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Monday, October 26, 2009

On Volcanic Eruptions and Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer: Young Adult Book Review



Life as We Knew It
Susan Beth Pfeffer
Harcourt
10/06
0152058265 / 9780152058265
337 p.

This was one of the scariest books I’ve ever read. Sixteen-year-old Miranda is a typical teen living a usual life in a small town … until an asteroid hits the moon and knocks it off its orbit. Within days, earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis have killed millions. Soon after, volcanic ash permeates the atmosphere, ushering in an early, exceptionally cold, and exceedingly long winter.

Through daily entries in her diary, Miranda tells the story of how her family nearly freezes and starves to death. Day by day, over the course of 10 months, the reader experiences the grim dwindling of resources, the infrequent reasons for optimism, and the inescapable death of hope. For me, the end of communication with anyone other than those who lived within a mile or two of Miranda’s family was one of the most frightening aspects of the book. It made me realize how much I rely on television, radio and the internet to inform me about what’s happening in the world.

Fortunately, Miranda’s mother had the sense to stock up on food before things got too dire, and the subsequent, to-be-expected mass looting of provisions. Day by day, Miranda records the food her mother allows them to eat, and the too frequent times when they eat nothing at all. The book goes on and on, with Miranda recording also the struggle to stay warm, the minor irritations between her family members who are confined to one room of the house, and the disease and death that settles over her small town.

Toward the end, I seriously doubted that anyone would survive. But in the end, there is a small glimmer of hope. Had this been a real occurrence, it’s still doubtful to me that anyone would survive, but I'm glad that Ms. Pfeffer chose to come down on the side of hope. That's what novels are for.

Mt. St. Helens Volcanic Eruption

On a personal note, my family experienced the Mt. St. Helens volcanic eruption on May 18, 1980. For days, weeks and months afterwards, this created varying amounts of havoc in the surrounding area. The most frightening aspect to me, once I knew what was happening, was to watch the sky growing ever darker with ash. We heard the explosion at around 8:30 am. (Mt. St. Helens is over 300 miles away from where we live.) My husband and I were outside planting shrubs at our new house. We spent the morning watching a dark cloud moving closer and closer to us. We thought it was a thunderstorm, but it wasn't getting any cooler or windier. At lunchtime, we went inside and turned on the radio. That's when we found out that Mt. St. Helens had erupted. Scientists had been predicting it for months.

By 2:00 pm, you couldn’t see your hand stretched out in front of you. Throughout the day and evening, birds, blind in flight, kept smacking against our windows, which was eerie and unnerving. When I went to bed that night, it was with dread: Would we see the sun in the morning?

Fortunately, we did.

These are our kids outside in the ash the next day. It may've looked like snow, but it smelled acrid, like ashes from a fire.
 

 
This picture was taken on July 27. I was in the hospital after having our third baby, on the 26th. The morning of the 27th, my husband and his dad decided to go see the mountain that'd blown its top off. There were restrictions about how close you could fly near it. This was as close as you could get at that time.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Top Dystopian Movies and Links to Dystopian Booklists

Teen Read Week's theme, Read Beyond Reality, can be interpreted in any number of ways, but the most popular books for teens today are definitely not of this world, thus it's a great theme choice for 2009. The books that teens are flocking to are, in fact, dystopian in genre.

What is a dystopia? Simply put, a dystopia is the opposite of a utopia. According to Wikipedia, it is a "culture where the condition of life suffers from deprivation, oppression, or terror." For a very thorough, enlightening definition and analysis of dystopian fiction, see Wikipedia.

Over the next couple of days, I plan to review three of my favorite dystopian novels, but first ... some exciting booklists and a movie list. Should you become interested in dystopian fiction, these are a wonderful resource, a great place to start. Or if you're already a big fan, they're a great place to fill in the gaps.  

Bart's Bookshelf has a relatively complete list of Adult and Young Adult novels that are dystopian in theme. Plus, if you're interested in joining a dystopian reading challenge, this is the place to sign up. 

Booklist Online also has a core collection list. This one is made up of exclusively Young Adult titles. It lists  titles that Bart left out, so don't overlook this one.

