Book Shaming

I ran across this article in The Slate while doing research for the summer reading lists. (At the time, I was trying to find this) The article entitled "Against YA" is a sort of invective against the trend of adults openly reading YA books. The author, Ruth Graham, goes so far as to say that it is shameful for adults to admit that they read books intended for teens. It's a pretty strong stance.

Personally, I think Ms. Graham is being judgemental and close minded. In a country where about 30% of the population reports not even touching a book in a year, it would seem to me that we should be more worried that people read at all before we start criticizing what they read.

Additionally, she contends that YA is less sophisticated and tends towards concrete resolution than Adult literature is. I think she's painting her picture with pretty broad strokes. Certainly, there are plenty YA and teen novels that are unsophisticated and rely on predictable worn out plot lines, but that can be said of many adult novels as well. What Graham is really talking about is Literary Fiction, some of which is transcendent and some of which is abstract to the point of absurdity. However, the vast majority of published literature aimed at adults is genre fiction which doesn't, I think, meet Ms. Graham's lofty ideals.

Furthermore, there are plenty of YA novels that deal in ambiguity and subtlety. A case could be made that these novels may not truly be YA, but even Ms. Graham acknowledges that the term YA is extremely fuzzy in definition to begin with. I don't much enjoy splitting intellectual hairs. The point is that not everyone wants to read books that deal in ambiguity and lofty ideals. There's nothing wrong with that and there is certainly nothing wrong with enjoying literature written for children. It's much like saying that adults should only watch independent arthouse films and be ashamed for watching anything more plebian because it isn't as intellectually stimulating. Aside from being blatantly false, it over generalizes the situation and treats neither end of the spectrum fairly.

Leave people's reading habits alone, and let them find stimulation, enlightenment, and entertainment where they can. Life's too short to start treating literature like cultural medication.

Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer

I've been reading a lot of fantasy literature lately and I picked up this in attempt to get a break from magic and fantastic critters. I don't read many books that could be labeled mainstream, YA or otherwise so it was a nice change of pace.

Hope Was Here is about Hope Yancey, a 16 year old girl who's moving with her Aunt to Wisconsin to take up a position at a diner. Hope is a girl who has already had to deal with some pretty rough things, her mom abandoned her to her Aunt for one thing, but moving to a new town the summer before her junior year in high school feels like just one more hardship. However, Hope soon finds herself involved in the campaign for a new mayoral candidate in her small town's election for mayor.

There are a lot of things going on in here. There are themes of alienation, loss, grief, and abandonment. There's also a throughline of dealing with cancer and political involvement for teenagers. It is, overall, an empowering book for the young adult that underscores the power of the individual, even the individual teen, in the machine of politics.

This book is a Newbery Honor book, won a Christopher Prize,  was an ALA Notable book for the year, and appeared on the ALA's list for Best YA Books of the year. All and all, it's a rather impressive haul of awards which has opened it up to a couple of scathing reviews on Goodreads. Most of the negativity seems to be people enjoying being negative and critical.

It does seem a strange Newbery pick to me as the protagonist is so much older than the usual focus of the prize, but that's hardly the book's fault. The only criticism that seemed particularly valid was that the book had a somewhat overly rosy view of political process. Things worked out a little too neatly given the situation outlined in the beginning, however I don't think that detracts. I think the point is people, young people too, can band together to effect change despite of, or perhaps because of, the struggles they face in their personal lives. I think that's a valuable message for our young people these days.

Series Review: Keys to the Kingdom by Garth Nix

So part of what I was doing while I was away was reading my way through a couple of  YA series. I have to admit, I am becoming an unmitigated Garth Nix fan. Mostly, Nix writes middle readers and YA fantasy, but some of it, as I've mentioned in previous posts, qualifies nicely as adult genre fantasy lit.

This is YA that grows somewhat with its audience. The protagonist, Arthur starts out as a 12 year old asthmatic human. During a particularly severe asthma attack, Arthur is chosen by the Will of the Architect (manifested by a green jade frog) thus saving his life and thrusting him into a crazy inheritance.

