broaden the unit more, but I'm having a hard time finding contemporary memoir that my sheltered students will be able to read independently. The prose is pretty uncluttered and straightforward in A Long Way Gone and They Poured Fire, which will help with reading comp.
Good Girls is next on my list to read, but as with Nick & Norah, every copy is checked out. It's one of those books that girls read and then pass on to one another, so I have other teachers' kids coming in to return it, which is awesome.
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