As you are probably well aware, Dystopian is also a popular movie genre. For a very exciting list of movies you might want to view (or review), see the Top 50 Dystopian Movies of all time. Some are definitely not for young children, but most would be appropriate for high schoolers.

(Picture is of Mel Gibson in 1979, starring as Max Rockatansky in Mad Max.)

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley

North of Beautiful

By Justina Chen Headley
Little Brown
February 2009
Young Adult
384 pages

Terra’s an artistic high school senior who was born with a facial port-wine stain and a cruel father who regularly belittles both her and her overweight, subservient mother. He’d done the same to Terra’s brothers, but they’re grown and gone—as far away from their father as they could go. Feeling ugly, Terra escapes into art. Collage art, built layer upon layer, until a thing of beauty emerges. Kinda like the layers upon layers of makeup she applies to her face, to hide the ugly birthmark beneath. To make up for her “ugly” face, Terra exercises like mad and has an amazing body—which is the only thing her meathead of a boyfriend seems able to appreciate about her.

I like that Terra, unlike her mother, never succumbed to her father’s repeated attempts to beat her down. Instead, Terra copes by being an achiever. She’s athletic and in terrific shape. She gets good grades and has applied to an art school across the country, partly for its prestige, but more to get away from her father. She’s accepted, but her father doesn’t see any value in it.

Then one day, Terra and her mother have a minor car accident with Jacob, an Asian Goth classmate, and his mother who adopted him. It’s easy for Jacob to accept Terra; he has the scars left from a cleft palate.

Eventually the four of them travel to China, and everything begins to change for Terra and even her mother. Both acquire the confidence to be who they are, and who they will be, apart from who their father and husband had defined them to be.

Ms. Headley uses map metaphors and geocaching to illustrate Terra’s journey from Washington state to China and back again; from believing she is ugly to knowing that true beauty is on the inside; from not knowing to knowing who she is, who she loves, and what she wants to do and be.

Should you read this book? Yes! It's wonderful.
Justina Chen Headley's website.


For another book about a girl with a defect, even a port wine birthmark, read Every Crooked Pot by Renee Rosen. Every Crooked Pot Review.



For a fantasy about a boy with a defect, read Defect by Will Weaver. Defect Review.

Every Crooked Pot by Renee Rosen

Every Crooked Pot
by Renee Rosen
St. Martin's Griffin
June 2007
ISBN: 0312365438 / 9780312365431
Young Adult

Nina Goldman was born with a disfiguring birthmark above her left eye. Along with an older sister and brother, she is raised by loving and prosperous Jewish parents. Beginning when Nina is seven years old, the story chronicles her life for the next 13 years. As readers would expect, she feels ugly and unlovable. Fortunately, her parents do everything in their power to get her to the best doctors. Eventually there's not much left of the birthmark, though a few more years pass before the internal scars are healed. The story follows Nina through childhood insecurities, including teasing by her classmates, to her first sexual experience, through first love and self-acceptance. The lives of the entire family revolve around Nina's good-hearted and loving but often exasperating, narcissistic father. In addition to making peace with her birthmark, Nina must forgive him for his failures-real and imagined-and forgive herself for sometimes hating him more than loving him. In the end, she comes to terms with those feelings as well. Beautifully written, and with larger-than-life characters, this book will remain in readers' hearts for a long time to come.

Visit Renee Rosen's website.

For another book about a girl with a birth defect, even a port-wine birthmark, read North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley. North of Beautiful Review.


For a fantasy about a boy with a birth defect, read Defect by Will Weaver. Defect Review.

Defect by Will Weaver

Defect
by Will Weaver
FSG
ISBN: 0374317259 / 9780374317256
07/07
Young Adult

I’m not a big fan of fantasy, but this one about a boy whose birth defect gives him arms that are like a bat's wings is one of my favorite books of all time. The cover gives me a rush as well.

David is ugly: He was born with a small face, bug eyes, a stooped back, poor hearing, and a strange body odor. There is also something else that he’s kept secret from everyone: He has collapsible wings. He can fly.

After being the target of continual bullying, and moving from school to school, foster family to foster family, David finally moves to an alternative school in another state. A childless farm couple who’s seen birth defects in animals compassionately takes him into foster care. He meets Cheetah, a girl whose epilepsy makes her as much of an outcast as David is. Only, Cheetah isn’t shy like David. Cheetah fiercely champions David to the limit. They strike up a friendship, and then a romance.