So to be clear, the Architect is kind of like God, otherwise know as the creator of the universe, and for some reason she disappeared 10.000 years ago. Things fell into disrepair and the trustees who were supposed to keep things going rebelled. Enter Arthur.

The series is in seven parts for seven keys and seven pieces of the will. This is an excellent adventure series aimed at a middle school audience of either gender. While it's initially aimed at the 6th grade audience, it does grow in sophistication over the course of the story. I particularly liked the growth in Arthur's character as his adventures and involvement with the supernatural change him. This is an excellent series.

PAC Presents and Classroom Libraries

At the end of the year, our school's parent association (PAC) get's us together at a year end luncheon and give us a year end gift. This year it was cash; in previous years they've given us gift cards or some other such thing.

I decided to turn around my year end gift to bolster my classroom library. Books are expensive but if you aren't looking for specific titles it's possible to do quite well. I ended up at the 2nd and Charles up near the Mall of Georgia and made out like a bandit. It helps that they give teachers a 20% discount.

I got all of this for about $60:

which comes out to about $3 a book. I'm going back later in the week to finish out the rest of my PAC money.

Summer Reading for the Unintiated

So while I've been gone, part of what I was up to was putting together the Summer Reading Challenge for the year.

Many of the summer reading schemes I've encountered over the years feature a variably lengthed list of books front and center with various ideas of how required they are. These lists are usually full of titles that we adults think that our youngins should read  peppered with a few popular ones as an enticement. For example, one of the most common summer reading list books over the years is The Bible, closely followed by various Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Graham Greene. (I've also seen quite a lot of Rick Riordan, Lewis Carroll, and Truman Capote. So there is more range than my list of commons would imply.)

There is nothing wrong with any of those choices but they range from very dense to impossibly long. Even my strongest readers would be hard-pressed to read and digest The Bible in one summer. However, my real issue is not with the quality of the literature. In a perfect world, all my students would read and love those books, but the truth is only a small fraction of my seniors, let alone my freshman, have the reading skills and personal background to fully appreciate a Steinbeck novel independently. Notice the word "independently" because that's what this really is about.

Summer reading in its purest form is a way for educators to encourage students to continue reading over the summer months. Studies are showing that a student's reading habits in High School are more predictive of success at college than grades alone. What's more it really doesn't seem to matter what they read on their free time, just that they read...a lot. There a number of theories for why that might be, but I think much of it comes down to stamina. Being a voracious reader means developing a tolerance for spending a lot of time looking at a page and thinking about the content which I think most people would agree is a primary skill for college level coursework.

So, the question becomes what is the best way to encourage a student to develop that voracious reading habit. Is it a list of modern literary classics that are required whether the student connects to them or not? Probably not. Certainly, there are kids that will do that reading but most of those kids already have the reading habit (and some of them aren't actually reading the books unfortunately. They are looking up summaries online.)

My answer to the question relies on the idea of choice. Let them read things that interest them, they'll often read things that are otherwise considered challenge texts simply because they are interested in the topic. Given a choice and a little bit of encouragement, I've found it decently easy to get a teen to read. So, this year's challenge for us is a book bingo of categories:

Read a Book that won an Award	2. Read a book with a non-human Main Character	3. Read a book recommended by Family, Friends, or Teacher
4. Read a Collection of Essays or Short Stories	5. Free Space - Read something that sounds good to you!	6.Read a book featuring a place you’ve never been
7. Read a book that is a part of a Series	8. Read a book about something that actually Happened	9. Read a book with a mystery

The idea is to fill each box and they can choose their own titles. A book might qualify for more than square but can only count for one. Every kid should try for a bingo (3 books) but I'm trying to figure out something special and awesome for kids who 'fill the card' and read 9.

End of School Shenanigans

So, it happened again. The end of the school year happened and all my reading and blogging fell off the table. For better or worse, the year is over. It's always a bittersweet thing. When you work with a kid over the course of four years, it can be hard to see them walk that stage no matter how proud of them I am.

