Repossessed by A.M. Jenkins

So in my continuing quest to track down and read the Printz and Printz Honor books, I ran across Repossessed which is the story of Kiriel, the demon. Kirial is not happy with his job in Hell as a low level tormentor and decides to take a vacation by possessing the body of Shaun, a 17 year old of low ambition, at the moment when he was supposed to die. Kiriel then spends the entirety of the book experiencing physical sensation and the complexities of the human condition. In many places Kiriel is almost embarrassingly hedonistic.

Shot through the book is Kiriel's examination of what I've always considered a central inconsistency in the Bible: if God is perfect and all knowing, then the only way for the devil to rebel is if God intended it. Kiriel is tortured by this. As a fallen angel, he's one of the punished, but why is he punished for being what he was created to be. It goes round and round and is an interesting introduction on the paradox for a teen audience.

I'm not sure what I expected when I picked up the book, but this wasn't it. On one level, this has a sizable amount of fairly crude imagery. On another, this is a deeply philosophical read. Kirial is almost better at being human than Shaun was and is deeply sympathetic. There are shades of Milton's "Paradise Lost" going on here as well as a healthy dose of C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters. Come to think of it...I should reread both of those.

I sense a themed month of reading coming up. hmmmmm

On the Devil's Court by Carl Deuker

The way we find books is interesting. In this case, I have a student who more or less refuses to find his own books and more or less refuses to read the book I find for him. He's very picky. So, I found this title through research, our librarian bought it for him and I gave it to him to read. He took it for three days and then handed it back me saying that he read it. He even said he liked it. However, that is exactly all he'll say about it and since I haven't read it, I'm having a hard time pressing him on it.

The problem is that I suspect he's lying to me. He might of read it though, and the only way I'll find out is to read it myself so I know what questions to ask. So, even though it is yet another sports book, even though it is firmly aimed at a male audience, and even though it is aimed strongly at teenagers, I read it.

I expected to have to slog through it. It was not a slog. I devoured it in a matter of hours because it is a very good book.

"Dr. Faustus" is an Elizabethan play written by Christopher Marlowe. It used to be, way back in the day, part of the high school canon. It more or less got dropped from the canon before even I went through high school. Which is a shame because it is an interesting story with excellent themes worthy of consideration. However it's also dense, fairly cerebral, and the language is hard for the average high schooler to interpret.

On the Devil's Court is almost written as a companion piece to the play "Dr. Faustus." The main character, Joe Faust, is reading the play in class while the events of the larger story unfold. Because of this, he actively considers, and attempts, to sell his soul to the devil for one perfect season of basketball. He doesn't really believe in the devil, so he doesn't really believe that he can sell his soul to him. But then, everything starts going eerily right.

The book does an excellent job of examining the classic themes present in the play while making them more approachable for a modern high school audience. I'm really seriously considering On the Devil's Court as a classroom text for next year which would, I think, allow us to read Marlowe's play as well.