As usual in a book where the protagonist has a birth defect, David is faced with a decision. Shall he live with the defect? Or shall he undergo surgery at the hands of a doctor who claims he can make David “normal”? Only, in this book, David’s decision isn’t so easy as to choose whether to become more conventionally handsome, or to live with the defect. It’s not as simple as coming to realize that true beauty lies within. That’s not to say that this type of realization is easy. But David also has an incredible gift: he can fly. It makes his decision all the more difficult, and his choice in the end is genuinely thrilling.

Visit Will Weaver's website.

For a book about a girl with a birth defect, read North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley. North of Beautiful Review.



For another book about a girl with a birth defect, read Every Crooked Pot by Renee Rosen. Every Crooked Pot Review.

Monday, October 05, 2009

Jumping off Swings by Jo Knowles: Book Review

Jumping off Swings

By Jo Knowles
Candlewick
2009
Young Adult
230 pgs

Told in four alternating viewpoints, Jumping off Swings by Jo Knowles moves the teens, who are caught in an unexpected situation, through various feeling states to a conclusion—and does so with incredible deftness and reading speed.

Sixteen-year-old Ellie, who comes from a perfect but judgmental family, wants only to feel loved. Hoping to find it with someone, she has one-night stands with several boys. Before long she’s pregnant with Joshua’s baby, after Joshua loses his virginity with her.

From there, the story advances a step at a time, with each of the viewpoint character’s reactions to each new development. Though Ellie isn’t “bad,” she’s branded by her classmates as a slut. She takes it to heart, believing the pregnancy is her punishment. But she does have some friends: Caleb, who’d had a secret crush on her since forever, and her best friend Corrine, who doesn’t abandon her. The baby’s dad, Joshua, isn’t a villain, but is as confused about the situation as Ellie is.

The strength of this novel lies in the alternating viewpoints. Over the course of each teen’s short sections, the reader gains access to that person’s thoughts about the pregnancy as well as his or her current family situation, and how that family came to be—which multiplies the viewpoints to about a dozen. The attitudes and beliefs about what could be done are shown through so many different angles that the reader comes away with a comprehensive view.

In the end Ellie makes a tough and, for our times, unusual decision. Lest society has forgotten, it’s what most girls did a generation or two ago, if they didn’t marry the father. But attitudes slowly shifted and our government’s entitlement programs grew, making it easier to keep one’s baby. In the course of a generation, what’d once been acceptable became mostly unacceptable in the eyes of our society.

With our economy being what it now is, it’s possible that entitlement programs will begin to shrink, and we’ll see attitudes slowly shifting once again. Ellie’s decision will shed light on yet another option for teens who find themselves in the difficult situation of an unplanned pregnancy, and will give everyone, pregnant or not, food for thought.

If you read this book, what do you think about Ellie’s choice?

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Book Review: The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins -- October is International Dinosaur Month


October is International Dinosaur Month, to the delight of children and adults alike. You might want to make plans to sit down as a family and watch (again!) Jurassic Park and Ice Age, but there are plenty of great picture books to read as well.

The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins
By Barbara Kerley; Illustrated by Brian Selznick
Arthur A. Levine Books
48 pgs
10/2001
Grades 2-5

This book came out eight years ago, but it feels every bit as fresh and innovative now as it did then. The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins is the true story of Victorian artist Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, a painter and sculptor who was commissioned by Queen Victoria to recreate life-sized dinosaurs based on fossil remains, thereby educating people who’d never even heard of dinosaurs about their pre-historic existence. Using clay models, Hawkins then erected skeletons made of iron, covering them with cement casts to create his public displays. In addition to the sculptures in England, Hawkins made two for Central Park in New York City. Unfortunately, he antagonized the wrong person and the sculptures were smashed to pieces and then buried beneath the park, where they remain today. Though many of Hawkins’ models have been found to be inaccurate, the true subject of this book is his passion for the ancient creatures. Selznick’s artwork contributes as much to the story's exuberance as the words do. Independent readers grades 2-5.
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