So, it's been a very busy time. I've gotten really involved in the Summer Reading challenge for the school. Hopefully, I can get things back on track.

Toddler Traveling

Becoming a parent means that so many routine things become exciting and new again (or hair raising and tortuous, depending on context). Having kids really does put things in perspective and make us really look at things fresh, but when driving from Atlanta to Toledo in two days, things can get a little fraught.

Some excerpts:

Toddler: "I want down"
Me: "You can't get down, you are strapped into a car seat"
Long Pause
Toddler: "I want up"
Me: "Can't pick you up, still strapped in the car seat"
Longer Pause
Toddler: "I want here"
Me: "Well ok then"

There is a lot of farm country between  Atlanta and Toledo so we, of course, played look at the roaming farm animal. However, in classic fashion, every time we got him focused in the right spot, the animal was either gone or we were past it. This continued to a frustrating point for him, and so he retaliated.
Toddler: I found cow!
Me: I don't see a cow, that looks like a sign.
Toddler: I see horsey!
Me: I don't see one of those either.
Toddler: I see horsey.
Me: Where? Show me. I don't see it.
Long pause wherein he works up a somewhat mischievous grin
Toddler: I see dragon! RAWR!

To Hold the Bridge by Garth Nix

I finished this one back in the beginning of April. It's another collection of short stories, 19 this time, and like the other Nix collection I read only the title story is an Old Kingdom story. The collection is broken into 5 thematic groups such as Science Fiction or Coming of Age.

Overall this is a strong collection with a large variety of work. Some of Nix's ideas are a little weird, but fun. There's even a story in here based on the Barsoom stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs and one based on the Hell Boy comics.

My favorites were:

1. "To Hold the Bridge" - An Old Kingdom story, this is really a coming of age story where a kid of meager means takes a chance and joins 'The Bridge Company' which involves the older timeline of the books. He learns and thrives there, but is plagued with self doubt.
2.  "A Handful of Ashes" - this was a weird case of being more drawn in by the world than the plot line. It's a magic heavy world dominated by schools of magic. Somewhat dark and gritty, the story focuses on scholarship student who works for the school in exchange for her studies.
3. "The Quiet Knight" - A LARPing story. LARPs, or Live Action Role Play, are an odd little sub-section of the table top role play groups except that they make and dress up in their characters gear, get people to be monsters, and got running around parks like mad fiends. Personally I think it sounds like a lot of fun, but they don't end up in too many pieces of media. In "The Quiet Knight" the protagonist's 'game-life' intersects with real life and it's. . .sweet.
4. "Peace in Our Time" - Science Fiction this time about a world where everyone has tiny pieces of technology inside of them and the people who maintain such are elevated to the position of priests, except it's all fallen apart apparently. However we are getting the story through a somewhat befuddled head of a ancient survivor of the civilization's collapse.
5. "Vampire Weather" - so, it's fun when literature is really social commentary. This story is about vampires, clearly, but it's really about the anti-vaccers. I'm not sure it's ultimately a very good story but I enjoyed the concept.

This is worth having for the title story alone.

Dear Friends and Family. . .

April was a rough month. For various reasons I took a break. I needed it, but I didn't do it in a good way.  I've only read two books and I completely dropped the blog. I'm sorry.

On the other hand. I've put in a new row of garden boxes and more paths. I think my garden planning was a little over ambitious. Putting in the infrastructure is a lot of physical work and I kept running into bad weather luck. It rained nearly all of spring break and I had been counting on that time. Once the infrastructure is in, maintaining the actual boxes will be relatively easy. So, I'm trying to take it in stride.

The school had a rough disciplinary month. Spring hits hard any year, the kids get tired and so do the teachers, but this year has been something else. I feel sometimes like every time I turn around I have to write documentation for something. There was a point where I'd written almost 15 such documentations in a 5 day period and I was seriously beginning to consider if it was me. However, some things just can't be ignored at a school like ours.

The family is well for the most part. Thomas shot up another two inches and Ryan's play went off well.

So, hopefully things can settle down and get back to normal.